Relationship Marketing Approaches in Services Marketing

Throughout The Marketing Era the tables have turned from producers to consumers, which changed the market with alluring choices. This was when businesses began to develop brands, to differentiate themselves from their competitors, helping their customers identify various unique products. Last but least The Relationship Era is where businesses aim to build long-term relationships, because they believe a satisfied customer can become great assets for a business. A satisfied customer is a loyal and businesses rely on customers to spread the word on their goods and services.

As competition increases, a company will always have its loyal customers if their salespeople build a strong partnering relationship. Today, we live in an information era where things are constantly becoming outdated but a quality relationship with customers will always have the customers coming back for your product, regardless what company enters the market.

7) The significance of the shift from transaction-based marketing to relationship marketing is that firms realize that just attracting customers to buy their products is not quite as important as establishing and maintaining relationships with them so that they will turn into loyal repeat customers. Relationship building begins early in marketing. It starts with what customers want and need, and then developing high-quality products to meet those needs.

The purchasing goods & services have throughout the years begun to lead to a new perception of consumer relationship and in ways businesses conduct their operations. Not only is a business concerned with the buying and selling of goods & services but to further maintain that relationship with their customers to correlate between both parties. As this being the prime functionality of businesses, each business must differentiate themselves with other businesses offering different and wholesome services, which overwhelms their competitors, thus adding their own individualistic value to the marketing

Losing a customer means a lot more than losing a sale, it means losing the entire future stream of purchases that the customer would make over a lifetime of patronage. There are a number of reasons why a customer may stop buying from a company; very often though that reason is linked to poor customer service as opposed to something inherently wrong with the brand itself. Customer relationships give companies a competitive edge based on the merit that if consumers are happy more often than not those consumers will continue to do business with said company. A recent study conducted by TD Canada’s customer loyalty poll asked consumers which form of appreciation are

Development of good customer relations is vital for the survival of any given company. Marketing research serves as an indicator of the level of current costumer relation,

3.) Transactional marketing, in the perspective of luring the customer for a one off purchase, focuses strongly on price and short term benefits and product performance, with limited service. Relationship marketing is all about generating repeated sales and customer interactions, thus focusing on bringing value to the customer, and assuring long term performance and service, all aspects of quality become major concerns. Relationship marketing brings customer centricity to the spotlight. This vision has

1 In Relationship era, business gets a different method which includes long time relation with their customers and how they buy that products by just knowing about their customer’s desires and needs. They interact with their customers and it takes a lot of time to know about each person personally. The companies who have long term customers, they don’t have to give discounts to make new customers because their regular customers help them by just referring that product or company. The companies get a lot of benefits from their existing customers as the relationships between the customers reduce their overall costs. During this era, business did not confine to one nation only but it grows beyond boundaries.

Building a relationship with pervious customers or new customers, would make the marketing process much easier. If a company already have a good standing with a customer, then it would be easier for the company to market a new product to that customer. A healthy relationship with a pervious customer can also bring new customers for the simple fact of word of mouth communication. If a pervious company is happy with the company that means that customer will tell their friends about the company and bring business to the

An effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program can be used to identify, retain, satisfy and obtain customers by using technology to optimize strategies for understanding customers’ needs to manage business interactions with current, former, and prospective customers. Additionally, CRM also enables companies to maximize internal, external, marketing and customer service operations to better address the needs of the customer building a better relationship with customers that a more profitable. (Ahmad & Buttle, 2001)

Marketing is a management function which involves creating, communicating and delivering value for an organisation’s customers (Kotler, Brown, Burton, Deans & Armstrong (2010). Although many earlier academics define marketing as merely a process of satisfying customer needs in order to gain profits, more recent developments of the definition include its inherent connection with delivering superior value to customers in order to maintain ongoing relationships (Webster, 1992).

5. RELATIONSHIP MARKETING: In this competitive era, companies are always looking for ways to develop and maintain a long lasting relationship with customers, employees and even suppliers. Relationship marketing is two way traffic; it goes beyond just making ‘sales’ and companies are beginning to realize. Good relationship with customers is a strategic weapon for any company, this is because long term customers buy more, do referrals and give back valuable and truthful feedback. Keeping a customer requires an extra effort. According to the founder of Walmart: “There is only one boss, the customer, and he can fire

There are several objectives that the customer relationship management is being implemented, such as customer identification, customer differentiation, customer interaction and personalization (Peppers, 1998). First, it is very important for a company if it able to identify its customers. Different companies offer different products and services which may not satisfy all customers. The costs and efforts of acquiring new customers can be reduced and focused when the company finds out the customers who are its potential customers. For example, e-mail distribution or mailing services can be used if the company has the customers’ profile. Next, the company can use the services to differentiate its products with others. The company may sell or provide the similar products with the other

There can be different types of relationships in an organization that can range from just selling and not providing any services to the consumers in forming a partnership where the customers are involved in suggesting their needs and determining the type of products and services that can address their needs. By forming such relationship, the customers can get their needs satisfied and receive excellent service whereas the sales person can have their own advantage by increasing customers thereby increasing referrals that in turn help to gain more customers.

Purpose - In a seminal article, Webster argued in 1992 (Journal of Marketing, Vol. 56/October, pp. 1-17) that some changes in concept and practice have fundamentally reshaped the field of marketing. He claims that ‘customer relationships' are now the key strategic resource of a business. Strategic partnerships and networks are replacing simple market-based transactions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this claim in the context of various relationships maintained by the adidas® group.