Towards Relational Exchange in Services Marketing:Insights From Hospitality Industry
Journal of Services Research › Vol. 5 Nbr. 2, October 2005
Linked as:
Summary
Relationships are forming new bases for achieving competitive advantage in the changing business scenario. Service organizations of all types and sizes are shifting their focus from transactional exchange to relational exchange. With the growing realization about the benefits of being a "relationship oriented organization", marketing strategies are designed to incorporate technical and behavioural features of service solution, which are essential to create a satisfying, pleasurable and memorable customer experience. Adopting a customer centric approach allows the service firm to effectively utilize all its resources to create a desired customer experience. Trust, commitment, ethical practices, fulfillment of promises, mutual exchange, emotional bonding, personalization and customer orientation have been reported to be the key elements in the relationship building process. The present study analyses important dimensions of relational exchange and presents insights from an empirical study of hotels regarding practices adopted for customer relationship management. Nine factors governing CRM effectiveness in hotel industry have emerged from the factor analysis which strongly emphasizes the need for humanizing people, process and technology to build emotional bond with the customers.
See the full content of this document
Extract
Towards Relational Exchange in Services Marketing:Insights From Hospitality Industry
INTRODUCTION
Modern marketers are rediscovering the ancient mantras for success in corporate world and blending them with contemporary marketing practices. It is believed that long term survival and competitive advantage can only be attained by establishing an emotional bond with the customers. A shift is clearly taking place from marketing to anonymous masses of customers to developing and managing relationships with more or less well -known or at least some -identified customers (Gronroos, 1994). Service organizations are shifting their focus from "transactional exchange" to "relational exchange" for developing mutually satisfying relationship with customers. Extended relationships are reported to have a significant impact on transaction cost and profitability, and customer lifetime value. Serving the customers, in true sense, is the need of the hour as the customer was, is and will remain the central focus of all organizational activities.Ser...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
