Jul 31 2009
Relationship Marketing – What’s That All About?
Relationship marketing is no longer a new buzz term and obviously it’s here to stay.
It’s all about looking at your customers and your relationship with them in a new light. Rather than develop a product or service and market it to the customers, relationship marketers think about what the customers want and adapt their product development strategy accordingly.
It’s about customisation to meet the needs of the individual.
Relationship marketing is based on getting feedback and using it to develop and improve your service.
I always evangalise about the needfor companies to make it as easy as possible for customers to complain. In relationship marketing, feedback is sought before a complaint occurs.
This helps to:
• Identify potential problem areas before the customer does.
• Customise.
For many companies it has become practice to encourage customers to provide such information via the website. You need good quality information if you are to have a two-way relationship with your customer.
Customer Expectations:
Have customers changed? – In a word Yes!
• They are more demanding
• Have higher expectations
• Have a more pressurised lifestyle
• Want everything but don’t necessarily want to pay for it
• Are less tolerant
• Want more for their money, time and effort
• Are much more aware of their rights – influenced by consumer rights programmes
• Are driven by customer service issues in their own workplace
• Are more likely to seek recommendations from friends and colleagues than rely on advertising
• Are driven by new technology – particularly the internet
BUT – the key to supplier differentiation lies within these increased expectations, since customers now value closer links with efficient, competent suppliers who are willing to act as long term allies.
And Finally:
Some key lessons on keeping abreast of customer needs and minimising complaints:
• Use as much of the available technology as possible – make it work for the customer
• Focus on customers as individuals
• Listen and act on what they say
• Increase the value of each customer – especially in the long term
• Welcome complaints – always, always, welcome complaints.
Today’s News: It’s a very important day here in Paris – it’s the last Friday in July and half the population will be heading south for the whole of August in a lemming-like trance. Yippee…
We have had a great week over at Top Sales Experts: The Roundtable has been described as the best yet and last night’s Masterclass, featuring Nancy D Solomon – “The Psychology Of Selling” was superb.
I’ll share next week’s events here tomorrow – so do make it back.
Finally, I’ll leave you with a graphic, and I’ll let you figure out what is coming next from Top Sales Associates… have a great weekend and thank you for your company this week.
Hello Jonathan,
I really like this post! Realising that your customers now expect a high level of personalised service is a key step. Businesses need to create long term relationships with clients and not view them as a one off sale shifting focus from attaining new clients to keeping your current ones. Moving away from one-way short term transactions and shifting towards two-way ongoing relationships with your clients is the first step. Closing a sale should be viewed as the starting point of your relationship and be sustained by increased marketing to ensure they stay with you. Sounds simple in theory, but in practical terms for this approach to be successful everyone in your business must be heavily marketing orientated and realise the importance of why. Some businesses will tell you that they are already doing this however research has shown that 80% of companies believe they provide a superior client experience but only 8% of their clients agree!
It can be easy to become complacent with your clients when in actual fact they should be the main focus of your marketing efforts. The longer a client stays with you the less inclined they are to switch to a competitor because that have become accustomed to how you work and the services you provide. Other strategies to help keep your client churn to a minimum is by offering loyalty schemes and incentives, product bundling and cross promotions. Bear this in mind, increased customer retention will make your employees jobs easier and more satisfying meaning happy employees and better customer satisfaction.
When relationship marketing is applied well the benefits go far beyond just the value of the sale itself and lead to other organisational benefits. Clients will tend to buy a broader range of products and services so keep them aware of what else you can offer them to add value. On an operational level clients will cost less to maintain as they will become accustomed to your business practices and processes. A major benefit is that over time price will no longer be such as key issues due to the added benefits they receive through ongoing customer communication and service