Customer based Marketing completo

Account Management

In the account management model, we have an account manager which is responsible not only for the sale but for the overall relationship, for giving value and maximizing the sale performance. The seller in A is interacting with everyone in its organization to maximize the value: he represents the customer and the needs of the customers B inside his own organizations. The account manager deals not only with sale but also with other functions such as production department, finance, etc. So, it is an attempt to transfer in the daily life the concept of relationship market.

The key account manager can be also called "key relationship manager". It represents the best scenario. However, in this model there is the risk that normally the key account manager and the purchasing manager have the specific skills to deal with conflicts and manage.

Organizational implication of relationship marketing

We are moving from salesmen to relationship managers, from selling products to interacting on a long-term view.

You need to change your approach to sales and to customers. You need to be reliable, to be somebody that can support, suggest, to be always there, to respond to emails, to focus on long-term in order to build relationships.

Marketing orientation in B2B companies.

Every new customer requires a lot of adjustments and normally people in the company are not happy to make changes. So, it is not all about costs but also about culture and habits. You need to motivate your colleagues and motivate them to change their habits and create value. You must sell your product to the customers and sell your customers to your company. A job for CEOs, GMs or MDs is to ensure that Customers with high priority must be promoted by Relationship Managers within the supplier's organization. Strategic relationship means to be orientated to

Relationship and not simply transaction. If you want to create relationship you have to be longterm oriented, reliable, supportive, fast responsive, and so on. Each customer requires an adjustment. Normally people don't like to change frequently. It is necessary to motivate employees. It is necessary to sell your product to the customers and sell your customer to your company. Organizations don't like changes or adaptations to customers' needs and must be motivated to make these required adjustments.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is an attempt to structurally support Relationship Marketing activities at an organizational level. CRM systems aim to provide all staff who interact with customers access to real-time information and a complete history of all customer interactions with the selling firm. In other words, it is an attempt to spread out the knowledge of the Relationship Manager to all the levels of the company organization. Even though the Internet may also

Make it easier for customers to search for and compare alternative suppliers, a recent study showed that managers viewed the Internet as a medium for encouraging customer dialogue and one that permitted the personalization of marketing messages. So, IT technology is useful and sometimes essential for CRM to store info about the customers (everyone in the company should have at CRM. Risks of misconception least knowledge about customers), to help organization to adapt, to find solution. Information about the customer are so important that everybody in the company should be able to have access to it. Often these are warehouse of data which are very rarely used. These are the typical misconceptions that led to this problem.

1. It is just database marketing – CRM is much wider in scope. It is just It is purely a
2. It is purely a marketing process – a customer-centric database marketing marketing process perspective to planning needs to be held by many different functional areas as well

It is just an IT issue – not all CRM initiatives involve investing in computerized systems. Behavioral changes by frontline staff may be far more important.

It is all about building loyalty – CRM is much more than giving customers ‘rewards’ for their spending.

It can be implemented by any organization – while a CRM strategy is viable (and arguably essential) for any firm, the resources required to implement a data-based and/or an automated approach to CRM may not be viable for all.

In the best case, CRM can be really useful in developing strong relationships with the customers by creating a network.

The strategy development should be concerned with aligning both the selling organization’s and customer’s strategies. Moreover, the selling firm should strive for three-fold value creation, which consists of the actual value delivered to customers, the value

1. Customer portfolio analysis: To identify the actual and potential customers to service in the future.
2. Customer intimacy: To explore the profile, history, expectations, and preferences of these customers.
3. Network development: To manage relationships with the individuals and organizations that contribute to the value creation for the chosen customers.
4. Value proposition development: To identify sources of value for customers that meet their expectations and even exceed them.
5. Manage the customer life cycle: By considering processes of customer acquisition, retention and development, and structural questions about how the firm is organized.

especially in highly dynamic markets where the firm may need to respond to unexpected competitor activity, and reflective in the sense that there is interdependence between the stages: for example, if Stage 4 reveals the firm's core competences do not match Stage 2's determining of customer needs, the firm may need to review its target market decisions.

Let's come back to a comparison between transactional and relationship marketing focusing on the organizational implications:

In relationship marketing we have all the functions interacting since the main goal is to retain customers and, through the retention, you can improve the interactions among the different departments by sharing knowledge. This can be defined as inter-organizational cross-functionality.

Key elements in relationship marketing:

1. Long-term perspective: it is thought to cost more to attract a new customer than it does to persuade existing customers repeatedly to spend more with you, so it's

It is better to have a long-term perspective. In order for a relationship to flourish over time, there should be trust, commitment, and communication between the interested parties. The first two of these elements are pretty much inseparable.

1) Trust: It is the first step toward relationship marketing because it is the first approach to the customer, to find a solution to customers' needs and problems. Trust can be viewed as a relationship 'atmosphere' that results from cooperation, based on predictability, dependability, and faith. It appears to reduce risk perception in relationships; in other words, each party believes that the other will not take unfair advantage. It takes time to build trust. This is the relationship ladder of loyalty:

2) Commitment: it is necessary in a relationship. An exchange partner believing that an ongoing relationship with another is so important as to warrant maximum efforts at maintaining it. Commitment motivates partners' efforts to preserve an

IOR and to resist alternative offers. Nevertheless, trust and commitment are required for firms to consider adaptations to meet partner needs. You must be motivated to stay in the relationship and take the best from it. Signs of commitment must be sent to your customers. Clear signs are price, to help customers with specific price (for instance in case of features and adjustment required). You must be consistent with what you have said and promised. Trust and commitment also provide a barrier to a customer leaving the relationship in favor of short-term (possibly cheaper) supply. You have also to adjust your communication style used with the counterpart.

4) Communication: it is largely through communication that trust and commitment are developed. Whatever source of communication is being employed, consistency is the key. Firms should focus on creating a 'relationship dialogue'. This will enable both the firm and the customer to 'reason' together and eventually develop a

‘knowledge platform’ that will add value to customers as well as forge the relationship. Both commitment and communication are essential to develop trust. Trust can be built only over time with your behavior, with your experience. Sometimes the human behavior can be also more important than knowledge.

5) Customer service: customer service is also important in forging relationships. There is, after all, little point encouraging dialogue in a relationship if all the feedback you get from your customer is how annoyed they are with your poor service. This understanding is reflected in the so-called ‘service-dominant logic’. It is fair to say that an ongoing challenge to most RM-orientated organizations has been to align marketing, quality, and customer service strategies closely (Christopher et al, 2002). Organizational structures that allow diverse functions such as production, sales, and logistics to interact with a common goal of fulfilling customer relationship.

Maintenance are essential. Even things that can appear initially negative can be turned into positive things (a claim properly managed). A claim from the customer, in fact, can be seen as a problem or as an opportunity for the long-term. If you manage to solve this problem, in fact, this claim will lead to huge advantages in the long term. In order to do so, all of the organization must be aware of this approach. That's why we said that customer service is the first approach to relationship market.

Mutual benefits: a strong IOR is characterized by shared benefits and a sense of mutuality. Mutuality implies that relationships should be 'win-win' reciprocal situations where each partner provides for the other through exchange. Each exchange interaction will be affected by what has gone before and what may happen in the future. Thus, the 'hit-and-run' mentality of transactional marketing has severe limitations in a relationship-building context.

Relationship should be mutual: both parties should get benefits from the relationship.