Paper Title
Exploring The Impact Of Relationship Marketing Upon Customer Satisfaction And Customer Loyalty In Malaysian Banking Industry
Abstract
In present extremely competitive and globalize banking context, increasing customer loyalty emerges as one of the
most imperative challenges faced by marketers. Cultivating loyal customers is frequently argued to be the single most
important driver of organizations’ long-term financial performance, which can lead to increased customer share, lower
expenditure, and higher profit. Therefore, marketing academics emphasize the effect of relationship marketing as a
strategically vital tool to secure loyal customers. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the impact of relationship
marketing on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and to test the impact of customer satisfaction as mediator on the
association between relationship marketing and customer loyalty. This study was carried out using the convenience and
snowball samplings comprising 162 respondents through the distribution of online structured questionnaires to retail bank
customers within the area of Klang Valley, Malaysia. Data analysis was further conducted using the SPSS software, and the
results of regression analysis show that relationship marketing is significant in explaining the variation in customer satisfaction
and customer loyalty. In addition, customer satisfaction has been proven to partially mediate the relationship
marketing-customer loyalty relationship. These findings contribute to the understanding on the relationship between
relationship marketing, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty which provide critical implications for retail bank
managers and highlight possible directions for future research.
Keywords- Relationship Marketing, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Loyalty, Banking.