Investigating the relationship between trust capabilities, trust and loyalty intention in insurance companies (a case study of private insurance companies in Gilan province)

Dissertation for Master's degree

Commercial management field - insurance management trend

Abstract:

Today, service industries play a fundamental and important role in the economic growth and development of countries, and among them, the role and importance of the insurance industry as a productive and supportive industry for other industries is not hidden from anyone. On the other hand, the world of insurance is rapidly changing and becoming competitive, and it is necessary to progress, survive and remain in the scene, to understand the needs of customers and satisfy them. Relationship marketing has emerged as the key for marketers to attract, retain and enhance relationships with their customers. In competitive markets, businesses compete for customer loyalty to reduce costs, improve profits, and sustain growth. Loyalty is an old word that is usually used to describe strong and passionate attachment to a country, cause or person.

Objectives: In this regard, the present research has tried to design a system in addition to achieving a comprehensive model related to loyalty intentions, so that based on it, it can identify factors affecting employee trust and management policies and practices and its impact on customer loyalty. because we came to answer a scientific dilemma and problem that exists in the real world. In terms of data collection, sampling was done at one point in time (summer of 2012), so this research is cross-sectional in terms of time. The statistical population of the research is unlimited and includes private insurance customers of Gilan province, the sample size is 384 according to the formula. The cluster sampling method and the customers have been randomly selected, the data collection tool is a questionnaire, and the data analysis has been done using Lisrel 2.8 software. Results: Based on the results obtained among the eight hypotheses, only two hypotheses related to the relationship between customer perception of employees' competence and employee trust, and the relationship of customer perception of employees' tendency to solve problems with employee trust, and the hypotheses of customer perception of employee benevolence with employee trust, are rejected. The customer's understanding of the merit of policies with customer's trust in policies, the relationship of customer's perception with the benevolence of policies with customer's trust in policies, the relationship of customer's trust in employees with customer's trust in policies, the relationship of customer's trust in employees with customer's loyalty intentions and the relationship of customer's trust in policies with customer's loyalty intentions were confirmed. According to the results obtained, the highest amount of relationship of 53% related to the hypothesis of customer's perception of benevolence in policies and management practices positively with customer's trust in policies and practices.

Chapter 1

Generalities of the research

1) Statement of the problem

Today, service industries play a fundamental and important role in the economic growth and development of countries, and among them, the role and importance of the insurance industry as a productive industry and supporting other industries is not hidden from anyone. On the other hand, the world of insurance is rapidly changing and becoming competitive, and it is necessary to progress, survive and remain in the scene, to understand the needs of customers and to satisfy them. Relationship marketing has emerged as the key for marketers to attract, retain and enhance relationships with their customers. In competitive markets, businesses compete for customer loyalty to reduce costs, improve profits, and sustain growth. Loyalty is an old word that is usually used to describe strong and passionate attachment to a country, cause or person. More recently, in the business context, this term has been used to describe a customer's desire to continue working with a company for a longer period of time, to purchase and use frequently and preferably exclusively purchase its goods and services, and to voluntarily recommend that company's products to friends and colleagues. Customer loyalty will only last as long as the customer feels he is getting better value than he could get by switching to another supplier. Therefore, the customer always buys goods or services from the company that he believes will offer him the most value.The meaning of the highest value offered to the customer is the difference between the total value desired by the customer and the total costs he will pay (Faiz and Rajabi Miandreh, 2017). Kotler (2003) describes the term loyalty as a lasting commitment to family, country or friends and believes that this term entered the marketing literature with an emphasis on brand loyalty. He believes that making customers loyal requires discriminating between different customers and no company can be expected to pay the same attention to unprofitable customers as it does to profitable customers (Rangebrian and Brari, 2008).

Trust means a behavioral intention or a behavior that reflects the partner's trust and includes vulnerability and uncertainty on the part of the trustor (Choudhuri and Holbrook, 2001). Also, trust is defined as the willingness to rely on a partner who is reliable (Moorman et al., 1992).

In people-centered services, customers develop their beliefs and trustworthiness through interaction with employees, through their experiences with management policies and practices (Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002). High reliability also leads to greater loyalty. Because trust in the relationship confirms the positive feeling of the customer and his confidence in the company (Sweeney and Swait, 2008). Competence (expertise) reflects the ability to deliver high quality services based on expertise, experience and manifesting the implementation of overt behaviors. Benevolence reflects the extent to which a service provider means well and genuinely seeks the interests of customers before their own interests (Shainesh., 2012). Benevolence is formed by the overt behaviors of employees and managerial practices and the influence of trust. Service has a higher potential for problems encountered during service (Bitner et al., 1990). Problem-solving orientation emerges as an important factor in customer evaluation of service exchange. Therefore, problem-solving orientation is the tendency of the customer to anticipate and resolve the problem during the service And it is defined after the service exchange (Shainesh, 2012).

Therefore, the main research question is whether there is a meaningful relationship between trustworthiness, trust and loyalty intention in insurance companies?

1-2) Importance and necessity of conducting research:

Marketing theory was initially proposed in relation to tangible and physical goods. Nevertheless, one of the main and fundamental trends in this field has been the growth of the service phenomenon. Service industries are very diverse. Since customers are the most important pillar of the survival of various production and service units, responding to the needs of customers according to their interests and demands is a significant issue in the marketing plans of organizations. In today's world, communicating with the customer and getting his satisfaction is at the top of all organizations' activities. The growth and development of insurance, as one of the indicators of the development of societies, is strongly influenced by the level of satisfaction of the customers, who are the policyholders, and the preservation and survival of insurance companies depends on the satisfaction and loyalty of the policyholders of those companies.  In addition to achieving a comprehensive model related to loyalty intentions, the present research has tried to design a system based on which it can identify the factors affecting employee trust and management policies and practices and its effect on customer loyalty. 1-3) Research theoretical framework and causal model The importance of relationship marketing growth has led to the creation of trust and loyalty in marketing literature as well as in business. This is especially true for services with inherent characteristics of tangibility, heterogeneity, and complexity. In addition, when a service is personally important and requires high involvement, there is uncertainty in the users' experience and a sense of vulnerability. Berry [1] (1995) recognized that when customers develop their trust in service providers, they experience lower uncertainty and a sense of vulnerability. Similarly, Morgan and Hunt[2] (1994) recommended that companies should seek satisfaction and build trust beyond building long-term relationships with their customers. Likewise, Jones and Sasser [3] (1995) emphasized the need to reduce reliance on satisfaction measures alone to assess quality in customer relationships. Maintaining and making customers loyal can be one of the most important and vital goals of any organization, under the shadow of which the organization can reach its existential goal, which is profitability (Tavaklizadeh, 2014).