Customer intimacy and commitment to relationships with firms in five different sectors: Preliminary evidence

We examined the role of intimacy in customer relationships. Applying the psychological triangular theory of love, we show that customer-to-firm relationships are characterized by two major dimensions: commitment and customer intimacy. The latter is the mere affective component. Our results subsequently reveal that, overall, only a small proportion of individuals experience their customer relationships as intimate. Only in high-involvement markets (i.e. automotive), there is a substantial group of customers that experiences a high level of customer intimacy. We do, however, show that customer intimacy contributes to the explanation of commitment in customer relationships, beyond traditional variables in the relationship-investment model, such as satisfaction, quality of alternatives and relationship investments. We also illustrate that in order to build commitment, customer intimacy is most important in the early stages and in the last stage of the relationship. It can be concluded that investing in intimate relationships may be a viable strategy in specific phases of the relationship: in the beginning of relationships, to initiate successful relationships, and at the end, to continue relationships in a crisis.