Relationship marketing in a developing country : the case of Bangladesh

It has been generally argued that the highly collectivist nature of the Eastern cultures make them more receptive to relationship marketing (RM). However, so far, a very little research has been done on RM in developing countries. Purpose of this study was twofold: one to gain the Bangladeshi businesses’ perspective to RM as well as to gain Bangladeshi retail customers’ perspective on the same. For the first, in-depth qualitative interviews were carried out among 10 large consumers and industrial product marketers in Bangladesh. For the second, a survey was carried out among 200 Bangladeshi retail customers. Overall, the study reveals that Bangladeshi businesses generally do not pursue RM as such. However, they do try to selectively build and maintain on going relationships with some of the markets. Most of these RM activities are directed towards the influencer market and compared to developed markets, much less RM initiative is directed towards the customers, particularly the retail customers. On the other hand, being members of a collectivist culture, Bangladesh retail customers see value of RM, though selectively. Particularly, the study indicated that Bangladeshi retail customers see value in building relationships where the good or service is in short supply, which is often the case with many services in developing countries like Bangladesh