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Keywords Relationship marketing, Customers, Trust, Commitment, Motor industry
Abstract Relationship marketing (RM) has been widely accepted as an important determinant of long-term business success and is believed to be especially well suited for services because of the personal contact between customers and service providers. Past research has focused mainly on the advantages of RM for companies, while less attention has been paid to relationships from the customer's point of view. We suggest that relationships may be described as ranging from spurious to true, depending on customer-- perceived relationship benefits, trust and commitment. A qualitative study of customer relationships was conducted in a car dealership, where profitability depends on customer commitment to both after-sales services and the car brand. Customer relationships were found to be more spurious than true. The study revealed that behavioural commitment to after-sales services was high, but that affective commitment was low to moderate. Customers were satisfied but did not perceive the services to be superior to the competitors' service offerings. They trusted authorised repair in general and did not feel that after-sales service would have more than a minor influence on their future car purchases.
Introduction
Relationship marketing (RM) has been defined as "the process of identifying and establishing, maintaining, enhancing, and when necessary terminating relationships with customers and other stakeholders, at a profit, so that the objectives of all parties involved are met, where this is done by a mutual giving and fulfilment of promises" (Gronroos, 2000, p. 98). The term "relationship marketing" was first introduced by Berry in 1983 (Berry, 2000), but the concept did not attract broader attention until the 1990s (Gronroos, 1996). Although the concept was new, the basic ideas can be traced back to early channel and business-to-business research (de Wulf and Odekerken-Schroder, 2001). Nordic researchers have also been emphasising the relational nature of services since the 1970s (Gronroos, 2000).
The positive benefits of RM for companies have generally not been contested, but can only be realised if customers are willing to engage in long-term relationships (Berry, 2000; Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2000) and to perceive them as valuable (Ravald and Gronroos, 1996; Sheaves and Barnes, 1996). Most research on RM has been conceptual and focused on company benefits, whereas research from the customer's perspective...