Consumer Involvement in Relationship Marketing of Services

The authors examine the impact of consumer involvement on consumers'willingness to engage in relationships with service providers, because healthy relationships between consumers and service providers depend on the voluntary participation of consumers in relationships. They also examine the effect that involvement has on consumers' expectations of relational efforts by the service provider. On the basis of survey results from the telecom and health sector, the authors' results indicate that more involved consumers express greater interest in engaging in relationships with service providers. Also, although high-involvement customers do not differ from their low-involvement counterparts in terms of their expectations that their service providers communicate with them regularly and be price-competitive, they express a greater desire for fairness in treatment and being involved in solutions to their problems. These results indicate that the opportunity exists to engage high-involvement customers in long-term relationship programs tailored to their unique needs.