What is Relationship Marketing?

A company’s primary mission or goal is to have excellent customer satisfaction in terms of quality and cost. In order to attain 100% customer satisfaction, they must define the company’s strength, weaknesses, threats and opportunities during the yearly planning session.

It’s very important for the top management to focus on increasing sales through effective relationship marketing. Interaction with the supplier and customer should be based on trust and loyalty to one another, in order to build a long and lasting relationship.

Relationship Marketing Concept

The basis of relationship marketing is that customer loyalty is more important than even the sales itself. Relationship marketing focuses less on different forms of advertising and attracting new customers. Instead, its geared towards maintaining its existing customer base for the longest period of time.

It’s in the nature of the consumer to always be pampered, that every product or service they avail is worth their money. If the consumer is very satisfied with it, they’ll surely come back for more. That’s the central idea of relationship marketing: Establishing the highest quality of the product or service, according to the consumer’s wants to needs, to ensure that the customer becomes a loyal patron of the brand.

In many ways, building consumer loyalty is more important than building strong sales, considering that the consumer themselves are the most essential part of the business cycle. If customers continue to patronize the product, then it’s ensured that there will be a steady flow of sales for the product. Therefore, strong sales can still be achieved when consumer loyalty is strong.

Relationship marketing virtually costs less than its counterpart, transaction marketing, because it’s sometimes easier to keep existing customers than attract new ones. Also, customers also translate to free and an effective form of advertising in its own right, as word of mouth from other consumers are most of the time more reliable than any other advertising method that the company can pull off.

How To Achieve Good Relationship Marketing

The internet is a very integral part of achieving good customer relations, as with it, the world gradually becomes smaller, and it’s now very easy to keep in touch with consumers anytime. Therefore, one should take advantage of the widespread use of the internet in order to establish a deeper connection with your consumers.

  • Polls and surveys allow you to understand the pulse of the people on different subjects at any given time. Make sure that you conduct these studies at regular periods, because different people at any different can change their needs and wants in the blink of an eye. The data that you can collect with these surveys allows you to tailor your products and services that are much closer to the consumer’s satisfaction.
  • Since customer feedback is very important in relationship marketing, keeping an open line to feedback is necessary. For example, fastfood chains could place a dropbox on the side which allows customers to write their feedback on a piece of paper, and then drop them in the box provided. Most companies also should have a phone line on wherein they can call up the company for the feedback. And using the internet, websites could place a form wherein anyone can send their feedback using their e-mail. These avenues of communication ensures that all people will be able to make their voices heard by the company, which then can be used to further improve their products and services.
  • Social media is undisputedly one of the best tools to use in getting customer feedback. Since most people nowadays use Facebook, Twitter, and to a lesser extent, Google+, Diaspora, and others, it’s wise for the company to set up a brand page in which customers can post their concerns and feedback on it. But just creating the page isn’t enough. You must let them know that the company is attentively listening to its consumers, not just by posting updates on the brand page, but replying to some of the posts that the consumers make in their page. This’ll give the consumers security that their pleas aren’t wasted, thus ensuring them that their feedback will be integrated in the company’s line of products and services in the future.
  • The integrity of the entire staff is also very important in relationship marketing, as they’re considered the frontline, directly dealing with the customers. Therefore, to maintain your high standards of quality and integrity, conducting regular training sessions, especially on areas like proper customer relations on conduct, offline and even online, is a must. These training sessions also serve as a reminder to the staff of the proper attitude when dealing with the customer, which translates to great customer satisfaction that’ll make them patronize the product or service.
  • A solid consumer policy should also be implemented for the staff. Policies on how to treat the customer’s needs, what words and actions are allowed and not allowed when dealing with them, and most especially, the proper etiquette when facing with a negative situation should be followed by the staff, to ensure professionalism and a good atmosphere for the customer.
  • The company is also expected to be up-to-date with the latest technology and innovations available, and uses them to integrate well into the business and improve their customer’s experience. Failure to do so will results in an outdated environment in which some customers may not patronize at all.
  • Finally, it’s very important to always give the consumer a message in any way, saying that you value them above everything else, and that they’re always welcome if they wanted to give comments and suggestions regarding your product and service. Thus, a simple smile and a warm greeting is very important. Doing this ensures that customer feels comfortable whenever they avail of your product and service, which will surely have them come back in the future.

All of this then translates itself to very high levels of customer satisfaction, which then creates consumer loyalty to the brand, and eventually, will result in a steady flow of sales.