Relationship promoters: driving forces for successful customer relationships
Article Abstract:
The role of marketing-oriented boundary spanners in developing and maintaining successful business relationships is an area of increasing interest in both academic research and managerial practice. Drawing upon a database of 191 supplier-customer relationships, I show in this study that relationship promoters are powerful predictors of relationship effectiveness. Relationship promoters are persons who identify appropriate partners of different organizations, bring them together, and facilitate the dialogue and exchange processes between them. Relationship promoters support interactive learning processes and solve interorganizational conflicts. Furthermore, they fulfill an important social task, contributing to overcome existing distances between the partner firms, as well as developing an understanding for the situation and objectives of the respective partner. The findings also suggest that relationship promoters are especially important for the success of international supplier-customer relationships and that customer orientation and innovation orientation strengthen the positive commitment of the key persons in relationships. The article concludes with a discussion of the results and a number of theoretical and managerial implications following from these results. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Industrial Marketing Management
Subject: Business, international
ISSN: 0019-8501
Year: 1999
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Customer value change in industrial marketing relationships: a call for new strategies and research
Article Abstract:
Relationship marketing is critical to both researchers and practitioners because it addresses issues aimed at retaining customers. Strategic customer retention is problematic and requires information from customers concerning: (1) what they value (need) now, (2) their satisfaction with suppliers' abilities to deliver that value, and (3) how their perceptions of value are changing. Currently there is little theoretical understanding of, and thus less than perfect normative advice for dealing with, the third issue. This article addresses this gap by presenting an argument for developing a customer value change theory and proposing a model that incorporates those events likely to trigger changes in three forms of value: values, desired value, and value judgements. The concepts presented build on current business efforts to predict what customers will want in the future, as well as on customer satisfaction and value research. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Industrial Marketing Management
Subject: Business, international
ISSN: 0019-8501
Year: 1997
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Relationship marketing teams: improving the utilization of customer relationship potentials through a high team design quality
Article Abstract:
Relationship marketing practice shows that usually more than one person in a supplier company is involved in the management of a specific customer relationship. Nevertheless, hardly any relationship marketing team exploits the potentials of a customer relationship completely. The question this article deals with is how the design quality of relationship marketing teams can contribute to a better exploitation of these potentials. We draw upon major findings of work team effectiveness research and can show empirically that a favorable team design quality of a customer management team in terms of team composition, group processes, and the organizational context of the team can significantly enhance the exploitation of the potentials of a customer relationship. Managerial implications are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Industrial Marketing Management
Subject: Business, international
ISSN: 0019-8501
Year: 1999
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