Managing Customer Relationships by Gender

Purpose: Although relational bonds (i.e., structural bonds, social bonds, and financial bonds) positively contribute to customer loyalty, no study has yet examined the relative effectiveness of such relationship strategies on female and male customers. Moreover, businesses must make a tradeoff between improving one and the other bonds, warranting research into allocating resources effectively to improve them. Therefore, this study investigates whether and how marketers should strive to improve such bonds differently according to customer gender. Methodology/approach: A cross-sectional design was implemented. The data consist of questionnaires filled out by a representative sample of 425 directors of animal hospitals. The sample is representative with regard to gender composition. By using confirmatory factor analysis, study items exhibited adequate reliability and validity. Quadratic regressions were used for testing the study hypotheses. Findings: For female customers, relational bonds have concave relations with their loyalty (i.e., initial increases in relational bonds boost loyalty effectively while subsequent increases of relational bonds only raise loyalty marginally). However, for male customers, relational bonds have convex relations with their loyalty (i.e., initial increases in relational bonds raise loyalty less effectively than subsequent increases in relational bonds). Originality/value/contribution: Results of this study are among the first to suggest that when targeting female customers, marketers should allocate their resources to improving all relational bonds to moderate levels. Conversely, when targeting male customers, marketers should concentrate their resources on creating an extremely strong relational bond. Managing customer relational bonds by gender can effectively cultivate loyal customers of each gender. This study is one of the first studies examining how to manage customer relational bonds by gender.