Relationship Marketing Impacts Customer Loyalty & Profitability

  

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Relationship Marketing and Long Term Value

Relationship Marketing recognizes the long-term value of customer relationships and extends communication beyond intrusive advertising and sales promotional messages. With endless search options at consumers’ fingertips, in an age where inboxes are filled to capacity and people are overwhelmed with clutter and information overload, it is worthwhile to strongly consider taking the customer/company relationship a step deeper, and consider a Relationship Marketing Program.

A Relationship Marketing Program for Optimal Consumer Experience

Relationship Marketing benefits consumers and businesses alike. In a future post I’ll discuss some benefits to the company, but it seems fitting to first outline some real consumer benefits of a Relationship Marketing Program, as the goal of a Relationship Marketing Strategy is to provide an optimal consumer experience.

Benefits of Building Consumer Loyalty & Interaction

Below are 4 benefits, to the consumer, of a Relationship Marketing Program:

1.     Consumer receives useful information.

• Communications from the company are timely and relevant (right-time marketing). For instance, receiving emails about a product a consumer has actively been seeking is highly relevant to a customer, and can be helpful. Consumers welcome beneficial information relevant to a recent search and may come to look forward to having it “handed to them” in the future.
• Company communications are delivered to the customer through optimal channel (right-location marketing). Consumers benefit from receiving desired information on their terms.
• Communications have targeted message (right-message marketing).  A customer who is more quality-driven might not be as concerned with rock-bottom price promotions.

2.     Relationship Marketing allows consumers to feel known and understood.

• When the company demonstrates an interest in a consumer’s needs and preferences, the consumer can come to depend on the company as a reliable source of relevant information.

3.     Consumers have the ability to voice their opinions and make an impact.

• When a Relationship Marketing program offers two-way communication and the company acts on consumers’ input, trust between consumer and company are further solidified. Customers who perceive they are of value are a commodity; their loyalty will pay exponential dividends, setting businesses with Relationship Marketing programs apart from those who don’t put the customer at the center.

4.     Consumers are able to get resolution quickly.

• In an effective Relationship Marketing program, internal constituents in all functions are fully connected and informed, via a streamlined process that puts the customer at the center. This ensures more efficient communication, response and issue resolution.

What other customer benefits can you add to this list?