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Relationship Marketing: Theory, Applications and Future Research Directions

Morgan and Hunt (1994) defined relationship marketing as “all marketing activities directed toward establishing, developing and maintaining successful relational exchanges” (p.22). At the most simple level, a strategy that prescribes attention and investment to developing long-term relationships with customers and other stakeholders could result in a better understanding of each others expectations and concerns. This, in turn, could provide competitive advantage for the firm by aligning the firm’s products and services to the ‘voice’ of their customers. Additionally such a strategy would allow close bonds to be developed between the firm and its customers as well as other stakeholders, which can form further bases for competitive advantage. Direct benefits for customers would accrue from products and services which are better aligned to their individual needs and wants. Despite its obvious appeal, relationship marketing can be a difficult concept to comprehend and implement. On the one hand, researchers find it difficult to agree on what constitutes a long-term relationship with a customer or a stakeholder, or indeed if a close relationship is always desirable or possible. As such they find it hard to develop universally agreed strategies for implementing relationship marketing. On the other hand, practitioners using information technology and associated customer relationship management software report that the anticipated benefits of the relationship marketing approach have failed to materialise. Finally, a lack of research on whether or not customers have received any benefits from this ‘new’ approach to marketing does not allow us to determine its usefulness from the customers’ viewpoint, despite the fact that this is the ultimate test for its ability to deliver value for both the firm and its customers. Current debates about ‘intrusion of privacy’ and ‘consumer cynicism’ further outline the need for more research from the customers’ viewpoint. All of the above contributed to developing a successful proposal for an ESRC Seminar Series in Relationship Marketing. The seminar series aimed to reduce the current confusion in the area of relationship marketing by offering a forum for useful dialogue on its development and implementation. The specific objectives of the seminar series were to: