The Impact of Interpersonal Relationships on Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty to The Service Provider

In service-providing agencies and organizations, the service-providing staff communicates directly with customers. The interpersonal relationships between customers and the service staff are of a social and professional nature. The quality of such interpersonal relationships allows customers to form a general idea about the quality of services, thus leading to their satisfaction and loyalty. The present study investigates the effect of interpersonal relationships of service providers and service receivers, and the effect of interpersonal relationships of service receivers with one another relative to their overall satisfaction with and their attitudinal and behavioral loyalty to the service providing organization. The study further examines personal loyalty to the service provider and personal loyalty to other customers or receivers. Data were gathered through established methods and analyzed by means of correlation. The study was of the investigative type, and data were collected from 387 subjects by means of cluster random sampling. The results showed that all of the kindergartens in Tehran have a correlation among "closeness of interpersonal relationships between service providing staff and customers" "customers’ overall satisfaction", "behavioral loyalty", "attitudinal loyalty", "personal loyalty to the service-providing staff", and "personal loyalty to other customers." The foregoing proved to be positively correlated and significant. Also, the correlation among "closeness of interpersonal customers and customer's overall satisfaction, behavioral loyalty, attitudinal loyalty and personal loyalty to other customers are both positive and significant.