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Customer Segmentation: The Concepts of Trust, Commitment and Relationships

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Author Affiliations

  • 1Department of Marketing, Enugu State University of Science and Technology (esut) Enugu State NIGERIA
  • 2 Department of Accountancy, Enugu State University of Science and Technology (esut) Enugu State NIGERIA

Res. J. Management Sci., Volume 1, Issue (3), Pages 15-19, October,6 (2012)

Abstract

Few studies have emphasized a service firm’s customer based for segmentation purposes in identifying weak or strong relationships in a consumer’s mass marketing context of services. The research contributes to an understanding of how high or low levels of trust and of commitment can be used to differentiate customers in terms of active, use of the service regularly, and passive use of the services only occasionally. The empirical study was based on a customer sample of a Nigeria processing laboratory using direct marketing (DM) and on-line activities as marketing tools. A mail survey (n =4,130) was used and multiple items were applied to seven constructs. A-t test for an independent sample was used to access whether the two customer groups were statistically different. The results are that active customer differs significantly on 22 of the 27 measured items. Consequently active customers are more rational, with high levels of trust and of commitment, and passive customers are less rational. A theoretical and managerial implication is to use the chosen constructs (i.e. indicators) as segmentation variables of a firm’s customer’s base in developing strategy for long term customer relationship.

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