Abstract:
Contemporary business organizations are increasingly becoming customer-oriented by embracing marketing initiatives that seek to attract, understand and retain profitable customers by building intimate, long term relationships. However, whilst relationship marketing has been the most important strategy employed towards maintaining and enhancing relationships with customers to increase customer retention in the banking sector, the quality of such relationships and their effects on customer behavioural intentions remains largely under-researched. The general objective of this study was to examine the role of relationship marketing quality on customer behavioural intentions in Kenya. The descriptive research design was adopted for the study, while the target population comprised customers of 43 commercial banks in Kenya. The accessible population was 3,625,234 active account holders in 43 commercial bank branches in Mombasa County. The study reached a sample of 18 commercial banks from which 334 respondent customers were picked through probability proportional to size random sampling techniques. A quantitative questionnaire that had been pilot-tested was used to collect primary data. Collected data was cleaned, checked for completeness, coded and entered into the computer's via Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS 23). Data analysis in form descriptive statistics such as frequency distributions, percentages, means and standard deviations was conducted in SPSS while structural equation modelling to test hypothesized relationships was conducted using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS 23). The results indicated that customer behavioural intentions in the banking sector in Kenya are positively affected by relational commitment (normative commitment: β = 0.246, t-value = 4.476 and p = 0.000; affective commitment: β = 0120; t-value = 2.114; p = 0.035); relational trust (β = 0.163; t-value = 3.052; p = .002); relational reciprocity norms (β = 0.140; t-value = 2.595; p-value = 0.009) and relational satisfaction (β = 0.016; t-value = 2.292; p-value = .007). The study concludes that relationship marketing quality is a multi-dimensional construct that has, as its core components, commitment, trust, satisfaction and reciprocity norms, which interactively drive customer behavioural intentions in the banking services sector of Kenya. Marketing relationship practitioners and marketing scholars alike are advised to focus their attention on enhancing aspects of relational commitment as identified in this study, that drive crucial customer behaviours. Marketing practitioners should also look at strategies for building trustworthiness, supported by customer loyalty as a desirable outcome, which should be seen as a method for creating a competitive advantage for service organisations. Further, relationship marketing managers must base their relational exchanges with customers on the aspects of generalized and balanced reciprocity if they hope to enhance customers' positive behavioural intentions and contribute to organizational performance, which is hinged on positive behavioural intentions among customers. This would also enhance customer satisfaction with the exchange relationship hence positive customer behavioural intentions.
