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Given the importance of relationship benefits in creating customer satisfaction, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of relationship benefits (special treatment benefits and confidence benefits) on relationship quality and word of mouth (WOM) for online retailers. The conditional mediating role of relationship quality between customer satisfaction and WOM is also examined.

A sample of 700 MBA students from two universities in Punjab (North India) has been used to collect data. Structural equation modelling and PROCESS Macro (Hayes (2017) have been used for data analysis (mod mod mediation).

When customers perceive high confidence benefits, special treatment benefits moderate the mediational role of relationship quality between customer satisfaction and WOM. Specific conditions under which use of confidence benefits and special treatment benefits are successful for online retailers have also been identified.

Tailored use of special treatment benefits with confidence benefits in appropriate combinations will help the online retailers in segmenting the customers and differentiating amongst them according to the customers’ receptivity towards these benefits. Marketers can devise communication strategies, create customer segments and position their services using the results obtained in the study.

The present study is the first of its kind which clarifies as to why the previous literature considered special treatment benefits as less relevant to customers. It also establishes the situations in which these benefits successfully moderate the effect of customer satisfaction in developing relationship quality and eliciting positive WOM in the Indian internet retailing context.

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the factors affecting customer lifetime value (CLV) for Internet service providers in Jordan, namely, technical quality, functional quality, brand credibility, confidence benefits, special treatment benefits, customer satisfaction and commitment.

An online survey was conducted involving a sample of 481 respondents. SPSS was used to analyse the data and test the proposed relationships, while SmartPLS was used to examine the robustness of our results.

Results showed that confidence benefits, special treatment benefits and brand credibility had a significant and positive impact on customer satisfaction and commitment, with brand credibility appearing as the most influential factor leading to customer satisfaction and commitment, and ultimately CLV. Furthermore, research reveals an insignificant relationship between functional quality, technical quality and customer satisfaction.

Services' providers seeking to increase CLV need to build strong and sustainable relationships with their customers.

This study incorporates a set of crucial customer relationship management strategies that could be universally applied to enhance customers benefits and business performance. This is also the first study of its kind conducted in the Middle East, particularly in Jordan.

The aim of this study is to develop a structural model and test it in the parcel delivery services business‐to‐business market in order to identify how services quality influences relationship quality and to determine the interactions between constructs of relationship quality.

A structural model was developed using frameworks suggested by Gwinner et al., Hennig‐Thurau et al. and Bingguang et al. Online survey research was employed to survey the respondents. Structural equation modeling was employed to estimate structural model and test hypotheses.

The research demonstrated that services quality does not have direct influence on commitment, but impacts it indirectly through various relational benefits. The results imply that services quality is not enough for commitment‐based loyalty to develop. Relational benefits are essential. The results demonstrated that special treatment benefits, social benefits and confidence benefits are intricately related and have effect on each other. Main findings of the study demonstrated that in parcel delivery services industry there exist context‐specific relationships between constructs of relationship quality. The research found out that the interactions between constructs of relationship quality in parcel delivery services industry are different. Moreover, the empirical study confirmed the existence of industry‐specific direct and indirect loyalty drivers.

The developed relationship quality model is intentionally limited to parcel delivery services industry in order to examine industry‐specific relationships between the constructs. The model could be extended in order to model competition and effects of change in relationship quality on customer life‐time‐value.

The model can be used by managers of parcel delivery companies to assess loyalty and commitment of clients.

This study is the first attempt to identify how services quality influences relationship quality, test relationships between constructs of relationship quality and examine context‐specific relationship in the parcel delivery market.

This study aims to provide a taxonomy of relational benefits that drive customer loyalty in sharing-economy services, assess the relative strengths of these relational benefits in influencing customer loyalty and examine whether commitment mediates the influence of relational benefits on customer loyalty in this context.

Relational benefits of sharing-economy services were explored through a focus group interview, followed by an online survey completed by 440 respondents in China. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

This study shows that confidence and social benefits have significant and positive effects on commitment in sharing-economy services. In addition, safety benefits, a new type of relational benefits, also significantly affect commitment in this context. Furthermore, the findings suggest that commitment acts as a mediator between confidence, social and safety benefits and customer loyalty. Special treatment benefits had no effect on commitment and loyalty in the sharing-economy context.

This paper provides sharing-economy service providers with insight on how to better create and sustain loyal relationships with customers through the provision of relational benefits.

This study offers initial insight into why customers would stay in peer-to-peer relationships in the sharing economy, and suggests how to strengthen relationships between customers and peer service providers.

The purpose of this study is to develop and examine an integrated mediating model that contains relationship benefits as the relationship antecedents; trust, relationship commitment and gratitude as mediators; and repurchase intention as the relationship consequence in a service business context.

The study recruited 253 respondents to test the proposed model. A partial-least-square-based structural equation modeling was adopted to evaluate the measurement of research constructs and test the research hypotheses that underpinned a proposed conceptual model.

The results show that confidence benefits increase trust more than social and special treatment benefits; social benefits have the most influence on relationship commitment; and special treatment benefits most greatly enhance feelings of gratitude. Thus, depending on the improvement objectives, marketers can accordingly choose the proper relationship benefits as a primary approach. Furthermore, both the direct and indirect effects of confidence benefits and social benefits on repurchase intention were significant.

The main limitation of this study is that all research variables were measured at a static point rather than as they were developing. Ignorance of the temporal sequence may incur the concern of possible spurious causal relationship inferences.

The study’s findings offer several important implications for service providers, which, in this study, were separated into high (e.g. such as hairdressing, beauty and massage) and low personal contact service groups (e.g. telecommunications and equipment maintenance). First, social benefits are more effective at increasing gratitude in the low personal contact service group, and at boosting trust in the high-contact group. Second, special treatment benefits increase gratitude much more in the high-contact group than in the low personal contact group. Third, gratitude has a much stronger effect on repurchase intention in the high personal contact group than in the low-contact group.

