Relationship Marketing and Customer Loyalty in Ghana’s Informal Economy: Does Customer Perceived Value Matter?

Abstract

In this study, we seek to understand the role of relationship marketing in achieving customer loyalty in Ghana’s informal economy. The study further investigated the role of customer perceived value as a pass-through mechanism for the relationship between relationship marketing and customer loyalty. We collected primary data from 229 customers of informal economy operators in Accra. The data was then analyzed using structural equation modeling using the STATA 15 Package. Our findings indicate that commitment is the only fundamental relationship marketing factor investigated that has a direct influence on customer loyalty in the informal business context. Trust and conflict handling, on the other hand, benefit significantly from the presence of customer-perceived value whereas communication seems to have negligible effects. Consequently, scholars and marketing practitioners seeking to deploy the relationship marketing concept in the informal economy need to be aware of these contextual interplays and how they shape further discussions of the relationship marketing theory.