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Consumer Behaviour

Notes

Caselet Need for Research in Relationship Marketing and
Customer Satisfaction

oday, banks have moved away from a transactional-based marketing approach to
a relationship-based approach that has at its core the recognition of the lifetime
Tvalue of the customer. Satisfaction is a multidimensional construct which has been
conceptualised as a prerequisite for building relationships and is generally described as
the full meeting of one's expectations and is the feeling or attitude of a customer towards
a product or service after it has been used. It has been attributed with three dimensions by
namely, satisfactory interactions with personnel, satisfaction with the core service, and
satisfaction with the organisation.
While relationships have been extensively studied in western (Anglo-Saxon) cultural
contexts such as Europe, the United States, Australia or the United Kingdom, few studies
have examined this in an eastern cultural context such as Thailand, China, South Korea,
Malaysia, or India. The only exceptions include empirical studies of relationship marketing
and customer satisfaction in an Asian market. Customer satisfaction in the retail banking
industry has been studied along with customer profitability management being integrated
and optimised for the customer James, 2004. A positive relationship has been demonstrated
between equity and satisfaction. Furthermore, no studies could be located that specifically
examined relationship marketing and customer satisfaction being linked with sales and
profits in a consumer service context in southeast Asia. Though much has been written
about relationship marketing, few studies have attempted to address the implementation
of relationship marketing in organisations, or what it entails with the focus on customer
satisfaction. Secondly, fewer empirical articles pertaining to this construct have appeared
in the literature. Thirdly, little attention has been paid to research in consumer retail
marketing.
Source: allbusiness.com

2.2 Consumer Research Process

Consumer research process involves six major steps (1) defining research objectives (2) collecting
and evaluating secondary data (3) primary research design (4) collecting primary data
(5) analysing data and (6) report preparation.

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