Abstract
Relationship Marketing is an important strategic tool for businesses who seek to establish long-term relationships with new customers and develop more mutually beneficial relationships with existing customers. Through strategically driven Relationship Marketing initiatives, businesses are able to show up for their customers at the right time, with the accurate messaging and through the relevant medium. Relationship Marketing is a critical tool, which through the use of customer data enables businesses to have a holistic view of their customers, and as such places them in a good position to service all customers. The South African retail banking sector is highly competitive and the increased number of new entrants in the market has led to most of the incumbents striving to adopt a customer-centric approach to acquiring and retaining customers. In order to achieve this, South African banks should develop a deep understanding of what influences their profitable customer segments to switch and remain with one bank over another. The growth of the Black Generation Y customer segment presents a unique opportunity for South African retail banks. The Black Generation Y customer segment is a generational cohort born in post-Apartheid South Africa, and is probably the first generation in their families to graduate and participate in the formal economy. Their context is polar opposites to those of their parents. Black Generation Y banking customers in South Africa are an important current and upcoming market for the banking sector, and this research study is therefore focused on this specific market segment. The main objective of this research is to determine the influence of the relationship marketing factors - communication, shared values, reputation, satisfaction and customisation on customer trust amongst Black Generation Y banking customers. In addition, the study also determines which one of these factors has the strongest relationship with trust. Although there have been other research studies done on communication, shared values, reputation, satisfaction and customisation and their influence on trust in varied industries and for different customer segments (Ebersohn & Theron, 2014), no research appears to have been conducted on exploring the influence of these factors on Black Generation Y banking customers in South Africa. Trust has been identified as a significant component of successful customer...
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