Defining business-to-consumer relationships: The consumer's perspective

The purpose of this paper is to capture the consumer's meaning of a relationship with a commercial firm. The unaided definitions of 167 adult consumers were coded using constructs based on service quality, social exchange and transactional exchange theories. The results revealed that service quality constructs were mentioned by 57 per cent of the respondents, social exchange constructs were mentioned by 41 per cent, and transactional exchange constructs by 25 per cent. The definitions used by many consumers were multi-dimensional and included a mix of constructs. The results confirm that while some business-to-business relationship constructs are appropriate for understanding the nature of the business-to-consumer relationship, service quality dimensions are central to the consumer's definition of this relationship. The implications of this research reinforce the notion that the consumer's relationship with a business is a means to an end, not the goal.