Does the Age of Relationship Matter in Customer Referral Behaviour?

Abstract

Prior research has noted key differences between short-term and long-term customers in regards to their referral behaviour. However, these predominantly cross-sectional studies have focused on refer intention and referral likelihood as the primary measure of customer referral. There has been a scarce amount of research investigating actual customer referral behaviour in the relationship marketing literature. Using a combination of transactional and survey data from a local internet service provider (ISP), this research provides an empirical examination of the moderating effect of relationship age on the relationship between changes in the antecedents of customer referral (service reliability, service quality, customer service and perceived value) and customer referral behaviour. The findings offer some interesting implications for both relationship marketing theory and practice.