臺大管理論叢第31卷第2期

21 NTU Management Review Vol. 31 No. 2 Aug. 2021 (Pick and Eisend, 2014). Given that the customer relationship changes over time, we use the dynamic relationship theory and add a new mediator in the context of relationship marketing: gratitude. Our results show that the rate of change of the relationship (velocity) impacts the effect of customer loyalty more than that at a single point in time. Thus, longterm dynamic research is necessary for both academia and for business practices. Trust is another key elements of building successful customer relationships in the virtual environment. This study reveals that relationship benefits have a positive impact on gratitude velocity and trust velocity, and the effect of gratitude (initial) on customer loyalty is greater than that on trust (initial), even though customer gratitude and trust both have positive impacts on customer loyalty over time. Thus, online sellers can create unique services and increase their competitive advantages by maximizing customer gratitude. In other words, the enterprises should continue to provide various relationship benefits to maintain long-term customer relationships. Examples include building social benefits (e.g., friendship) with online customers via social media and offering customers extra services such as gift packages for the customers. For managers of e-commerce, our study indicates the degree to which gratitude and trust influence online consumers. Therefore, we recommend that enterprises develop marketing strategies that focus on understanding customer gratitude in relational exchanges in order to develop and maintain the loyalty of online customers.

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