The Role of Trust in Event-Customer Relationships - Case Study Example

Introduction Events management can be seen as the art and science of using various tools in management, particularly, principles of project management to organise and run successful events that meet their objectives (Mallen and Adams, 2012). Thus, events management can be seen as a systematic approach through which a given programme or festival is organised in order to meet all its objectives and expectations. This is meant to provide total and absolute satisfaction for the participants and organisers of the event (Shone and Parry, 2010). Events management involves the use of various techniques of marketing like branding, market segmentation, positioning (conceptualisation), coordination amongst others (Robinson et al, 2012). This means that it involves various processes that are meant to provide good event concepts and implementation before, during and after an event (Bowden et al, 2011). As identified above, events management is a relatively new aspect of management and it utilises various practices and procedures from different aspects and elements of events management. One of the aspects of conventional management that is significant to events management is Events Customer Relations Management. This is an aspect of relationship marketing which seeks to improve the prospects between events and events management. “Relationship marketing involves activities that are aimed at developing and managing trust and long-term relationships with customers” (Schumann, 2009: p52). Relationship marketing is about maintaining healthy relationships with customers like seeking customers welfare, trust, commitment and service through the convergence of marketing, customer service and total quality management (Woodside, 2010). The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between one aspect of relationship marketing – trust and events management. To this end, the following objectives will be explored: 1. An exploration of the concept of trust in business relationships 2. A critical analysis of the role of trust in event customer relationship; 3. An evaluation of the themes of trust and event management 4. An analysis of the role of trust in the future of the development of event management Trust in Business Relationships In the past, marketing was done through a straightforward route of seeking customers interest in a product or service in a one-off situation (Kong, 2010). This is known as transactional marketing. The goals of the marketer was to present products onto the market and sell them through a system whereby the products were made available to consumers without any concern for the consumers feelings or expectations (Kong, 2010). However, as Capitalism gained roots and the concept of consumer sovereignty thrived, more businesses became conscious of the need to go beyond the norm of providing consumers with products. Businesses sought to produce, sell and build relationships with consumers. This is known as relationship marketing. Relationship marketing, “... the goal is to develop and maintain long term, mutually satisfying arrangements where both the buyer and seller focus on the value attained by the relationship” (Ferrell and Hartline, 2012: p21). This means that relationship marketing involves moving beyond the basic system of just providing goods and trying to sell them to consumers. Rather, it involves building relationships and linkages with consumers to be able to thrive in an industry. Buttle (2010) identifies that the need for relationship marketing is steeped in the fact that it costs approximately 7 times more to sell to a new customer than to sell to an existing customer. Therefore there is the need for businesses to find ways of retaining relationships with their existing consumers. This idea is true and applicable to the events management industry. This is because event management entities need to provide their services to different consumers in the industry. Hence, there is the need for them to build effective methods and ways to deal with the needs and expectations of their consumers. The quest to just provide services without being sensitive to the needs of consumers is not helpful and in doing this, the principles of relationship marketing is critical and essential in helping events management companies and other entities to capture and hold on to large market shares. The main elements and aspects that forms the crux of relationship marketing include customer satisfaction, loyalty, brand image and brand equity (Castalo, 2010). Customer satisfaction involves meeting the needs and expectations of the customer and this must be done in a context of objective and subjective efficiency. As a customer remains satisfied, there is loyalty and the brand image becomes entrenched in the customers mind. Once there is a strong brand image that is entrenched in a clients mind and emotions, that client will be willing to exchange his or her money for the companys products and this leads to the attainment of brand equity in a firm. The fundamental aspect of this is that a company gains brand equity by satisfying customers, achieving their loyalty and trust and meeting consumer expectations. Some authorities view this as trust, which stands at the core of a firms brands and products. In order to reiterate this, there is the need to identify the fact that consumers and businesses that want their events managed will also want to build relationships and entrench their brand equity. Thus, for successful events management, there is the need for trust to be integrated into the operations and marketing systems. “Trust is seen as an expression of confidence between parties that will not be harmed or put at risk by either partys actions: thus, first, it is the willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence: it is a generalised expectation held by an individual that the word of an another can be relied upon” (Brink and Brendt, 2012: p38). Trust involves creating a system and process that will ensure that a group of people have important processes and systems that enables consumers of a given product to get some level of assurance and high quality at all times and in all situations. This creates a mutual expectation and view of better processes that will provide customers level of satisfaction. Trust preserves relationships and promotes cooperation and it resists short-term attitudes in favour of long-term benefits (Little and Marandi, 2013). This means that there is a view that potential risks in such a relationship between customer and producer is judged by the consumer to be worth it due to the benefits the consumer is attaining from the relationship. There are numerous dimensions and facades within which trust can be viewed in relationship