The Application of a Relationship Marketing Perspective in Retail Banking

This article considers the development of relationship marketing in retail financial services. It begins by examining the relationship marketing literature and considering its application to the retail banking industry. Following a discussion of the research methodology, four in-depth retail bank case studies are presented. These cases form the basis of a qualitative analysis of the state of relationship marketing in retail banking. Many banks have already reached a higher level of relationship marketing than businesses in other sectors. Yet generic relationship marketing models such as the one applied in this research do not necessarily reflect these differences. A modified version of a relationship marketing model, which caters for the particular characteristics of retail banks and which may be applicable to other services businesses, is therefore proposed.     

Web Marketing: Has the Distinction Between Products and Services Become Obsolete?

The marketing literature makes a distinction between products and services. We argue that, in the Internet, the characteristic features of services disappear making services more like products. Is it therefore necessary or even possible to differentiate products from services on the Internet? In this paper we review the basic assumptions about services. We show that these assumptions are no longer valid in Web-based marketing. We review the traditional service model and show that it is no longer sufficient for modeling electronic services. We propose an expanded model, the electronic marketing model, which does not necessitate the distinction between products and services. Instead, the model prompts managers to focus on the key player—the customer.     

Trust in the development of new channels in the music industry

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether factors that promote trust influence channel selection decisions. We develop a theoretical model implicating alternative factors that promote trust as antecedent to the choice between new and traditional channels. The model augments prior research investigating relational trust with discussion of institutional mechanisms that engender trust in business-to-consumer relationships. We offer a preliminary test of the model via examination of music transactions made via retail establishments, websites, and downloading services. Our analysis is based on data from 410 customers from the three alternative marketing channels. Because music is distributed through alternative channels, it is an interesting context to study how trust affects channel selection. The results implicate factors that promote institutional and relational trust as antecedent to selection decisions in the music industry. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications for channel management and theory.     

An Empirical Investigation of the Pricing of Professional Services (As Applied to Public Accounting)

Recently there has been escalating interest and attention focused on services marketing in marketing literature. Professionals, in particular, face additional marketing challenges because they have both an increased need and an increased ability to market their services. Yet, the pricing of professional services as an area of investigation in marketing has not been adequately researched. This paper examines the pricing issue in the context of public accounting services. The empirical investigation utilizes a multivariate approach to describe and quantify the fee structure of public accounting services. Empirical findings and then managerial implications are discussed.     

A Relationship Marketing Perspective for Direct Marketing in the Legal Services Industry

ABSTRACT

The concepts of relationship marketing art: merged with concepts from direct marketing to provide an integrated view of direct marketing. This combined literature is then applied to the specific case of legal services marketing. It appears that the combined literature can he usefully applied to professional services, in general, and holds promise for strengthening marketing efforts in this area.     

Analysis of efficiency and profitability of franchise services

The present study analyses the relative efficiency of franchise services and characterises the best companies, confirming the relationship between efficiency and profit. These companies are from ‘the trade and other services sector', the main group of service-providing companies in the Spanish economy. The methodology calls for first comparing the relative efficiency of franchisers and ownership enterprises. Second, the focus turns to the most efficient franchise services, using a super-efficiency model to rank them. The paper then goes on to cover the analysis of the main characteristics of the best franchise enterprises, the number of own establishments in a franchise business and the profitability of the company. This paper presents arguments as to why companies from the trade and other services sector are included. The main conclusion is that, whilst the number of establishments is irrelevant in achieving greater efficiency, many of the most efficient enterprises have high returns.     

Consumer behaviour and services: A review

This article reviews the current literature in the fields of consumer behaviour and the marketing of services in order to examine the main issues facing the consumer in purchasing services, as opposed to goods. Five distinguishing characteristics of services are discussed and the implications of these for the consumers are placed within the information processing model of consumer behaviour theory. The article suggests that there are particular problems for consumers in acquiring effective information regarding services, making comparisons on the basis of that information and subsequently evaluating the service encounter. It is our contention that unless consumer responses to the particular problems associated with services are clarified, service marketing may be in danger of pursuing provider‐orientated solutions rather than understanding the actual nature of the consumer decision process when purchasing services.     

The adoption of direct banking services

The adoption of new products and services is of increasing importance to many industries. This is especially so for those organisations that are marketing technological innovations. In this paper a model of the perceived innovation attributes and the personal characteristics of adopters and non‐adopters was developed, based on literature and consumer research. These are then tested using a questionnaire concerned with the UK market for direct banking services. The results are presented in detail which indicate that the model presented is an excellent predictor of adoption behaviour. From these results a number of interesting implications have been highlighted for marketing practice.     

