Dimensions of relationship marketing in business-to-business financial services

Relationship marketing (RM) is frequently employed by firms to improve their dealings with customers. Despite the absence of a universally acceptable definition of RM, it has gained considerable interest and application in business-to-business (B2B) industries since the 1990s. The purpose of this paper is to report on the dimensions that were identified by RM managers of a major B2B financial services provider as important in establishing and managing long-term marketing relationships. The Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP) method was used to identify the most important dimensions. An initial pool of 23 dimensions of RM was identified in the marketing literature, and this pool of dimensions was reduced to 10 after the empirical study. The study found that particular dimensions are more important than others when relationships are established, and that trust, commitment, satisfaction and communication are the most important dimensions. Further dimensions identified as important in the B2B financial services industry are competence, relationship benefits, bonding, customisation, attractiveness of alternatives and shared values. The findings are valuable for the continual management of marketing relationships with customers.