Starbucks Company Relationship Marketing - Essay Example

For many theorists, relationship marketing appears to be a new concept, but a few others have been keen to identify that relationship marketing has always existed as a critical part of many traditional marketing theories. The main objective of adopting relationship marketing is to ensure that an organization has a well-established and long-term relationship with its stakeholders. Most importantly, organizations focus on the most critical stakeholders who are the customers. This is because a business cannot exist without customers who are the consumers of the products and services the business provides.

With the global business front becoming highly competitive, there is a salient need for businesses to adopt relationship marketing as one of the outstanding strategies for maintaining customer loyalty. Traditional marketing theories focus on convincing customers for the first time. On the contrary, relationship marketing intends to maintain an esteemed relationship between the customer and the business. The Starbucks Company has exhibited its commitment to using relationship marketing in an effort to develop meaningful relationships with different stakeholders.

This explains why the company prides itself on a remarkable number of loyal customers. This paper will focus on describing the theoretical frameworks that define relationship marketing and how the Starbucks Company has been applying these theoretical concepts in an effort to develop meaningful relationships with stakeholders. The Starbucks Company began as a small coffee house in Seattle in 1971. However, over the decades, Starbucks Company has risen to become a giant coffee company exerting its impact across the globe.

The company has received recognition as a leading company and has appeared in the top 100 Forbes companies several times (Angrisani 2013, p. 12). Over the years, Starbucks Company has concentrated on offering its esteemed customers a diverse range of premium coffee flavors in multiple coffee stores existing across the globe. The company is one of the few brands that market an experience and not necessarily the product. This means that the Starbucks Company has developed its reputation and a unique brand defined by premium coffee as well as a favorable atmosphere and exemplary customer service (Alvarez, Casielles, & Martin 2011, p. 150).