Relationship between relationship quality (RQ) and customer loyalty (Case Study: Refah stores of Rasht)

ABSTRACT: Customer loyalty can have many advantages to the stores which the most important of them includes reduction in advertising and related costs to attract new customers. Various factors influence the customer loyalty. But what most researches have mentioned is proper relationship between the organization and customers that is referred to relationship quality (RQ). Hence, the present study investigates the relationship between relationship quality and customer loyalty. Accordingly, after reviewing the literature, the components of relationship quality (including trust, commitment, communication, conflict handling) were extracted, hypotheses were set and a conceptual model was constructed. In order to test the research hypotheses, a standardized questionnaire was distributed among 270 customers of Rasht’s Refah stores and Pearson correlation method were used to analyze the data obtained. Results showed that there is a significant positive relationship with the correlation coefficient of 0.714 between relationship quality and customer loyalty.