Decoding Customer–Firm Relationships: How Attachment Styles Help Explain Customers' Preferences for Closeness, Repurchase Intentions, and Changes in Relationship Breadth

Abstract

Many firms strive to create relationships with customers, but not all customers are motivated to build close commercial relationships. This article introduces a theoretical framework that explains how relationship-specific attachment styles account for customers' distinct preferences for closeness and how both attachment styles and preferences for closeness influence loyalty. The authors test their predictions with survey data from 1199 insurance customers and three years of purchase records for 975 of these customers. They find that attachment styles predict customers' preferences for closeness better than established marketing variables do. Moreover, attachment styles and preferences for closeness influence loyalty intentions and behavior, controlling for established antecedents (e.g., relationship quality). Finally, exploring the underlying process, the authors show that preference for closeness partially mediates the effect of attachment styles on cross-buying behavior. This research provides novel customer segmentation criteria and actionable guidelines that managers can use to improve their ability to tailor relationship marketing activities and more effectively allocate resources to match customer preferences.

Why Some People Just “Can’t Get No Satisfaction”: Secure versus Insecure Attachment Styles Affect One’s “Style of Being in the Social World”

“…As anticipated, anxious attachment style related negatively with satisfaction with their bank (b= -.15, p<01), not being loyal to their bank (b= -.14, p<.01) and identification with the bank (b= -.11, p<.01), (Table 1). Our findings are consistent with findings in Mende et al (2013). Avoidant attachment was not related significantly with satisfaction, loyalty, or identification.…”

“…Two studies in the literature thus far are noteworthy. First, Mende et al (2013) found that attachment styles measured with a domain-specific firm attachment scale affected consumers' degree of satisfaction with the firm's services: avoidant and anxious attachment styles correlated r= -.50 and r= -.31, respectively, with customer satisfaction (defined as satisfied, content, and happy with the service). Another article on service satisfaction of consumers (Mende & Bolton, 2011) found similar negative correlations between avoidant and anxious attachment styles and customer satisfaction, r= -.34 and r= -.58, respectively.…”

“…Herein we use an attachment-styles scale originally developed by Hazan and Shaver (1987) Second, in replicating the Mende et al (2013) findings on the relationship between attachment style and one's connection with a firm, we propose that the financial professional's scores on avoidant and anxious attachment styles will correlate negatively with both loyalty and identification with the bank. This is due to over self-reliance and the inability to form relationships in the case of avoidant attachment.…”

Heritage tourism, CSR and the role of employee environmental behaviour

“…However, this approach is increasingly accepted in the academic literature and is appropriate under certain conditions (Fuchs & Diamantopoulos, 2009;Hoeppner, Kelly, Urbanoski, & Slaymaker, 2011;Mende, Bolton, & Bitner, 2013). Moreover, single-item measures are likely to be more appropriate for experiments situated in organisations, given the individuals'/employees' willingness, time restrictions or lack of appropriate incentives to motivate filling in extensive questionnaires (Biner & Kidd, 1994;Deutskens, De Ruyter, Wetzels & Oosterveld, 2004).…”

The Role of Long-Term Orientation and Service Recovery on the Relationships between Trust, Bonding, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty: The Case of Nigerian Retail Banks

“…In his seminal work, Hofstede (1980) identified what he called national culture to belong to four categories, namely individualism/collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity/femininity (Gelfand, Leslie, & Fehr, 2008;Hui, Ho, & Wan, 2011;Lai, He, & Zhou, 2013;Mende, Bolton, & Bitner, 2013). Later in 1991, Hofstede introduced the fifth category of culture, long-term orientation (Fang, 2003).…”