Does relationship marketing pay? An empirical investigation of relationship marketing practices in hospitals

Relationship marketing has been gaining momentum as business entities realize that short-term sales/transaction orientation has several pitfalls for building customer loyalty and continued patronage. Relationship marketing has the potential to improve marketing productivity (Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995a). Development and implementation of customer retention programs, partnering with customers, suppliers, and competitors, and other relationship marketing practices have become a way of life in the 1990s. What is the nature of relationship marketing practices adopted by hospitals in the United States! How do these practices correlate with the performance of such hospitals! These and related issues are the focus of this empirical investigation. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.