Relationship Marketing Strategies in the Life Insurance Industry: A Revised Framework and Across-National Comparison

Relationship marketing has been widely researched in the past decade in western society. Unfortunately, its examination in eastern society is limited. Given different cultural backgrounds between eastern and western societies (Hsieh 1994) and the possible influence of culture on marketing strategies, relationship marketing frameworks tested with data collected in western society may not be appropriate when applying to eastern society. To solve this problem, this paper intends to establish a revised relationship marketing framework that is more appropriate for eastern society. This paper examines the relationship marketing strategies employed by life insurance firms in Taiwan and Southeast Asian Countries. The results indicate that some of these relationship marketing strategies are different from those that are only tested with western firms. Furthermore, even within Asia, the emphasis of relationship marketing strategies between firms in Taiwan and in Southeast Asia is different. The former cares more about communication with customers whereas the latter mainly utilizes personal relationships as their primary relationship marketing strategy. Both CUSTOMER ORIENTATION and COMMUNICATION strategies are related to marketing performance.