ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the extant knowledge and seeks to derive an overall causal framework of relationship marketing’s performance impacts. The performance impact of relationship marketing investments occurs through the stimulation of positive emotions, cognitions, conations, and behaviors among customers. Relationship marketing investments consist of dedicated relationship marketing strategies or programs, designed and implemented to build, grow, and maintain strong customer–company relational bonds by stimulating favorable relational mechanisms among customers. When customers receive special treatment, it implies the firm has made social relationship marketing investments in its effort to personalize the customer relationship and convey that particular customer’s special status. Relationship velocity captures the rate and direction of change in relational constructs, thereby indicating relationships’ dynamics and trajectories. The performance impact of relationship marketing investments on seller relationship marketing performance outcomes is mediated by customer relational mechanisms. The category of financial relationship marketing performance outcomes consists of sales-based and profitability-based measures.
