Building strong relationships between services' providers and consumers: Evidence from Poland

This paper analyses nature of Business to Consumer (B2C) relationships on the services market in Poland. Post-modern school of thought focuses on customers as individuals who actively communicate their demands and switch between sellers rather on the basis of quality of exchange interactions stream than technical (objective) quality of a product. This paper presents main results of 551 interviews conducted in 2003 with particular customers of retail banks, mobile telephony operators and travel agencies. They all were living in Silesia (Poland). The research findings suggest that customers' motivations for maintaining relationship with service providers are complex, inter-related and different in particular service sectors. Within all analysed sectors there is a strong positive relationship between two variables: relationship strength and customer satisfaction. © Vilnius University, 2006.