Building personalised relationships with customers via emails

Abstract

Personalised services, which make customers feel that service employees are polite, friendly and exhibit personal warmth, and that customers are unique and valued, are essential in building good customer relationships. Establishing personalised relationships on the Internet appears impossible. However, the characteristics of reduced cues and asychronised communications make email an effective tool for cultivating relationships between e-retailers and their customers. A sample of 254 students from a university in Northern Taiwan participated in an experiment. Structural equation modelling revealed that frequent personalised emails improve the relationship between e-retailers and their customers, enhance service quality and engender customer loyalty. Furthermore, personalised emails enhance relationship quality more for female customers than for male customers. Finally, future research and managerial implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• email
• e-service
• gender
• relationship quality
• service quality