Relationship Marketing

Schneider (1980) pointed out that for many years now the term marketing meant only assembling and attracting the customers. It did not focus on retaining them. owe!er" researchers #horsten" $wayne and %e!in (&00&) contended that e!en though more than twenty years ha!e passed since 'erry (198() first mentioned the concept of relationship marketing" it is still continuing in the present trend and accepted by ma)ority of the people.

owe!er the studies of 'a*erman (&00() contended that management researchers ha!e traditionally !iewed customers primarily as recipients of firm output that create re!enue for the firm. In contrast" researchers studying ser!ices management ha!e claimed that customers can also be !iewed as participants in the firm+s internal processes" and should be managed as !aluable human resources of the firm. ,mphasising on customer participation" -laycomb et al (&001) argue that the participation of customers in firm+s !irtual human resource base in!ol!es the .actions and resources supplied by customers for ser!ice production and/or deli!ery0. 1hen the firm can engage its customers to participate proacti!ely as partial contributors of labor" such in!ol!ement may transform !alue chain acti!ities of the firm building stronger relationships.

Similarly the studies of $agger and 1ard (&002) also argued that the people who were in!ol!ed in business in earlier times knew the techni3ue of influencing the customers by de!eloping a good relationship with them. 4e!ertheless" how to build a relationship" comprehending its concepts" as well as studying the nature of the relationship etc has not been de!eloped much. 5re!ious studies such as that of 6ronroos (1997)" 8oberts et al (&00()" 'erry (198() and 'rodie et al (1999) relationship marketing is considered to be the best strategy in order to attract the customers and retain them. In spite of this" research has not focused on testing the theory of relationship marketing on which this concept is based. owe!er the most recent research such as that of $iehl" %ent" and 6uion (&010) who emphasised on relationship marketing re!ealed that it is more effecti!e to build healthy and producti!e relationships between specific target groups of indi!iduals as compared to de!eloping a relationship with an e:tensi!e network of people belonging to any community.

#hus" the present research argues that relationship marketing denotes one;to;one communication to influence the customers and win their hearts. #his assumption becomes important because the focus of the study is also to in3uire into the impact that firms can make on their customers by building effecti!e relationships.

<ustification to the assumption of the researcher as stated abo!e can be found in the research of 'erry (198() who pointed out that relationship orientation concentrates on the approach of attracting the customers and then retaining them by building a relationship with them o!er a period of time. =urthermore" 'o!e and <ohnson (&000) also obser!ed that this strategy re3uires that relationships are strengthened when customers make fre3uent !isits to the stores and interacts and communicates with the store personnel and ser!ice pro!iders for a long period of time and the customers percei!e the importance of the relationship.

In furtherance to the abo!e stated discussion emphasising on the importance that relationship marketing has gained in the past decades albesleben and 'uckley" (&007) state that while the idea of engaging customers in the firm processes was first asserted by 'arnard (19(8) more than >0 years ago" it has gained particular significance o!er the last two decades with the ad!ancement in network technologies for customer relationship management (-8?). -8? has sparked an ongoing theoretical debate in ser!ices industry research o!er the contingencies when customer participation in the ser!ice production and deli!ery increases ser!ice;system efficiency. @lso" the -8? practice has produced the influ: of automatic teller machines (@#?s)" self;ser!ice gas stations" and self;scanning check;outs in grocery and mass;merchandise stores" which all in!ol!e customer participation in the ser!ice transaction.