marketing. This include the ease of use, honesty, convenience and benevolence (Casalo et al, 2010). This is because trust comes with how easy an organisations products or services meet the consumers needs and how these needs are addressed and applied in dealing with issues and problems. Consumers have access to more information due to the large scope of media services provided throughout the world (Levy and Garfield, 2012). Consumers tend to get information and build trust with different brands. Thus, trust can be attained through the presentation of the rightful information in order to take a decision on whether a brand is one that they must build a relationship with or not. According to Swanson et al, (2007), trust and satisfaction is related to self-esteem and enhanced satisfaction from a given product offered by an organisation. Trust can be attained through the institution or introduction of higher and more satisfying services and the maintenance of this process and procedure (Lee, 2011). Through this, the trust that is built will be grown and enhanced to ensure that a relationship built by a buyer and seller thrives over a sustained period of time. Also, from the side of the seller, there is the need for ability, integrity and benevolence from the seller which is perceived by the buyer (Clark et al, 2010). This creates a long-term relationship that enables the trust to thrive for a long period of time. This enhances and entrenches the perceived positive expectation creates long-term relationships that enables the buyer and seller to stick to each other and exchange important consideration for valuable results. “Trust is a growth of belief and positive expectation and this involves cognition-based trust and affect-based trust which are the two main dimensions of trust” (Paliszkiewicz, 2011: p169). This indicates that trust is about two main elements and aspects. The first has to do with the perception and cognition based on the expectation and the service delivered by the firm to its consumers. The second element involves the actual effect of the products of the firm on consumers which instigates trust and sustains it. Trust creates emotional persuasions and this leads to consumer happiness and several affective factors (Belanche et al, 2013). On the other hand, trust could be hampered if service quality reduces and (Starr-Glass, 2011). The main benefits of including trust in a firms operations and strategy in the service sector include: 1. Relationship termination costs and the need to get new customers is often very high; 2. Trust builds shared values which enables the service provider and consumer to cooperate on a very high level; 3. Communication in the formal and informal sense provides the chance and the opportunity for a firm to build more understanding and cooperation with the client and this improves the service quality (Buttle, 2010). Themes of Trust and Event Management Trust is a fundamental aspect and element that is encrusted to the teaching and learning of events management. Institutions and entities like the Events Management Body of Knowledge (EMBOK) identify that there are different processes and activities that is part of the Events Management process that enhances trust and promotes and events manager and events management organisation and this include: 1. Administration 2. Design 3. Marketing 4. Options and 5. Risks (Getz, 2007) This creates a system and a process through which a relationship can be built and the events manager or events management firm can connect and work with its clients to get the best and most optimal results. These are processes that ensure high quality services and customer satisfaction. This builds a long-term relationship and enables the parties to an events management process build a long-standing relationship. Another view presented by Wale et al (2010) indicates that identify that trust building in events management as a profession has to do with stakeholder relationships and working with them to ensure that the customer receives total satisfaction and total improvement and enhancement in their experience with a given firm or organisation (Wale et al, 2010). The stakeholder approach in explaining trust in events management involves identifying and meeting all the expectations of different stakeholders in the events in question (Wale et al, 2010). Thus, on the normal level, the following exist: Stakeholder Expectation Host Organisation Participation Host Community Impact Media Promotion Audience Entertainment/new experience Co-workers/Volunteers Payment/Reward Sponsors Acknowledgement The impact of these stakeholder processes can be done through various impact assessments which will set metrics and measure the actual effect of an event manager or event management firms operations on stakeholders (Raj and Musgrave, 2009). Through this, the event manager must identify his processes and compare actuals to expecteds and identify variances and take corrective action where necessary. The impact assessment needs to be comprehensive and it must include all the elements and aspects of the event in order to ascertain the best possible methods of satisfying customers and building trust that will last over a sustained period of time (Raj and Musgrave, 2009). Stakeholder sensitivity leads to social cohesion and this enables the event organiser to meet all relevant objectives (Quinn, 2013). This involves generating common knowledge and building an identity for the firm. This involves the organisers ability to encourage active visitors and overcome relevant social issues through the event (Quinn, 2013). Ethical consideration is also a key aspect through which trust is built in the events management system (Allen, 2010). This is because organisations will want an events management firm that is ethical and failure to do so leads to distrust (Allen, 2010). Another aspect of trust in the events management sector has to do with communication and the exchange of information and this enables the events manager to build a rapport and deal with issues relating to efficiency and effectiveness (Mallen and Adams, 2012). The continuous exchange of information between the events manager and the events client helps to build a strong system of trust and there is an exchange of ideas and knowledge in order to create the best possible programme (Mallen and Adams, 2012). The exchange of ideas and information enable the events to be dealt with in a win-win manner and this brings results and enables all the parties to be satisfied with the achievements of the event. This eliminates conflicts and enhances understanding. Also, in order to maintain trust, there is the need for consistent and reliable suppliers to be used by the events manager (Bowdin et al, 2011). Through this, the events manager is