Relationship dynamics in customer loyalty to online banking services

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of service quality and relationship quality on customer loyalty in different stages of the relationship life cycle in online banking services. Design/methodology/approach A total of 651 Iranian online banking customers participated in the research by completing questionnaires. The research hypotheses were tested using structural modeling technique. Findings The results showed that the relationship quality on customer loyalty in online banking services is affected by the relationship life cycle. The results also showed that online service quality, in the form of Utilitarian quality and Hedonic quality, has a positive effect both directly and indirectly on customer loyalty through online relationship quality. Research limitations/implications In this paper, the relationship dynamics was achieved through adding the relationship life cycle variable to the model. However, the study was a cross-sectional research and different results might be obtained if data was collected longitudinally. Practical implications In an online banking service, the role of relationship quality in the prediction of customer loyalty is reduced as the relationship ages. Therefore, marketers need to consider other marketing actions to continue their relationship with the customer in the long run. Originality/value This paper examines customer loyalty to online banking services from dynamic perspective by introducing relationship life cycle as a moderating variable for the first time. Therefore, the main contribution of this paper is to develop the relationship marketing literature in the field of relationship dynamics and to challenge the effectiveness of relationship marketing in the long run.