the contribution of relationship marketing underpinning to customer loyalty: a comparison of a private with a government owned bank

competition intensity in market place and perceived importance of customer retention for organizations has inclined them to develop and maintain enduring relation with customers. according to marketing scholars, relationship marketing is the best strategy for doing so. in this article the contribution of relationship marketing underpinnings namely, commitment, trust, communication, and conflict handling to customer loyalty and their importance from customer viewpoint and success of bank in developing such relation have been studied. this is a descriptive survey study, which its research population was made up of 312 customers of different branches of a private and a government owned bank. the data gathering instrument was a self administered questionnaire. data were analyzed by a multiple regression model. the results indicate that in the government bank, the four underpinning of relationship marketing have significant relation with customer loyalty but in the private bank there was no significant relation between customer loyalty and banks communication