Relationship Marketing Case Study

1: The term Relationship Marketing (RM) was used by Berry (1983) in relation to Transaction Marketing (TM). He used RM as a tool to challenge the dominant practices and theories within the TM paradigm. There was a growing concern that a firm’s objectives should be more than attraction, they should maintain and develop relationships with all stakeholders. Furthermore, TM treated consumers as passive participants that were available in great numbers. It was during this period of ambiguity that RM was first introduced. As a result, business-to-business (B2B) marketing led to RM or BTC markets due to a paradigm shift. In RM there is a limited numbers of customers who are required to be an interactive participant for the exchange in a competitive
Various definitions of RM were being developed around the same time. There were two main business schools that helped formed RM as it is known today - Nordic and North American. The Nordic School’s key theorists were Grönroos (1996) and Gummeson (1994) who defined that a firm’s objectives should be to create an interpersonal relationship by building, maintaining and developing their customer relationships. Similarly, there was the North American School who had a similar definition of RM. Berry (1993) and Morgan-Hunt (1994) were key theorists of this school who advocated that marketing should be more concerned about maintaining their customers than solely focusing on attraction. Multi-organisations should be concerned about ultimately enhancing customer relationships from a ‘one night stand’ to a long term basis. However, due to further research and development these theorists have broadened their perspective to include all stakeholders rather than just a dyadic
I agree upon the premise that the numbering of one through ten does not reflect their ranking importance. While some relationships/elements are more important than others, it is ultimately subjective to the firm i.e. from B2B or BTC. Trust and Commitment are the two key variables for a successful marketing relationship since they encourage firms to preserve their current relationships so to reap the long-term relationship benefits. They do this by cooperating with exchange partners, resisting attractive short-term alternatives, and view potentially high-risk actions cautiously. Trust and commitment are labelled as variables when forming an alliance since they mediate between 5 prerequisites “(relationship benefits, communication) and five outcomes (i.e., acquiescence, cooperation). 12/13 hypotheses that were created explain the importance of the variance in the trust-commitment relationship but also, the variance in the 5 outcomes. As a result, this justifies the mediating nature of the trust and commitment variables which are core to understanding the life cycle or development process of a relationship. Especially, if cooperative relationships are necessary for successful relationship