PERCEPTION OF RELATIONSHIP MARKETING ORIENTATION AMONG CUSTOMERS: SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INSURANCE COMPANIES IN JAFFNA DISTRICT

In recent years, the traditional transaction approach has been challenged and shifted to relationship marketing. The ultimate aim of the relationship marketing is to produce the high customer equity. Customer equity consists of three key drivers: brand equity, value equity, and relationship equity. Among these three drivers, brand equity is considered as more important than the others as it is more powerful mechanism to create sustainable competitive advantage for the organizational concern. Thus this study examined the research problem of whether Relationship Marketing Orientation (RMO) impacts on brand equity in Sri Lankan Insurance companies. This objective of this study is to identify the impact of RMO on brand equity in Sri Lankan Insurance companies. Furthermore conceptual model has been developed to link RMO and brand equity. Trust, bonding, communication, shared value, empathy and reciprocity are considered as the dimensions of RMO. Similarly brand loyalty, perceived quality, brand image and brand awareness are the dimensions of brand equity which were extracted from literature. Questionnaire was used to collect data. 600 household customers have been selected from insurance companies that comprised of public and private based on non probability sampling method (quota sampling method). Multiple regression has been used for the analysis. Findings revealed that there is a positive and significant impact (61.3%) of RMO on brand equity in Sri Lankan Insurance companies. Keywords: Relationship Marketing Orientation (RMO), Brand Equity, Insurance Companies For full Paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.l