Trust-Building Mechanisms and Relationship Capital

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanism of customer relationship management to examine whether its attributes could affect relationship capital via trust-building mechanisms. We used quota sampling to survey 262 customers from Taiwan's top 10 insurance companies on the basis of customers and sales representative dyad samples. The empirical results show that social psychology–oriented trust-building mechanisms have the strongest positive effect on information sharing, mutual trust, and reciprocal commitment. Thus, sales representatives can enhance mutual disclosure with customers when customers perceive that the sales representatives are qualified and have a positive attachment.

KEYWORDS:

• customer relationship management attributes
• relationship capital
• trust-building mechanisms