Investigating the relationship between customer knowledge and customer loyalty with the mediation of customer value

Investigating the relationship between customer knowledge and customer loyalty with the mediation of customer value

(Study case: Bank Mellat branches in Gilan province)

Abstract:

Knowledge is an important factor in the economy, but for success in the business market, attention should be paid to another key factor called the customer. Considering the importance of the customer in today's competitive world, especially in the banking industry, and considering that according to research, the cost of attracting a new customer is far more than the cost of maintaining customer loyalty, investigating the methods of acquiring and maintaining customer loyalty is a high priority. In this research, an attempt has been made to examine the relationship between customer knowledge and customer loyalty with the mediation of customer value. The descriptive research method is correlation type and the information was collected using a questionnaire. The statistical population of the research consists of customers of Bank Mellat branches in Gilan province. The results obtained from the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the overall fit of the model was appropriate. This shows the sufficient validity of the conceptual model. Pearson's correlation method and structural equations were used to measure the research hypotheses and finally all the hypotheses were confirmed. Keywords: knowledge management, customer relationship management, customer knowledge management, customer knowledge, customer loyalty, customer value. This will reduce marketing and operational costs and increase profitability. In any organization, whether production or service, the most important factor for the preservation and survival of the organization are the customers. If the organization can succeed in creating loyalty by satisfying the customers, it can prepare the ground for its long-term growth and survival, the introduction of which can be considered as a complete understanding of the customer's wishes. The basis of the banking system of the country is the customer, and according to most experts, the most useful and appropriate strategy of banks is customer orientation. In this chapter, the statement of the problem, the necessity of conducting the research, the conceptual model of the research, the statement of goals, hypotheses, the scope of the research and the conceptual and operational definition of the variables are discussed. 

Statement of the research problem

In today's competitive and challenging environment, organizations emphasize more than anything to create stable and profitable relationships with customers. Marketing is at a stage in its evolution where marketers are not the only ones thinking about new customers. Now customer satisfaction is no longer enough and companies must make sure that their satisfied customers are also loyal. Traditional marketing has always emphasized attracting new customers and sales, while today this perspective has changed and new realities have been opened before the marketers of companies. The existence of obvious changes in the demographic composition of societies in different dimensions, the gradual economic growth and development of advanced countries, the complexity of the behavior of competing companies and the excess capacity of a large number of industries have caused companies to be unable to attract new customers as in the past. In such an environment, the modern marketing of companies, in addition to trying to acquire new customers, leads to maintaining and maintaining current customers and creating a permanent relationship with them (Tabatabaei Nesab, 2016). Also, emphasis on knowledge and information is one of the most basic characteristics of smart organizations. Today, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to provide products and services with appropriate and economic quality without proper management and use of knowledge, and if an organization does not know or cannot use its stored knowledge, it will have little chance of survival. It is not enough for an organization to know what it has. Organizations must also become aware of what they do not know. Identifying what the organization needs requires special insight and insight, which is possible through knowledge management (Salis and Jens [1], 2002). Research on knowledge management began in the early 1990s. With the growth of information technology and knowledge economy, knowledge management grew very fast and strong (Tian and Feng [2], 2005). Knowledge management emphasizes the use of knowledge to create competitive advantage and dynamism of companies in today's fast growing and complex environment. Customer knowledge management and customer relationship management both rely on finding resources to support a company's business processes.Customer relationship management considers current and future customers as the success factor of the company, while knowledge management considers the amount of knowledge available to the company as a success factor.

Since changes in the banking industry of our country have caused a frequent increase in customer expectations in all areas related to customer service. Therefore, banks should guide and implement systems to create customer loyalty by accurately identifying the dimensions of customer loyalty. Knowledge management includes all the methods that the organization manages its knowledge assets, which includes how to collect, store, transfer, apply, update and create knowledge (Fadlala, 2003; quoted by Taj Aldini et al., 2019). By using customer relationship management, companies can effectively manage customer information; In fact, the goal of customer relationship management is to increase loyalty (Rozmi and Ghanbari, 2017).

In fact, for a successful presence in today's dynamic market, one must consider an important component called customer knowledge. Customer knowledge is increasingly recognized as a key strategic resource in the success of any company, including banks. Customer knowledge is a very essential intangible asset for any organization because it helps that organization to organize itself towards value creation. Marketing science researchers recommend that the employees of the organization should follow every opportunity to interact with the customer in order to enrich their information base with respect to the customer (Zanjani et al. [3], 2008). The benefits and results of using customer knowledge are beneficial for both the customer and the organization. Among the benefits that the use of this type of knowledge has for the organization include the following (Feng and Tian, ??2005): Customer satisfaction, improving customer service, familiarizing the organization with customer-specific knowledge, improving customer maintenance and retention. Three types of knowledge flows that play a vital role in the interaction between the company and the customer are: knowledge "for", "from" and "about" the customer. First, to support customers in their buying cycle, a continuous flow from the company to customers (knowledge for the customer) is needed. "Knowledge for the customer" includes information about products, markets and suppliers. This dimension of knowledge also affects the customer's perception of service quality (Rollins and Hallinen [4], 2005). At the same time, "Knowledge from the customer" should be absorbed and used in order to create innovation, generate ideas and continuously improve services and products. Collecting and analyzing "customer knowledge" is definitely one of the oldest forms of knowledge management activity in the field of customer relations. In fact, a type of knowledge that helps the organization to know the customers and target them effectively. There are three types of knowledge about the customer, demographic, psychological and behavioral (Zamani Moghadam, Lahiji, 2013).

In order to have loyal customers using the knowledge gained from the customer, the variable of customer value can be used as a mediator, in fact customer value, the customer's overall evaluation of the desirability of a product is defined based on his perception of what he received in exchange for what he paid, that is, if the perceived value of the service received is the perceived value A customer's satisfaction means that the customer's expectations have been met, and this leads to customer loyalty. Customer value can include social, emotional, functional value of the institution, functional value in relation to the personnel, functional value of the purchased service. The conceptual model of this research is defined as follows.

Conceptual model of the research

The conceptual model of the current research is a summary of the research of Feng and Tian (2005) which is shown below. Research

Entering the third millennium AD, many concepts have gained a different meaning in leading organizations and loyal customers have become very important. Since the cost of attracting new customers is high, the decrease of customers leads to a decrease in profitability and ultimately the survival of the organization is threatened. In the research, it was found that 62% of unsuccessful organizations did not consider customer loyalty as effective (Mohammadi, 2012).