Relationship Quality and Customer Advocacy Behaviour Among Corporate Banking Clients in South East Nigeria

This study empirically examines the relationship between relationship quality and customer advocacy behaviour among corporate banking clients in South East Nigeria, drawing data from businesses banking with commercial banks in Anambra State and Imo State. Customer advocacy, whereby satisfied clients actively recommend financial institutions to other businesses, represents a high-value loyalty behaviour that reduces acquisition costs and enhances institutional reputation. In corporate banking contexts characterised by complex, high-stakes financial relationships, the quality of banker-client relationships is hypothesised to be the primary driver of advocacy. Grounded in relationship marketing theory and the trust-commitment model of relationship quality, the study operationalises relationship quality across trust, satisfaction, and commitment dimensions, testing their direct and combined effects on advocacy behaviour measured through referral frequency and positive word-of-mouth intensity. A cross-sectional quantitative survey of 280 corporate treasury and finance managers is conducted using purposive sampling. PLS-SEM is employed for model estimation. The study also tests whether relationship duration moderates the quality-advocacy link. Preliminary findings indicate that trust is the dominant relationship quality dimension predicting advocacy, while commitment shows stronger effects among clients with longer banking relationships. Satisfaction alone is insufficient to generate advocacy in the absence of trust. The study contributes to the B2B financial services marketing literature with empirical evidence from a major South East Nigerian commercial hub and provides corporate banking relationship managers with actionable advocacy development strategies. Keywords: relationship quality, customer advocacy, corporate banking, trust, South East Nigeria