RELATIONSHIP MARKETING PRACTICES ON BUILDING CUSTOMER LOYALTY AND WORD OF MOUTH PROMOTION: A STUDY OF PRIVATE SECTOR HOSPITALS IN SRI LANKA

Relationship Marketing (RM) is an emerging marketing discipline which focuses on attracting, maintaining and enhancing long term customer relationships in profitable manner. Current social and economic changes in SriLanka witnessed that there is an increasing demand towards private sector healthcare. As a high involvement service and capital incentive organization , it needs to keep long lasting relationships with its customers to achieve customer retention so as to build up repeat business and then to get new clientele through them. The purpose of this study is to examine Relationship Marketing practices and their relative importance on developing Customer Loyalty (CL) and Word of mouth communication (WOM) in private sector healthcare.Prominent variables such as, Trust, Commitment, Empathy and Equity were used in measuring the RelationshipMarketing. This research is descriptive and analatical in nature and based on both primary and secondary data.The data were collected through a self administered questionnaire and administered to a sample consisting ofthree hundred healthcare consumers. The data were analyzed by using correlation, regression, ANOVA and T test. The study discloses that though all the dimensions of the RM are important to the private sector healthcare,he most salient factor is “empathy” in developing a loyal customer base and promoting positive word of mouth communication. The implication of the study is that the management of private sector health care has to emphasize on empathy and train their internal staff in such a manner that increases their empathetic behavior towards healthcare consumers.Key Words: Relationship Marketing, Trust, Commitment, Empathy, Equity, Customer Loyalty, Word of Mouth CommunicationFor full paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.l