Within grocery retailing, there seems to have been a shift to a more customer oriented perspective. As indicated by the empirical studies presented in this paper, grocery stores customers seem to be generally satisfied, and lack clear notions of how the stores could be improved. One explanation is that since grocery shopping is a frequently occurring activity, customers adapt their expectations to their supplier stores. Working with providing solutions to consumers' routinized problems, retailers thus cannot expect a high level of involvement from their customers in demanding and suggesting improvements. This must be considered by retailers implementing a customer orientation approach.
In recent years the traditional approach to marketing has been challenged by the new paradigm of Relationship Marketing. The meaning of Relationship Marketing is still being developed, in theory and in practice. The purposes of this paper are: 1. to determine whether Relational Marketing approaches (Database Marketing, Interaction Marketing and Network Marketing) are replacing the traditional Transactional Marketing approach, or supplementing it; 2. to consider changes occurring in the processes of automotive marketing, as automobile firms try to develop a sharper customer focus, and in order to illustrate the characteristics and implications of this new marketing approach.
The significance of relationships with customers has received strong emphasis in recent marketing literature. Relations should be profitable, which can be measured by means of the LifeTime Value (LTV) concept. In this paper, a model for measuring LTV is developed. In the New Marketing LTV should be a forward-looking - instead of backward-looking - measure, based on customer and supplier data - instead of supplier data only, calculated for individual customers - instead of a group of customers, based on analyses of developments - instead of copying the past, and used for creating, developing and maintaining relationships with customers - instead of acquiring new customers only. However, our empirical study shows that on average, a larger proportion of statistics based on historical data is available as compared to statistics based on future data, LTV calculations are more frequently based on supplier data than on customer data, and LTV is more often calculated for groups of customers than for individual customers. This implies that there is still considerable room for a more sophisticated use of LTV analyses in the New Marketing.
This paper focuses on two different strategies that companies can use in order to increase customer loyalty: a relationship strategy which is intended to build long-term relationships with individual customers and a reward strategy which is intended to reward customers with hard benefits for their loyalty. The paper delivers a better insight into the strategic importance that Belgian companies attribute to customer loyalty and into their perception of the influence of relationship and reward strategies on loyalty. Moreover, the research shows how many Belgian companies are currently using relationship and/or reward strategies and how they are implementing these strategies.
The rationale of this study was based on the argument that unless we have a clear understanding of the selling job in a relational selling context we are unable to advise the sales management of the firm in the quest of building and maintaining successful relationships between the firm and its customers. Our exploratory study highlighted a number of key issues which, in our opinion, are promising for the development of the theory and practice of relationship orientated sales management of the firm.
The premise of this paper is that relationship marketing should be equated with ethical marketing. That is, ethical concepts are at the root of long term associations between companies. The field of virtue ethics is especially appropriate to this field. We propose that the virtues most consistent with relationship marketing are trust, commitment and diligence. Each are discussed in some depth along with both applications and future prospects.
Relationship marketing provides an effective paradigm for analysing client/advertising agency relationships. A quasi-ethnograpic approach was utilised to select an appropriate visual model for evolving a survey tool. Agencies were rated highly for contribution to client marketing objectives and brand standing. Lower ratings were found for service quality and achieving value for money. Conclusions are presented about the perceived contribution to performance of agency management, account managers, media planners, creative staff and production personnel. Discriminant function analysis results indicate this technique may have theoretical and practical potential for determining actions which can contribute to enhancing relationship marketing processes.
Relationship marketing is conveniently thought of as a means of building forms of customer loyalty which transcend preferences for particular products. This implies a conceptual divorce between the customer-supplier relationship and the process of product design. This paper examines the interaction between the two. It describes, through a case study of a small software company, how a participative methodology by suppliers to involve users in the design of new products and product development can be instrumental in developing and maintaining effective marketing relationships. The conclusions focus on the activities that may be used to implement the aims of relationship marketing, through the use of designer-managed user groups.
This paper provides a brief review of what relationship marketing (RM) is and can be, and what the consequences are for marketing management and marketing research. It is based on almost thirty years of research and experience concerning relationships, networks, and interaction in marketing. The results are reported in the author's book Relationship Marketing: From 4Ps to 30Rs (in Swedish in 1995 forthcoming in English). The author's preoccupation is the practical and theoretical relevance of new approaches in marketing and the use of common sense and good judgment in research and scholarly work. The paper ends with a discussion of relationship marketing being real or just the emperor's new clothes.
Searching for direct ways to reach the customer is today's trend in the marketing techniques applied by Dutch banks. Cutting out the middleman, relationship building and the ability to anticipate the customer's ever-changing moods are believed to be the main objectives for this new approach. This paper presents the first empirical research findings on the success of direct communication in the Dutch banking industry. The results presented here are based on data collected by means of a questionnaire, mailed to 827 executives of as many banks in the Netherlands. Broadly speaking, these results show that general advertising is used to realize long-term objectives, and direct communication for the realization of direct response objectives. Furthermore it appears that banks use a wide variety of communication instruments. Some significant relationships were found with success measures.
The adoption and diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) has only begun, even as its research. Besides some theoretical background, this paper aims to give insights -1 in the managersâ attitudes and perceptions towards the strategic use of information and communication technologies, now and in the future and -2 in the enablers and inhibitors of adoption within business organisations. The results are based on practitioner interviews with managers from Belgian companies.
The retailing of new motorvehicles is now in the process of major change, as the principles of lean manufacturing are extended to distribution. New supply systems should transform the selling process. Customer information gathered through the distribution chain will play an increasingly important role in product and marketing strategy. Car companies and dealers will need to rethink how they manage customer information.