Investigating the effect of relational marketing on customer satisfaction of Alborz insurance agencies in Rasht

Academic Thesis for Master's Degree (M.A)

Field: Business Management-Insurance Management

Abstract

Increasing competition, dynamism and complexity of the environment, growing customer expectations and new innovations in the service industry of the country have created many changes in the attitude of organizations towards the customer and made them aware of the importance of the customer and the benefits that can follow for them. Organizations are gradually moving away from relational marketing with the understanding that they have gained about the importance of customer satisfaction. Considering the importance of this approach for today's organizations, this research examines the relationship between the foundations of relational marketing such as trust, commitment, communication, conflict management and competence with customer satisfaction from Alborz insurance agencies in Rasht. Multivariable regression has been done and its statistical population is 384 customers of Alborz insurance agencies in Rasht city. The tool of data collection in this research is a questionnaire and the data has been analyzed with the regression method. Also, the results of this research, which was conducted using SPSS software, show that in the order of priority, competence (0.278), commitment (0.224), trust (0.142), management Conflict (0.127) and communication (0.118) have a relationship with customer satisfaction from Alborz insurance agencies in Rasht city, and all the assumptions of this research have been confirmed.

Key words: relational marketing, trust, commitment, communication, conflict management, competence, satisfaction. Service industries play a fundamental and important role in the economic growth and development of countries, and among them, the role and importance of the insurance industry as a productive industry and supporter of other industries is not hidden from anyone. On the other hand, insurance companies are considered one of the dynamic and important institutions in many countries of the world. These companies, due to their characteristics and advantages, are very important for society. The insurance premiums they receive from individuals are invested in investment companies or the stock market and lead to the economic growth of their countries. On the other hand, the world of insurance is rapidly changing and becoming competitive, and the need for progress, survival and remaining in the scene is to correctly understand the needs of customers and obtain their satisfaction. Therefore, the biggest challenge of services is customer satisfaction (Nuri, 2012, p. 10).

According to Hellir and his colleagues[1] can be seen as a general degree of satisfaction and happiness felt by the customer, which is the result of the service's ability to meet the demands, expectations and needs related to the service for the customer. [2] considers satisfaction as a state that is achieved after consuming the product or using the service for the customer. In other words, satisfaction can be defined as the process of understanding the customer's evaluation of the experience of consuming the product or using the service. If organizations want to achieve customer satisfaction, they must measure the level of customer satisfaction because there is no No one can manage what he is not able to measure (Ho [3], 1995, p. 21), therefore measuring customer satisfaction is important. The discussion of the satisfaction of insurers as customers of insurance companies with the quality of the company's line services will ultimately determine the survival or non-survival of these companies in the insurance market (Moven [4] 4, 1994, p. 20)

1-2) Statement of the problem :          

Relationship marketing is one of the broadest concepts that can be concluded from all marketing perspectives that discuss relationship. (Bonmaison [5] and his colleagues, p. 50) Relationship marketing is the art of business today. In order to retain the existing key (profitable) customers, the skill of building the right relationship with the customer is necessary. Primitive or classical marketing theory was mainly concerned with transaction and did not care about customer retention. But with the expansion of competition and the saturation of many markets and the continuous changes in the environment and the composition of the population, companies faced the fact that today, as in the past, companies are no longer facing an expanding economic system and growing markets.. Today, each customer has its own special value, and now companies have to fight to gain more share from a fixed or declining market, so the cost of attracting new customers has increased. (Aijo [6], 1996) Today, we are witnessing a fundamental transformation in the way top companies are organized, and that is the change of organizational structures from product orientation to customer orientation, and the main factor and driver of this change is the emergence of a phenomenon called customer relationship management (CRM). The roots of customer relationship management can be traced back to relationship marketing. Based on research by Reichheld and Sasser [7] (1990), a 5% increase in customer retention rate can lead to an average increase of 35-95% in customer lifetime value. Relationship marketing aims to establish mutually satisfactory long-term relationships with customers, suppliers, distributors and in the hope of gaining and maintaining their long-term preferences and business. In relationship marketing, companies move from a focus on fixed transactions to a long-term structure of profitable relationships where consumers perceive mutual resources. (Al-Baid [8], p. 360)

No business, be it production, service, etc., can continue its way without satisfied and happy customers, stable and successful, unless it is a government monopoly. More importantly, the demands, expectations and expectations of consumers have increased day by day and this trend will be accompanied by increasing growth. Therefore, companies (manufacturing, trading, etc.) are required to look for solutions that go beyond the demands and expectations of consumers, based on this, loyalty and trust in the company (that is, in goods, services, etc.) based on a long-term beneficial and bilateral relationship (between producer and consumer) must replace the concept and goal of keeping customers satisfied. More transparency of the market and globalization of competition has made it very difficult for most companies to attract and retain customers. Therefore, the targeting of companies should be based on increasing smart performance to attract and retain customers and at the same time reduce related costs.[9]

In the opinion of relational marketing researchers and using its elements in the best possible implementation of this strategy can lead to customer satisfaction, which is considered very important and necessary in service companies such as insurance companies. Therefore, researchers will use relational marketing to satisfy customers in order to benchmark the whole organization in determining the distance to reach the goal.

Insurance industry is one of the vast, complex and vital industries in the world. In the current century, economic activities have been formed in such a way that its continuity has been severely affected without the support of insurance. This industry has enjoyed favorable growth in the world in such a way that it has enjoyed a growth of 4 to 5 percent during the past years (Truilo [10], 2007, p. 21)

In recent years, with the entry of new insurance companies and the market becoming more competitive, the low performance of each insurance company causes the existence of that company to be questioned. and to attract their satisfaction in a favorable way.

Unfortunately, despite the rapid growth in the world and the extensive provision of various insurance services, the mentioned industry has had very little development in Iran due to various reasons. This claim can be proven to some extent with 2 insurance indicators of density and penetration of Iran's insurance with similar countries. Among the 88 countries of the world in 1999, Iran was ranked 79th and 84th for insurance penetration and density, respectively. (Mousavi, 2004, p. 40)

According to the above, the question arises whether the dimensions of relational marketing affect the satisfaction of customers of Alborz insurance agencies?

In this research, the dimensions of relational marketing are considered as an independent variable and customer satisfaction as a dependent variable, and an attempt is made to examine the effect of dimensions of relational marketing on customer satisfaction in Alborz insurance agencies in Rasht city.

1-3 The necessity and importance of research: Today, all the organizational units of companies and institutions in the world are customer-oriented, and the direction of all organizational units is the customer and his satisfaction. This shows that, philosophically, the need to obtain customer satisfaction has been understood and accepted, or that it is being promoted and expanded.