The Effect of Customer Intimacy on Reference Behavior Tendency in the Context of Relationship Marketing: An Application in Service Sector

In today’s constantly changing dynamic market conditions, customer relationships have become more important than ever for businesses. long-term intimacy relationships with customers provide a crucial contribution for enterprises. one of these contributions is positive reference behavior of customers. reference behavior of customers has great importance in the service sector where consumers have difficulties on evaluating because of the high uncertainty conditions. in this study, the factors affecting intimacy between financial advisors and their customers, and the effect of intimacy on customers’ reference behavior were examined. the research model that was built for this purpose was analyzed by the structural equation modeling. the research findings indicate that the effect of customer intimacy on reference behavior is high and positive. in addition, the findings illustrate that financial advisor’s expertise, financial advisor’s knowledge on customer a nd value consistency between financial advisor and customer have positive effect on customers intimacy.