The influence of length of relationship, gender and age on the relationship intention of short-term insurance clients : an exploratory study

Abstract

Building long-term relationships with clients is extremely beneficial for organisations. This does not necessarily imply, however, that the clients themselves need or want a long-term relationship with an organisation. Relationship marketing could profitably be looked at from the client’s perspective, at the same time identifying those clients who have a strong relationship intention and would, in fact, like to engage in a long-term relationship with organisations. The objective of this research was to explore whether three aspects relating to clients, that is, the varying lengths of their relationship with organisations, their age and their gender display significantly different levels of relationship intention. Relationship intention is measured in terms of constructs like involvement, expectations, forgiveness, feedback and fear of relationship loss. Non-probability sampling was used in this study, and 114 respondents from the short-term insurance industry completed self-administered questionnaires. Findings indicate that, for a group of high relationship-intention clients of a short-term insurance organisation, no practically significant discrimination exists on any of the relationship-intention constructs for clients’ length of relationship, gender or age.