Building Customers' Affective Commitment Towards Retail Banks: The Role of Crm in Each 'Moment of Truth'

Abstract

This paper argues that retail banks need to focus more strongly on components of their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy that will generate customer affective commitment and lead to an increase in customer retention, share of wallet, and advocacy. It is suggested that affective commitment is generated during' moments of truth' or episodes of interpersonal interaction between customers and bankers. As shown in social psychology, effective interpersonal interactions are a function of the assertiveness and affiliation demonstrated during the interaction. Applying this to retail banking, bankers should mine their databases to identify customers in terms of their levels of profitability and longevity, and should deliver levels of assertiveness and affiliation appropriate to each customer. Testable research propositions are developed regarding how affective commitment might evolve during a customer ' s tenure with a retail bank, when bankers should deliver assertiveness and/or affiliation to customers of differing longevity and profitability, and how these strategies to increase affective commitment will impact retention, share development, and advocacy. Overall, the call is to complement the emphasis on the use of high-tech CRM strategies that generate huge databases with a more high-touch strategy that will indicate to bankers how to interact with each individual customer.

Keywords: Customer relationship management , CRM , banker - customer interaction , affective

JEL Classification: D10,D11,D12, G21, M31