The effect of relationship marketing and perceived service quality on customer loyalty in dental services the mediating role of perceived price fairness

Today, increasing competition forces businesses to ensure customer satisfaction and retain their existing customers, regardless of industry differences. In this context, relationship marketing and health service quality in health services are among the priority issues along with price justice in creating customer loyalty. For this reason, the research aimed to evaluate the mediating role of perceived price in examining the relationship marketing activities of dental clinics and the service quality they provide to their customers in terms of customer loyalty. For this purpose, the research as mentioned above variables were discussed in the light of several relevant marketing theories, hypotheses were created and their possible relationships and effects with each other were determined. The tests of the hypotheses created were carried out using quantitative methods. The research population consisted of 418 people obtained by convenience sampling method from patients coming to dental clinics. The data obtained from the participants were analyzed using PROCESS (Hayes for SPSS Version) SPSS and AMOS structural equation modeling and explained using frequency, percentage distributions, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, and regression analyses. As a result of the research, the effect of the quality of health care perceived by the participants receiving service from dental clinics on their perceived price fairness (β=.475; p<0.05) was found to be positive and significant. Accordingly, the increase in health service quality also increases perceived price fairness. Additionally, the relationship between perceived health service quality and customer loyalty was found to be positive and significant (β=.332; p<0.05). On the other hand, the indirect effect of cooperation on customer loyalty through perceived price fairness (β=.206; p<0.05) was also positive and significant. According to this result; It is seen that perceived price fairness has a full mediating effect on the effect of cooperation on customer loyalty. It is thought that these results will serve as a guide for dental clinics and their managers on the issues they will consider in creating customer loyalty. Keywords: Relationship marketing; Perceived health service quality, Perceived price fairness, Customer loyalty