Buyer‐seller relationships: A conceptual model and empirical investigation

TLDR

Marketing managers increasingly emphasize building long‑term buyer‑seller relationships, yet theoretical models of their life cycle lack empirical validation and analysis of changing relationship composition. This study empirically tests the existence of a buyer‑seller relationship life cycle in the investment services sector. The study finds that buyers’ priorities shift over time—from selling pressure in early stages to ethical credibility and empathy later—providing implications for relationship‑marketing strategies.

Abstract

Increasing emphasis is being placed by marketing managers on the need to build long‐term relationships between themselves and their customers. Analysis of long‐term buyer‐seller relationships has drawn heavily on the literature of social psychology, especially in making comparisons with family relationships. It has been proposed that buyer‐seller relationships go through some form of life‐cycle, paralleling cyclical relationships in other areas of human activity. However, models of the evolutionary development of buyer‐seller relationships have remained largely theoretical, with little empirical validation of the life cycle concept, or analysis of the changing composition of a relationship as it progresses through a life cycle. This paper provides cross‐sectional empirical evidence of the existence of a buyer‐seller relationship life cycle within the investment services sector. The elements that buyers perceive as being important in holding a relationship together are dependent on the duration to date of the relationship. In the early stages of development, selling pressure is perceived as being a dominant element in relationship development, giving way to judgements of ethical credibility and empathy as the relationship develops. From this initial survey of investment services customers, a number of implications for relationship marketing strategies within the services sector are suggested.