Marketers use relationship marketing in order to establish mutually beneficial long-term
relationships with their customers as a means to retain these customers in the
competitive market environment. Relationship marketing should, however, not be used
to target each and every customer as not all customers want to build long-term
relationships with organisations. In order to identify the most profitable customers to
target through relationship marketing, organisations should consider their customers'
relationship intentions to form long-term relationships with them.
The primary objective of this study was to determine young adults' (aged 18 to 25)
relationship intentions towards the South African cell phone network providers they use,
namely Vodacom, MTN or Cell C. This was done by considering the five constructs
used to measure relationship intention, namely involvement, expectations, forgiveness,
feedback and fear of relationship loss. A focus group was used to determine which
features related to cell phone network providers young adults consider when selecting a
cell phone network provider. This data was used to develop a self-administered
questionnaire, which was distributed among respondents studying at the Potchefstroom
Campus of the North-West University in the North-West Provirice. A convenience (non
probability) sampling method was used and a total of 315 respondents participated in
this study. The distribution between the cell phone network providers was Vodacom
(115), MTN (101) and Cell C (99). Initial data analysis revealed that 73% of respondents
had high relationship intentions, while the remainder (26%) had low relationship
intentions of forming long-term relationships with their respective cell phone network
providers.
By means of a factor analysis it was determined that the five relationship intention
factors, namely involvement, expectations, forgiveness, feedback and fear of
relationship loss, were valid and reliable to measure the relationship intentions of
respondents. The results further indicated that respondents with a t"iigh relationship
intention are more involved with thei r cell phone network providers and feared losing
thei r relationships with their cell phone network providers more than those respondents
with a low relationship intention. Furthermore, respondents from the different cell phone
network providers do not view the five factors comprising relationship intention
differently, but they do differ with regards to other factors related to cell phone network providers. It was found that the majority of respondents regard Vodacom (not
necessarily the respondent's cell phone network provider) as the cell phone network
provider with the latest technology, as being the quickest, having the best coverage,
best handsets, coolest image and best service. The majority of respondents regard Cell
C as being the cheapest and MTN as being the most expensive. Results also indicate
that respondents' parents play an important role with regard to the choice of their cell
phone network providers as the majority of respondents' parents initially chose the cell
phone network providers and pay their cellular expenses.
It is recommended that cell phone network providers should target young adults'
parents with a view to gain a foothold in the young adult market. Furthermore, it is
recommended that cell phone network providers should determine how their customers
perceive them as compared with competitors in order to better position themselves and
to improve communication with young adults. Most importantly, it is recommended that
cell phone network providers should identify those young adults with high relationship
intentions (those young adults who are more involved with and fear losing their
relationship with the cell phone network provider more) in order to retain them by
attempting to build long-term relationships with these young adults through dedicated
relationship marketing efforts.
Recommendations for future research include examining relationship intention with
regards to other age groups (such as scholars and adults), other service industries and
other geographical areas. Furthermore, the influence which young adults exert on
decisions concerning cell phone network providers and the influence of parents on
young adults' product and service choices, can be explored in future research by means
of the family decision roles. / Thesis (M.Com. (Marketing Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/4270 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Kruger, Liezl-Marie |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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