The role of salespeople in developing life insurance customer loyalty

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to closely investigate the antecedents affecting relationship quality and its consequences between life insurers and their customers. Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected from the customers of life insurers' customer relationship management centres and were analysed using in-depth interviews and questionnaires. A structural equation modelling approach is employed to test the hypotheses. Findings - The findings are generally consistent with the literature. This study supports all hypotheses. Finally, the findings of this study confirm that relationship quality mediates the effects of salesperson characteristics and relational selling behaviour on customer loyalty. Originality/value - To the authors knowledge, there is little published research that examines antecedents and consequences of relationship quality in life insurance industry in Taiwan. Therefore, in addition to developing high-quality services, life insurers need to establish and maintain long-term relationships with customers in order to create corporate innovation value.