The services business originally evolved around keepi

Relationship marketing goes much further than the one-off single transaction, it includes the ability to manage the service offering better than their competitors and in doing so gain competitive advantage. This means that elements of the service offering that may previously have been viewed with lesser importance are brought together as a total service offering with sellers being more proactive. To enable this proactive approach there must be an exchange of information between the two parties. There is much evidence that suppliers are seeking ways of becoming better informed about their consumers, often through the use of IT to improve their knowledge about both individual purchasers and markets. Especially in financial services, but increasingly in retail and other sectors, extensive databases about clients are being developed. The data include lifestyle information, such as the stage in the family life cycle and interest in certain broad classes of product as collated through previous purchases.

It has been suggested that the customer’s view of the desirability of entering a relationship will be affected by their perception of the likely size of the transaction costs involved (Blois, 1996). Blois suggests that a consumer will seek that form of relationship, which they believe, will minimise the need for them to incur high transaction costs. Long-term relationships may be beneficial to the supplier but if the consumer finds himself or herself tied into one supplier – then it cannot be claimed that this type of marketing is customer focused. There must therefore be a balance between relationships and transactions with the customer’s interests at the heart of this equation. For example, relationships with insurance and mortgage companies are by their nature long term and notoriously difficult for the customer to break without incurring significant penalties. Suppliers need to be aware to what extent a customer sees a relationship as being equitable. Where no alternatives exist, a consumer and supplier may form a relationship but the reason is not through their own choice but one of lack of choice.

ng close relationships with customers. However, because of the increasing number of customers and the stressing of the marketing mix paradigm, the relationship with customers moved into the background during the 1960s (Grönroos, 1995). As mass markets developed the hard core loyal users diminished amidst the ever-increasing opportunity for the consumer to switch to alternative brands and sellers. Services, in particular, are vulnerable to imitation and it was recognised that moving to a relationship focus, rather than transaction focus, could provide competitive advantage through long term customer retention. Programmes emphasising ‘putting the customer first’ and ‘smile’ campaigns were the outcome of such schools of thought, as an effort to satisfy the demands of the consumer deluged by an ever-increasing array of alternatives.

Some topics in this essay:
Peugeot’s Internet, Peter Drucker, Nordic School, RELATIONSHIP MARKETING, Morgan Hunt, Shield Stamps’, Safeways Consumers, relationship marketing, marketing concept, relationships customers, services marketing, importance customer, competitive advantage, loyalty cards, et al, building relationships, writer argues, marketing mix paradigm, information relationship marketing, writer argues relationship, brodie et al, argues relationship marketing,