Determinants of Client Expectations for Accounting Services

Abstract

As the market for accounting services becomes more competitive, accounting service providers must strive to continually improve service quality to attract new clients and retain existing clients. Client expectations provide a benchmark that must be met or exceeded for the client to perceive that high quality services have been delivered (Ades 1988; Aquila and Koltin 1992). Based on a review of accounting and service marketing literature, this paper developed a conceptual model that identified potential determinants of client expectations for accounting services. Hypotheses derived from this model were empirically tested using LISREL on survey data from 196 households.

The results of our analysis indicated that client satisfaction with prior services, prior service quality, word-of-mouth communication, and price were significantly related to accounting firm image. Firm image, in turn, was significantly related to client expectations for future accounting services. Importantly, several variables from the service marketing literature were not supported with our sample of accounting service clients. Hence, these results identify the critical determinants of client expectations for accounting services, provide insight into the expectation formulation process for accounting service clients, and offer guidance to accounting service providers who may wish to influence clients' expectations.     

Responsible Marketing: Can Social Enterprises Show the Way?

In this article, the authors present a new perspective on responsible marketing. We discuss if and how social enterprises can present a new understanding of responsible marketing. Relevant publications (14 on social entrepreneurship, 40 on marketing in non-profit organizations and social enterprises and 41 papers on marketing) are selected and reviewed. The result of the literature analysis and synthesis show that social enterprises can gain from a more formal, systematic approach to marketing. Since social enterprises prioritize social goals over business results, successful adoption of marketing policies and practices can help then create a blueprint for responsible marketing. Marketing of socially relevant products and services by social enterprises thus create a new paradigm of responsible marketing. Such models can also be useful for larger corporations who look at social business and shared value creation as part of their business and marketing strategy.     

Choosing and upgrading financial services dealers in the US and UK

This paper addresses a gap in the international literature aimed at understanding the impact of the marketing mix on choosing and upgrading business-to-business financial services dealers. This study involves two important financial services markets (foreign exchange and bonds) in two leading countries in financial services (the United States and the United Kingdom). It provides a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of marketing mix variables (“price”, “product”, and “promotion” in this case) in determining (a) choice of dealers and (b) how a utilized dealer may achieve the sought-after status of being among the top three dealers of a customer. The impact of the marketing mix variables on the choice of dealer is significantly greater in the US relative to the UK. However, a two-stage analysis shows no significant country differences in the impact of the marketing mix on how a dealer is upgraded to a top three status with a customer. Further, the effects of the individual marketing mix variables are more nearly equal in the determination of whether a utilized dealer is among the top three dealers relative to the choice stage. Finally, consistent with our hypothesis, the bond market is more price sensitive relative to foreign exchange and the foreign exchange market is more product sensitive than the bond market.     

LOGISTICS OUTSOURCING RELATIONSHIPS: CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVES

This study attempts to infuse relationship marketing theory into the study of logistics outsourcing relationships. In particular, the study demonstrates that not all of the partnerships between customers and providers of third‐party logistics services are the same in terms of their level of development. The existence of distinct levels of partnership established previously in the logistics literature is partially supported and a relationship between level of partnership development and the customer perceptions of key relationship marketing elements and outcomes is established. While exploratory in nature, these findings suggest there are benefits for the increased costs of developing closer partnerships.     

Marketing capabilities and innovation. How do they affect the financial results of hotels?

From the point of view of firms’ managers, the knowledge of the factors which explain their firms’ financial results is considered of great usefulness to propose the most appropriate and profitable marketing strategies and actions. This research sets out from this central idea and proposes a model of relationships that considers the marketing results, the marketing capabilities, and the innovation capability as key factors for achieving good financial results. This model is verified via an empirical investigation carried out among 200 directors of hotel establishments in Andalusia, a region in the south of Spain which is one of the country's main tourist destinations. The results indicate that innovation capability is strongly conditioned by marketing capabilities and resources and that this innovation capability affects the financial results of the firms analyzed. Likewise, it is deduced that a market-oriented management philosophy contributes to the development of these marketing capabilities. The implications for management are considered very relevant as they must lead these firms to invest in the development of marketing resources and capabilities, and apply a market-oriented management philosophy if they wish to improve their financial results.     