able to deal with issues and problems and also attain the best and most appropriate results. This is because where suppliers fail, there are hitches in events and this leads to the break of trusts between the client of the event and the event manager or events management firm. “To maintain trust, an events manager can consider two quality initiatives: just-in-time (JIT) and SERVQUAL” (Tum and Norton, 2012: p259). The SERVQUAL model is a “measurement tool that event managers can use to determine how well they are meeting customers service-quality expectations” (Mallen and Adams, 2012: p321). This therefore tries to measure and assess what an events customer wants from an events manager and from there, the actual results will be matched against expectations in order to identify gaps and work to improve the service delivery quality (Wood and Brotherton, 2012). SERVQUAL involves the following five dimensions on which events and their impaacts are assessed: 1. Reliability 2. Responsiveness 3. Assurance 4. Empathy and 5. Tangibles (Wood and Brotherton, 2012) Just-in-time delivery involves better collaboration between the events manager and the suppliers of crucial and critical products (Kreowski et al, 2013). This involves the provision of quality services and maintaining of a reliable events management procedure or system. Trust and Events CRM Customer relationship management has to do with building and nurturing relationships between customers and events managers and event management organisations. It is about relationship marketing and managing information and processes between an events manager and his clients., It involves the social and management processes through which an events manager creates a link to a client and continues to hold on to it in the future. Customer relations management in the events management industry involves five main elements: 1. Consistency 2. Balance 3. Technology 4. Change management and 5. Legacy of customer care environment (Raj et al, 2013). CRM in the events management sector involves consistently staying in touch with clients and ensuring that the best tools are used to constantly communicate with clients and clients remain in the right frame when dealing with them. There is a three way process put forward by Raj and Musgrave (2009) to describe the events CRM system: 1. Sustainable events 2. Brand image 3. Corporate reputation. This involve creating a system of maintaining a sustainable events management process and connection to customers and also providing a method through which a firms brand will be known to consumers throughout the markets in order to ensure that they order from the entity in question. The customer relationship management system involves the development of sales to existing customers and maintaining customer loyalty through providing high quality services and also remaining in touch with customers through technology amongst other systems (Yeoman et al, 2012). Normally, this is done through the use of various information systems like software and programs that enables a firm to keep information from customers they have worked with and also integrate their system with their customers processes (Buttle, 2012). Events customer relationship management systems are meant to enable research and communication between an event organiser and events consumer to be facilitated (Damm, 2012). This involves the creation of a system that enables an event organiser to keep the data and information of consumers and also contact these consumers easily and quickly (Damm, 2012). Conclusion The paper identifies that trust is essential in business relationships. Trust is built where consumers get what they need from the producers of goods and services. This creates a subconscious view that the producer will provide services and goods to consumers and consumers are reliant on the producer for the goods or services. Trust is a psychological concept and it converts a consumer to a return consumer. Events management entities need to build trust by maintaining a high standard of service that helps them to meet the needs and goals of events consumers like corporate entities that seek to hire them to run their events for them. To this end, events management entities need to carry out their services in a professional manner and in a way and manner that integrates the needs of all stakeholders in the entity. Events management customer relationship management utilises a system of constant communication with entities and organisations that they have served in the past. The idea is to keep such consumers interested in their service and maintain a strong relationship with them. Recommendation From the research, an ideal events management entity will have to take reasonable steps to gain and maintain the trust of its consumers. From the study, the following pointers can be deduced: 1. Events management entities need to take reasonable steps to analyse and review their customers needs and expectations and provide it; 2. Events management organisations must set up systems and structures that relate to the best practices that will bring the best and most productive results; 3. Events management must revolve around the principles of best practices and this must be consolidated when a firm makes important gains; 4. Stakeholder needs and expectations must be closely analysed and considerations must be made where the process is going on; 5. Communication in events is important and vital and an events manager must continuously communicate with important stakeholders during an event; 6. Events management firms must use important tools to analyse consumer expectations and desires and fulfil it. This must be monitored through the use of tools like SERVQUAL; 7. There could be more reliable services through the use of JIT and other service improvement tools; 8. Customer relationship management systems must be used to ensure continuous communication with clients after an event is over. This must be used to communicate information about new arrangements and services of the events manager; 9. CRM systems must be easily integrated into the clients systems in order to ensure continuous communication and trust. References Allen, J. (2010) Event Planning Ethics and Etiquette London: Wiley Bowden, G., Allen, J., Harris, R., McDonnell, I., and OToole, W. (2011) Events Management London: Routledge. Belanche, D., Casalo, L. V. and Guinalu, M. (2013) “The Role of Consumer Happiness in Relationship Marketing” Journal of Marketing and Customer Relations 12(2) pp79 – 94 Buttle, F. (2010) Relationship Marketing: Theory and Practice London: SAGE Buttle, F. (2012) Customer Relationship Management: Concepts and Technology London: Routledge Casalo, L. V., Flavian, C. and Guinaliu, M. 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