Abstract

In services marketing it is widely acknowledged that a relationship approach may facilitate in customer retention and enhance customer loyalty, and further influence customer post-purchase behaviours e.g. word-of-mouth. In this study, a specific relationship in service encounters, personal connections between customers and service employees, is explored in its indications on different outcomes from service encounters including three types of word-of-mouth behaviour intention and retention. The study takes China as the research context and conceptualise personal connection according to an equivalent concept “Guanxi” studied in marketing and management scope within Chinese culture. Further a three-dimension framework of “Guanxi” including dimensions of Ganqing (strength of personal connection), Xinren (trust), and Renqing (exchange of Social Capital) is applied to test potential effect of personal connection on different behaviours and intentions. The empirical study includes a quantitative survey on 301 service customers in China, and a Partial Least Square approach is applied to analyse the data. Xinren is found significantly positively influencing all behaviours and intentions, and Ganqing and Renqing are found to be affecting different types of word-of-mouth behaviour. It is interesting to find that Renqing has a negative effect on retention, suggesting that owing Social Capital to service employees becomes a burden to customers resulting in their intentions to defect.