Building Relations
New Approach To Marketing

By Uttam Maharjan

IN the present global context, marketing has transcended national bounadries, creating tough competition among marketers across the world. It is really an arduous task for marketers to succeed in marketing. The old adage that the customer is the king implies that the success of a company hinges largely on customer satisfaction. For this, good relations with customers need to be developed at all times. As such, a separate dimension of marketing called relationship marketing has emerged.

Dimensions

Marketers need to develop good relations with customers. Such relations must be a two-way street; one-sided relations are counterproductive. But building relations is not an easy proposition. Marketers have to know various dimensions of customers' personality, psychology, background, needs, wants and value judgements. Seen from this perspective, marketers should not be just marketers; they should be psychologists, cultural anthropologists, behavioural scientists, philosophers and what not. Failure to develop good relations with customers means losing them to competitors.

Customer relations should be based on the concept of give and take such as friendship, loyalty and respect on a mutual basis. Recognising old customers by name and passing the time with customers are effective in sustaining relations. If customers have any problems, it will be prudent of marketers to be part of the problems and try to solve them. This will, no doubt, convince customers that the marketers care a lot about them. In fact, people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. The 'I care' concept is the key to enhancing marketer-customer relations.

In order to forge customer relations, it is first necessary to know customers and their emotional lives. To dissect them, marketers must have knowledge of diverse fields of study such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication, religion and literature. The key to success in marketing entails not only knowledge of marketing but also these fields of study. Such fields of study should be complementary to marketing strategy. The cornerstone of fruitful customer relations lies in customer satisfaction as expressed through customers' product satisfaction, which is linked to life satisfaction.

Being behaviourists, marketers should be able to show through their action that their relations are sincere, not flimsy. It is, however, natural for marketers to develop relations with certain customers in view of the target group. It is impossible, nay impracticable, to develop relations with every customer of every product. So, segmentation of customers counts a lot in marketing. However, relations can be developed with customers at various levels-social, economic, political and legal.

Not all customers are of equal value to marketers. Some customers are definitely more profitable than others. So, good marketers should pay more attention to such prime customers. They should also make no bones about dropping customers that are least lucrative. Sometimes, it so falls out that marketers, while being preoccupied with best customers, may inadvertently leave other valued customers out in the cold. This is a great setback to the maintenance of the best of relations with customers. It is also possible that marketers may sometimes develop relations with wrong customers or with right customers the wrong way.

It is imperative to review customers' needs and wants from time to time and think of them as their own by getting into their shoes. This aside, marketers should also be able to forecast customers' present and future behaviour and needs.

Relationship marketing offers several benefits to marketers. Exercise of this marketing technique satisfies customers in an intimate way and thus helps retain them to the benefit of both marketers and customers alike. Because it is less people-intensive, it helps in retrenching costs. Relationship marketing plays a significant role in expanding a value chain. As a matter of fact, each department of an organisation needs to be an effective link in such a value chain by carrying out activities to design, produce, market, deliver and support the organisation's products.Besides, relationship marketing helps and organisation attain competitive edge by building up organisational core values such as trust and commitment. In a nutshell, it increases value to customers and other stakeholders alike.

It is germane to distinguish between transactional marketing and relationship marketing. Transactional marketing is an old-line concept of marketing. Practitioners of this marketing consider competitors adversaries in sharp contrast to relationship marketers, who consider them partners. Likewise, transactional marketers regard selling as a contest, not as a service. They persuade consumers to buy things and, after selling them, forget all the affairs. They are not even held back by scruples from using duplicity to promote their business, which is often a one-time and one-sided affair based on competition. On the other hand, relationship marketers assist, not persuade, consumers to buy things. Their business is a repeat, two-sided affair based on mutual trust, motivation and receptivity. In a nutshell, transactional marketers do things 'to' people, whereas relationship marketers do things 'for' people.

Trust-Based

Relationship marketing is something managers talk about, companies profess and academics extol in terms of its virtues. As a matter of fact, it believes in developing relations with customers not haphazardly but based on trust. Trust is the foundation upon which an edifice of customer relations can be built. So, every marketer of today must adopt relationship marketing as an effective tool for being on the cutting edge of marketing.

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