The interactions among relationship benefits, mediators (i.e. trust and relationship commitment) and outcomes remain unclear. Although the importance of gratitude as a mediator in relationship marketing (RM) has been shown, little research has examined how relational benefits influence repurchase intention through the combined mediating effects of commitment, trust and gratitude. Therefore, this study advances RM theory by examining the degree of additional explaining power that gratitude contributes to the commitment–trust model. The study also makes a practical contribution by building a research model to understand the nature of mediating roles played by relationship commitment, trust and gratitude in the service industry.

The application of technology‐based self‐service in service delivery has grown rapidly in recent years, but our current understanding of customer retention and satisfaction in such contexts remains limited. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that utilizes the construct of relational benefits to explain the link between Internet‐based self‐service technology attributes and customer loyalty and satisfaction. The framework posits that confidence and special treatment benefits mediate the impact of Internet self‐service technology attributes on customer loyalty and satisfaction. The results of an empirical study using two contexts finds support for a fully mediated model. That is, confidence benefits mediate the impact of perceived control and performance on customer loyalty and satisfaction, while special treatment benefits mediate the relationship of efficiency and convenience with customer loyalty and satisfaction. The findings afford not only practical implications for marketers but also directions for future research on customer relational benefits and Internet‐based self‐service.

This paper seeks to investigate the effects of relationship benefits on relationship quality and aspects of service quality, namely technical and functional quality, and the subsequent influence on word‐of‐mouth behavior.

The paper reports results from a structural equation model that utilizes data from 591 consumers across a range of services.

The findings highlight the important role of relationship benefits in driving customer perceptions of technical, functional and relationship quality. While confidence, social and special treatment benefits drive technical and functional quality, it is only confidence benefits that drive relationship quality. Furthermore, it is found that functional and relationship quality drive word‐of‐mouth behavior.

The findings of this study contribute to the literature by showing the differential impact that relationship benefits have on quality – technical, functional, and relationship – and subsequently the effect that functional and relationship quality have on word‐of‐mouth behavior.

The paper provides firms with the knowledge needed to more effectively implement relationship‐marketing activities. As the service economy continues to grow, competition intensifies, and to ensure service excellence, firms need to establish strong relationships with their customers as the quality of the customer‐provider relationship can increase word‐of‐mouth behavior.

The paper empirically investigates the role of relationship benefits in enhancing perceptions of quality while also providing an analysis of the differential role of functional, technical, and relationship quality in enhancing customers' word‐of‐mouth intentions.

This study aims to investigate the nature of relationships between consumers and green brands and notably their role in shaping green brand evangelism. More particularly, the study first focuses on the influence of green relational benefits (confidence, self-expression, socialisation and altruistism) on green brand loyalty and subsequently the direct effect of green brand loyalty on green brand evangelism.

Data were collected using an online survey administered to a sample of 101 graduated female consumers of green personal care and beauty brands. Partial least square structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesized relationships of the proposed conceptual model.

The study results demonstrate the existence of a positive and direct impact of confidence, socialization and self-expression benefits on green brand loyalty, with a stronger influence of confidence compared to the other benefits. Green brand loyalty generates a positive green brand evangelism from consumers.

To promote green brand evangelism, managers should invest in actions that enhance consumer loyalty towards green brands through a combination of confidence, socialization and self-expression benefits.

Although previous studies have discussed how relational benefits contribute to the development of brand loyalty, the issue has not been examined from a green brand perspective. In addition, this paper explores the antecedents of green brand evangelism, which have not been sufficiently addressed in the existing literature.

Although customer relationships transpire through a process of time, encounters and experience, few studies have examined the dynamics of service relationships. This paper aims to address this issue by examining the effect of experience on the association between relational benefits and relationship quality, and between relationship quality and loyalty.

Using a national sample of 376 service consumers and nine service industries, the study examines whether the impact of relationship benefits on perceptions of satisfaction, trust and commitment, and ultimately customer loyalty, differs significantly between novice and experienced customer cohorts.

The results indicate significant differences between novice and experienced cohorts. Specifically, the impact of confidence, social and special treatment benefits on perceptions of satisfaction, trust and commitment, and ultimately customer loyalty, differ significantly based on a customer's level of relationship experience.

The findings of this study have tactical and strategic implications for service firms, including effective customer asset management, resource allocation, and relationship strategy.

This study makes a significant new contribution to theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of relational benefits on customer satisfaction in retail banking. This paper presents a causal model that identifies a connection between the relational benefits achieved through a stable and long‐term relationship with a given bank and customer satisfaction with retail banking.

Based on a theoretical framework regarding the relationship between relational benefits and customer satisfaction, an empirical study using a sample of 204 bank customers was conducted, and the theoretical model is tested. Multi‐item indicators from prior studies were employed to measure the constructs of interest, and the proposed relationships were tested using structural equations modeling methods.

The results show that confidence benefits have a direct, positive effect on the satisfaction of customers with their bank. However, special treatment benefits and social benefits did not have any significant effects on satisfaction in a retail banking environment.

This study was conducted in a retail banking setting, and may not be generalized in other service sectors. It has also focused on the relationship between relational benefits and satisfaction, while other factors that may have an influence on consumer satisfaction have not been considered.

The findings suggest that banks can create customer satisfaction through relational strategies that focus on building customer confidence. Therefore, frontline employees should be committed to establishing and maintaining confidence benefits for customers.

Interest in the subjects of relational benefits and customer satisfaction has been growing among marketing researchers and practitioners. The present study provides useful information on the relationship between customer satisfaction and specific relational benefits in retail banking.