Determinants of relationship quality and customer loyalty in retail banking

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of relationship quality (hereafter referred to as RQ) and its impact on customer loyalty within an emerging retail banking market through a dual-lens theory. Design/methodology/approach - The research informants were recruited from a city in South-eastern Nigeria. A quantitative data obtained through bank-intercept method and online survey from 332 customers of retail banking services formed the final database. The proposed model and by implication the research hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling procedure. Findings - The results show that customer orientation, expertise and information sharing are stimulus factors that directly influence the constructs of RQ (i.e. trust and satisfaction and indirectly influence customer loyalty through the constructs of RQ. The paper also demonstrates that the stimulus factors are direct predictors of consumers’ response. The proposed model explained 49 per cent of the total variance in customer loyalty. Research limitations/implications - Customer orientation, expertise and information sharing are stimulus factors that improve RQ and customer loyalty. However, the explanatory power of the proposed model is modest. Future research should therefore integrate other determinants of RQ. Practical implications - The paper provides clear insights into how retail bank managers operating in a very competitive and emerging market can improve RQ and subsequently attract customer loyalty. Originality/value - The paper contributes to the growing body of stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) literature within the retail environment by exploring unique stimulus and organism variables from an emerging retail banking market perspective. Additionally, by showing that the stimulus factors are direct predictors of consumers’ response, the paper challenged the existing tenets of the S-O-R framework and deepened the current understanding of the model. The paper also contributes to the social exchange theory by demonstrating how the components of RQ mediate the antecedents and consequences of the construct.