Growth and Development of Financial and Non-Financial Performance in the Insurance Industry Through Relational Marketing Tactics

Nowadays, various businesses, especially service companies, must use a variety of marketing measures to build effective relationships with customers, to lead to commitment and loyalty. Therefore, it is important to ensure that relationship-based marketing strategies improve the performance of companies. In today's era, different businesses and especially service companies should use various marketing measures and activities to establish effective relationships with customers, in order to create conditions that lead to commitment and loyalty among them. For this reason, ensuring that relationship-based marketing strategies lead to improved company performance is of paramount importance. All marketing activities carried out in order to create, develop, and maintain successful relationships, which is called relationship marketing, are defined as a two-way relationship between the service provider and the customer that leads to profitability. Relationship marketing tactics include financial, social and structural dimensions and are influential on financial and non-financial functions.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

This study examines the effectiveness of customer relationship management. The purpose of this study is to investigate the growth and development of financial and non-financial performance in the insurance industry through relational marketing policies. In the last two decades, many organizations have become aware of the importance of their customers' satisfaction and have realized that maintaining existing customers is less expensive than attracting new customers.  For this reason, companies must always monitor and take care of the interaction between themselves and their customers, and with the correct knowledge and understanding of the needs and values ​​of customers, provide them with valuable goods and services in order to create loyalty in them by gaining satisfaction. Relationship marketing is known as a strategic solution to create commitment and loyalty and influential on the quality of relationships with customers. Also, customer relationship management leads to enhanced efficiency and performance and improved effectiveness in customer service, integration of communication channels, increase in new business opportunities and competitive performance, and customer classification. Relationship marketing has a significant impact on the quality of customer relationship management and the quality of management. Communication with the customer, which shows the customer's commitment and trust, affects the organizational performance

The current research is practical in terms of purpose, and is descriptive-survey and correlational in terms of the nature of the method and implementation. The statistical population of the research consists of different branches of insurance agencies in Mashhad. According to statistics and information, there are 140 companies. Therefore, using Morgan's table, 103 samples were determined for the statistical population. The sample analysis unit in this research was the managers of the brokerages. Due to the lack of cooperation of some agencies in providing data and completing the questionnaire, available sampling method has been used. 110 questionnaires were distributed among the members of the statistical community and finally 103 questionnaires were collected. The tool of data collection was a questionnaire that was compiled in three sections: introduction, demographic questions and questions to measure the main variables of the research. To measure the main variables of the research, 38 questions were designed and the measuring scale of the variables was a five-part Likert scale. Given that the questionnaire was standard and its validity has already been confirmed, it can be said that it has the required validity. Nonetheless, to determine the validity of the questionnaire, the face content validity method was used again. For this purpose, the questionnaire was given to the experts, professors and experts related to the research field and they were asked to express their corrective opinions and after collecting their opinions and actions, the final questionnaire was compiled. Average variance index (AVE) was used to measure the validity of questionnaire questions. To measure the reliability of the research questionnaire, the customary method of reliability assessment, i.e., Cronbach's alpha coefficient, was used. This coefficient is higher than 0.7 for all variables and equal to 0.95 for the entire questionnaire, which is a good coefficient and shows that the reliability of the research tool is at an optimal level. Also, the combined reliability coefficient (CR) was used to measure the reliability of the questionnaire. Table (1) shows the results of validity and reliability indices of the questionnaire.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of relationship marketing dimensions on the financial and non-financial performance of insurance agencies with the mediating role of the quality of customer relationship variable. After examining the theoretical foundations and related literature, and based on the conceptual model of the research, taken from Kaliskan and Asmer (2019), hypotheses were presented. After data collection, data analysis was done using structural equation modeling with the help of Smart-PLS software. The analysis of data and results showed that each of the variables of relational marketing tactics, including financial, social and structural, had a positive and significant effect on the quality of customer relationship.  A significant relationship between the quality of customer relationship and financial and non-financial performance was also confirmed. Also, the variables of relationship marketing tactics, including financial, social and structural, showed a significant impact on financial and non-financial performance through the quality of communication with the customer.

 CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

The impact of financial relationship marketing on the quality of customer relationship was shown to be positive, and this demonstrates that insurance company managers can gain the trust and commitment of their customers and increase the quality of their customer relationship by using financial relationship marketing tactics. The positive effect of social relationship marketing on the quality of customer relationship showed that insurance agency managers using social related marketing tactics (such as regular contact with customers in any way, reminding them of special occasions, paying attention to the tastes of their customers, holding social events to their suggestions and complaints, etc.) can enhance the satisfaction and loyalty of their customers and improve the quality of their relationship with customers. The positive effect of the quality of customer relationship on financial performance also showed that insurance agency managers by maintaining the quality of relationship with their customers (such as adhering to commitments, giving detailed information and advice, being trustworthy in maintaining and maintaining customer's personal information, which leads to commitment and more customers' trust and loyalty to the company, etc.) can make the customer loyal to the company. The positive impact of customer relationship quality on non-financial performance showed that insurance agency managers can attract new customers in the future by maintaining the quality of relationship with their customers apart from keeping their current customers.