Relationship marketing is no longer a new catchphrase among
organizations. That a firm would want to have a long-term
relationship with its customers is to state the obvious;
but why should a customer want to have a long-term relationship
with a firm, brand, service or product? The prerequisites
of a customer to enter a relationship mode is what we term
as `antecedents' and this research paper analyzes the antecedents
of customer relationships in the telecommunication sector.
Mobile services were chosen as a context to study as the
industry is witnessing exceptional growth rates and amidst
growing competition it would be tough for mobile operators
to survive, unless they provide value added services and
understand what will lead customers to enter into a long-term
relationship with them. A preliminary survey was conducted
to identify the independent variables, (the dependent variable,
being the preferred telecom brand), naming them as Seven
Desired Value Added Services (7DVAS). They are as follows:
variety of service, price, advertisements, employee behavior,
customer service, accuracy in billing and timely information.
The main survey was then conducted, in which the respondent
indicated the recommended brand and his rating for the 7DVAS,
for each mobile operator. The logistic regression results
showed that the best indicators for brand recommendation
were variety of service (value added services) and customer
service itself. Also, antecedents constituting for `enabling
set' and `defense set' were identified. The study concludes
by extending the Bendapudi and Berry model. The extended
model can be applied for relationship building management
for any area in services and is not restricted to the domain
of Telecom.
Relationships, networks and interactions have been at the
core of business, since time immemorial. Even the old Middle
East proverb says, "As a merchant, you'd better have
a friend in every town" (Gronroos, 1997a, p. 337). Relationship theory in marketing was advocated by many
academicians, primarily from Europe. They achieved crowning
success in the year 2004, when American Marketing Association
incorporated relationship, into its definition of marketing
(Keefe, 2004). The definition (since changed in 2007) stated
that, "Marketing is an organizational function and
a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering
value to customers and for managing customer relationships
in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders"
(Zinkhan and Williams, 2007).
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