Therapeutic servicescapes: Restorative and relational resources in service settings

This article introduces the concept of ‘therapeutic servicescapes’ to the retailing and services discipline. In the health literature, therapeutic landscapes emerge when physical and social conditions in a geographically bounded space combine to produce an atmosphere that is conducive to human well-being. Traditionally, therapeutic landscapes have been associated with natural and leisure settings, such as parks, green spaces, and beaches. This work breaks new ground in the marketing domain by linking therapeutic landscapes to commercial retail establishments. This study empirically demonstrates the extent to which physical and social conditions may combine in a customer-centric grocery store to positively enhance customers' well-being and promote feelings of attachment to the establishment. Furthermore, this study reveals that customers' future behavioral intention are driven by the store's impact on their well-being and their desire to maintain ‘place attachment.’ From a managerial perspective, this work recommends that retail and consumer service organizations facing online competition focus on creating architectural and human resource conditions that promote consumer well-being and place attachment.     

On the Intangibility of Services

Whenever marketing researchers and practitioners apply the specifics of their discipline to the service sector, one concept always crops up like a leitmotif: intangibility. The realities it designates, however, are seldom specified. As a result, this concept has many different meanings in the specialised literature on services. Not only does this vagueness have semantic drawbacks, it also obscures the marketing analysis of the supplier/customer relationship. This article's objective is to contribute to removing these ambiguities. In the first part it seeks to define the concept of the term ‘intangibility’, and to show its importance in the general theory and practice of marketing. In the second part, the marketing analysis of a service shows the role of intangible elements in the relationship between service supply and demand, before broadening. In the third part, their impact on strategic implications and further theoretical problems is shown.     

The service quality–loyalty relationship in retail services: does commitment matter?

The marketing literature has produced two schools of thought on the cause of customer loyalty in services industries. The service quality perspective puts forward that service quality evaluations substantially drive customer loyalty in services industries. The relationship marketing perspective puts forward that customer commitment to the service provider substantially drives customer loyalty in services industries. In addition, commitment is a complex construct with at least two forms, one based in liking and identification (affective commitment) and one based in dependence and switching costs (continuance commitment). These positions were examined in an integrated model of retail–service relationships. It was found that affective commitment and continuance commitment were mainly partial mediators of the service quality–loyalty relationship. It was also found that affective commitment to the retailer had a positive impact on customer loyalty while continuance commitment in marketing relationship had a deleterious effect on customer loyalty.     

The Role of Logistics Leverage in Marketing Strategy

ABSTRACT

In today's environment-where changes in price, promotion, and product often are quickly imitated-the way to sustain competitive advantage may lie in changes to ancillary services, such as logistics. By leveraging excellent and superior logistics services, intricately linked with marketing strategy, firms can potentially create and maintain competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to begin the theoretical development process by understanding the implications of logistics leverage on marketing strategy. Two sources of antecedent justification, application of extant literature and observation of the phenomenon through case studies, are employed to develop the theoretical model. Conclusions, with implications for managers and suggestions for futue research, areal soprovided.     

Identification of adopter categories for online banking in Turkey

This article reports the results of an investigation of demographic and lifestyle characteristics of adopters of online banking services in Turkey by using the Bass diffusion model. The results of multinominal logistic regression analysis suggest that there are significant differences both in demographic characteristics, such as age and gender, and psychographic characteristics, such as leadership, non-traditionalism, innovativeness, and practicality among the different adopter categories. Thus, new variables such as gender and lifestyle, which have not been investigated in the literature, could be introduced as segmentation variables to develop more effective marketing strategies tailored to each adopter category in online banking services.     

Hispanic-Americans,Mobile Advertising and Mobile Services

The literature on marketing to Hispanics and the use of mobile-based marketing methods continues to grow. However, to our knowledge, no research has been published on Hispanic use and acceptance of mobile marketing channels; this research addresses that gap. The study investigates various aspects of mobile channel services including advertising among Hispanic-Americans and non-Hispanic-Americans. The results indicate significant differences between Hispanic-Americans and others in the usage of mobile services, satisfaction with mobile services, and attitudes toward mobile advertising, as well as within Hispanic-Americans based on their strength of ethnic identification. The managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.     

A Generalized Model of the Utilization of Professional Services

The determinants of the utilization of professional services has been widely studied in the case of the Andersen-Newman (1973) framework. It seems likely that this framework which includes predisposing, enabling and illness level factors as leading to health services utilization might be usefully extended to the analysis of all professional service usage will illness level changing to professional service need level. This paper adapts the P Andersen-Newman framework to all professiona services by reformulating the framework and adds a strategic marketing approach in discussing its application.