The Value of the Customer - Article Example

VALUE Highly successful businesses are those which can be able to create and sustain productive client bases. Creating a customer base means that different strategies be employed by marketers in a business organization. A productive relationship between customers and sellers should be able to yield customer loyalty to the business. Where a business has a vibrant marketing department, customers are able to identify and own the business brand thereby contributing to its growth and expansion. Customers who are treated with respect by marketers make them have positive comments about the business to other customers.

This discussion explains the dynamics of relationship marketing and its importance to a business. It explains how the concept can be used by businesses to their advantage to enhance their growth. Relationship marketing is described as the model of creating and retaining customers in a business. Developing strong value and retaining customers are important strategies that markets employ in the modern competitive business environment (Trasorras, Weinstein, & Abratt, 2009). Perhaps one of the most disturbing issues is that some businesses experience cases of customers defecting from them even when they think that their services and products were best offered.

This is the issue that Relationship marketing tries to explain. Positive customer relationships are well maintained through different methods that businesses choose to invest in (Eriksson & Soderberg, 2010). Some of the methods that have proved successful include the use of incentives like customer clubs. In this method, businesses create social forums where customers can be meeting frequently and share ideas with the business stakeholders on areas that need general improvement. Customers are also able to share their views on the kinds of products offered and give inputs towards further developments.

Erickson explains in his paper that the intersubjective approach to customer relationships means that the “self” of the business and others, who are customers in this case are usually inseparable. In this approach, a business is able to put the customer are the core of their business. A customer-based approach to marketing is thus the system adopted in marketing where inputs from clients are highly adhered to and respected. Customers are meant to have confidence in the services offered by the business, in this case, they should be easily approached for feedback.

Customers who experience maximum utility in service delivery are loyal to the business and can trade with it for a long time. What should be the duty of management in this case? Managers are meant to study issues that need to be adopted in order to create and retain customer loyalty. Erickson emphasizes the need for tangible action in streamlining the marketing department. Marketers should own the business objectives and work towards their achievement. There should be extensive research into what enhances customer loyalty.

In order to create positive working relationships, marketers should be able to set their approaches based on the recommendations that customers propose as the best for the business. What customers say and to whom they direct their comments should be well understood. Often customers have a way in which they evaluate the services they are offered by businesses. This reasoning should enable the business to establish functional relationships between itself and the clients. Leaving the business to react to customers’ feedback after all has gone wrong is not recommended.

The space between customers and the business is to be highly valued. What lies between making customers value and appreciate the business or looking for other businesses to be loyal to? Markets should find solutions to customer issues. They need to find out how customers contextualize the business and try to make it better if it’s not very promising in the future. An important thing to understand is that the issue of value is very subjective and therefore any person giving comments about it should be well listened to (Trasorras, Weinstein, & Abratt, 2009).

Where many people are making their contributions towards an issue of value, their views are to be held in great esteem. In the future, it is projected that businesses that are able to take into action the views of customers are in a better position to establish a loyal client base. Relationship marketing as presented by Erickson is a good model for ensuring business growth and establishment. Customers are to be taken as people that are part and parcel of the business, their inputs are therefore critical to the growth and success of the business.

The marketing department should be open to receiving and initiating better feedback systems through which customers can share out their feelings about the business.