The Impact Of Remote Service Technologies On Business Relationship Marketing - International Investigation In A B2B-Setting

Modern information technologies alter not only the nature of services and their delivery process (Meuter et. al 2005; Dabholkar 1994) but also the interaction at the interface between service provider and customer (Hakansson 1982; Colby and Parasuraman 2003; Bhappu and Schultze 2006). Therefore limited personal communication and face-to-face-interaction is challenging service provider and customer with special regard to business relationship marketing (Lindh, Dahlin and Hadjikhani 2008; Leek, Turnbull and Naudé 2003).The investigation of how customers perceive and evaluate remote services and how the transformation from close personal contact to technology-mediated interaction will affect the relationship between service provider and customer is relevant for academicians at the IMP group and practitioners.