Arun Kumar Agariya

What Really Defines Relationship Marketing? A Review of Definitions and General and Sector-Specific Defining Constructs

This article aims to use content analysis to provide an overview of the existing academic literature on relationship marketing by summarising definitions and major defining constructs based on the previous research findings in this area. The authors have summarised 72 definitions along with 50 general defining constructs of relationship marketing. In addition, sector-specific defining constructs for the banking, insurance, and health care sectors have also been identified. This article bridges the gap in the existing relationship marketing literature by providing a comprehensive list of relationship marketing definitions and identifying major general as well as some sector-specific defining constructs along different industry verticals. The research papers reviewed came from selected databases, which limits the generalizability of the findings to the whole existing literature on relationship marketing. The review of the existing literature was done to reduce the time and efforts of present and future researchers in this area by providing a quick snapshot of the existing definitions and major defining constructs that constitute relationship marketing and specifically the sector-specific dimensions of banking, insurance, and health care.

CRM Scale Development and Validation in Indian Public Hospitals

The aim of this paper is to develop a reliable and valid CRM (Customer relationship management) scale specifically catering to Indian public hospitals. An exhaustive review of literature on CRM was followed by depth interview and questionnaire survey. Exploratory factor analysis was followed by confirmatory factor analysis which was presented in three forms; the single factor model, covariance model and the structural model. The covariance model shows CRM in Indian public hospitals as a multidimensional construct comprising of factors namely tangibles, service quality, trust, availability and accessibility which is validated through the structural model. The findings of this study validate the long held belief that CRM is a multidimensional construct and serves as a critical success factor for performance enhancement. The proposed scale will help in identifying issues that contribute to CRM in Indian public hospitals and thereby formulating strategies accordingly, resulting in efficient (cost) and effective (outcomes) CRM practices. A fair amount of literature on Indian public hospitals dealt with identifying factors explaining the constructs of quality, value or satisfaction. But there is paucity of research pertaining to industry-specific CRM scale development and validation. This study is an attempt to bridge this gap in the existing literature.

CRM scale development for enhancing business excellence in the Indian airline sector

The research study aims at developing and validating a CRM scale in the context of the Indian airline sector for enhancing business excellence. The robust methodology of scale development is used to develop the scale consisting of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Finally validated scale consists of six factors named as perceived value, process orientation, commitment, technology and support staff, top of range positioning, and customisation and repurchase intentions. These factors should be given utmost importance from the airline companys point of view for better retention and repatronage of customers as well as for overall business excellence. Novelty of the research work lies in developing the CRM scale for the Indian airline sector as there is no such study available in the literature. Managerially, it will help the management of various airline companies to identify the most critical areas for improvement and acting accordingly. This will ultimately have a significant effect on the Indian economy because of the sectoral contribution in GDP. The major limitations of the study lie in terms of sample size and generalisability of the proposed scale in different national context.

CRM index: an effective weapon for relationship enhancement

A reliable and valid CRM (customer relationship management) index is developed in this paper. A standard methodology for scale development was followed; further to this the CRM index is developed through a case based method along with the customer and service provider weights. The findings clearly depict CRM as a multidimensional construct comprising factors namely claim payment security, knowledge about products, personalisation, transparency in product selling and service quality. A fair amount of literature on the Indian insurance sector dealt with identifying factors explaining the constructs of quality, value and satisfaction. But there is a paucity of research pertaining to industry-specific CRM index specifically catering to the Indian insurance sector. The proposed index will help in identifying issues that contribute to CRM and thereby formulating strategies accordingly, resulting in effective and efficient practices. The scores from organisational as well as customers perspectives can be calculated so as to get newer insights.