The association of gender to firm‐customer relationship

Purpose This paper aims to examine the association of relationship marketing variables (namely trust, commitment, communication, and conflict handling) with overall firm‐customer relationship quality between male and female customers of Malaysian banks. Design/methodology/approach Data were colleted through a field survey of randomly selected bank customers in Malaysia. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis (HMRA) was employed for data analysis. Findings The results show that relationship marketing explains a significant amount of variance in overall firm‐customer relationship quality. Except for communication, all the independent variables are significantly associated with perceived firm‐customer relationship quality. No significant gender differences were observed. Originality/value The quality of firm‐customer relationship is important in customer retention and loyalty. There are efforts to understand the relationship marketing variables that drive overall relationship quality, but whether this relationship is generic or differs between males and females is unknown. The paper provides this insight.