Relationship Marketing

Smellyirishman

Hey, I don't know if this is the appropriate board for posting this or what not but I figure its worth a shot.

Well, I have to give a short presentation about Relationship marketing in roughly a week. Now, I have just been handed this, without ever having heard of Relationship Marketing (doing a computing degree). I have googled some stuff and I figure that Relationship marketing has something to do with the continuing market plan that a business has for its customers. Opposed to just bring out an add then moving onto the next plan.

I am just looking for some ground work to go on. It is only a 3-5minute thing, so it should not be so bad, but I have no idea what to talk about so far.

Examples of companies that use such a stratgey would be great.

I just got this "assignment" yesterday and it has been pissing me off to no end. Any help would be greatly appreciated

antoinolachtnai

Well, that's one way of looking at it. Another way to look at it is as follows:

Rather than considering the business a particular customer does with the company as a serious of separate transactions, you should look upon the relationship in its totality when you are evaluating how to deal with the customer.

For example, a supermarket would consider a shopper in terms of her needs as a whole, rather than as just a person who happens to buy in the store now and again.

The whole world of loyalty cards and air miles schemes is tied up with the concept of relationship marketing. It has been a steady source of income for computer programmers for the last twenty years and it is a wholly appropriate area for you to study if only for that reason.

Relationship marketing has its problems too. It is very expensive and cumbersome to operate. Operations like Ryanair abandoned their loyalty schemes years ago. It is also the case that many people have loyalty cards from all the supermarkets, which defeats the whole purpose.

a.

Smellyirishman

Much appreciated

isolde

Hey smellyirishman,

I think relationship marketing is linked to good customer service and customer retention.
Good customer service is the lifeblood of any business really. You can have fantastic promotions and rock-bottom prices in order to bring in new customers, but the key is finding a way to retain these customers. And of course, about sending them away happy to pass on positive feedback about your company to other people.

I mean like, a good salesperson can sell anyone anything once. But it’s their approach to customer service that will determine whether or not they’ll ever be able to sell that person anything else. The essence of good customer service is forming a relationship with the customer - a relationship that that individual customer feels he would like to further pursue. Long-term client and customer loyalty is therefore a long-term challenge that every company must strive for every day and with every transaction, no matter how big or small.

The goal of traditional marketing was to generate sales, whereas now the focus has turned to Customer Relationship Management, which focuses on the creation of a loyal cutsomer. The establishment of customer loyalty and "lifetime" relationships can increase company value, and losing loyal customers can have serious ramifications... thus the increasing focus on CRM.

In general terms, companies must raise the enrty barriers for competitors by building up lasting relationships with their customers and do whatever possible to increase sales through repeat customers. This could be achieved by tailoring individual offers for individual consumers and also by allowing them to help to tailor their offers, by choosing which services are important to them.. loyalty cards are one way of doing this, like antoinolachtnai said.

Hope that helps in some way!

~ isolde

Smellyirishman

Wow, thanks for that.

Yep, both of the replies have given me a much better understanding of what RM is all about.

Thank you very much for the responses

Smellyirishman

Just a reply to say a big Thank You! two you guys.

I had my presentation Yesterday and it all went well. Without you guys I would not have known where to begin though, so thank you very much for helping!

isolde

not a bother, really glad it went well!

~ isolde