Purpose: Relationship marketing is about developing, maintaining and sustaining mutually beneficial customer–organisation relationships as measured by economic gains. Yet a purely economic focus does not fully offer a psychological explanation of relationship marketing outcomes. In this regard, we have considered gratitude as a significant component of personal relationships, which offers insights into customer–organisation relationships. Accordingly, this study examines gratitude as a mechanism to predict relationship marketing outcomes, such as overall satisfaction, trust, and commitment. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 1093 young consumers across three university campuses. Findings: Results indicate that gratitude is a mediating mechanism that can explain the relationship between young consumers’ perceptions of relationship marketing investments and overall satisfaction, trust, and commitment. Perceived benevolence strengthens the relationship between perceived relationship marketing investments and customer gratitude. Originality/value: The gratitude model contributes an alternative understanding of how young consumers’ perceptions of an organisation's marketing investments are important in achieving a high degree of relationship marketing outcomes. We further incorporate the moderating roles of customer cynicism and perceptions of benevolence, key individual and relational characteristics, that influence the level of gratitude individuals experience in response to the investments made by organisations.

中文翻译：

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感恩如何改善年轻消费者的关系营销成果

目的：关系营销是关于建立，维持和维持互惠互利的客户－组织关系（以经济收益衡量）。但是，单纯从经济角度出发，并不能完全从心理上解释关系营销的结果。在这方面，我们认为感谢是个人关系的重要组成部分，它提供了对客户与组织关系的见解。因此，本研究将感恩作为一种预测关系营销成果（例如总体满意度，信任和承诺）的机制进行了检验。设计/方法/方法：数据来自三个大学校园中的1093个年轻消费者。发现：结果表明，感恩是一种中介机制，可以解释年轻消费者对关系营销投资的看法与整体满意度，信任和承诺之间的关系。感知的仁慈加强了感知的关系营销投资与客户感恩之间的关系。独创性/价值：感恩模型对青年消费者对组织的营销投资的认知在实现高度关系营销结果中的重要性方面有不同的理解。我们还将客户玩世不恭和仁慈，关键的个人和关系特征的调节作用纳入其中，这会影响个人对组织进行的投资所产生的感激之情。