You must respond with at least 250 words. Your replies must do the following:
Answer the question posed at the end of the thread.
Respond to the practical example in the thread by sharing a practical example that differs from the one in the thread.
Reference at least 1 scholarly source for each reply.
Note about Responses: Seek to understand your classmates' threads (including the marketing management theory, the facts presented in their posts, their points of view, and their real-world examples). Aim to communicate your own understanding of relevant facts, your values, and your perspective of the topic. References in APA.
Classmate answer:
Long-Term Customer Loyalty
The success of any company or organization is determined by its ability to not only attract new customers but to retain current customers. According to Kotler & Keller (2016), loyalty is defined as "a deeply held commitment to rebuy or repatronize a preferred product or service in the future despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior" (p. 131). There are three marketing activities that companies can utilize to improve both customer retention and loyalty: Interacting closely with customers, developing loyalty programs and creating institutional ties.
Interacting closely with customers creates a connection with the organization and the customer. This close interaction can be highly motivating and informative. However, listening to the customer and be an advocate for customers is critical to managing customer relationships (Kolter & Keller, 2016). The next activity is to develop a loyalty program such as frequency programs (FP) and club memberships. The frequency programs reward customers who buy and spend more frequently. Whereas club memberships, use fees and membership dues to facilitate loyalty and commitment. The last marketing activity that can be utilized is the creation of institutional ties. For example, the implementation of a cloud based software is very expensive for an organization therefore, are less inclined to switch to a competitor. According to Kolter & Keller (2016), "customers are less inclined to switch to another supplier when it means high capital costs, high search costs, or the loss of loyalty-customer discounts" (p. 143).
Long-Term Customer Relationships
For many companies, building long-term relationships with customers is a key marketing objective. Customer relationship management is defined as, "the process of carefully managing detail information about individual customers and all customer "touch points" to maximize loyalty" (Kolter & Keller, 2016, p. 146). This information enables companies to customize and personalize offers, services, and other programs to encourage and incentivize both loyalty and buying behavior.
There are numerous ways companies can encourage and foster long-term customer relationships. These activities include, personalized marketing, customer empowerment, use of customer reviews and recommendation and handling customer complaints quickly. According to Kolter & Keller (2016), "understanding how to best market a brand given such diversity in consumer interests is crucially important" (p.146).
Example of Building Relationships with Customers
Amazon is a great example of building strong customer relationships. In fact, according to Amazon's 10K report, the company strives "to be Earth's most customer-centric company. We are guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking" (Amazon.com, Inc, 2016). Amazon not only offers a vast array of products and services but offers customers an individualized customer experience. The website offers customer reviews and recommendation but takes it one step further by allowing customers to ask other customers questions. The company uses customer data to provide recommendations of other items the customer may like.
Amazon also offers a subscription Prim membership for an annual fee. A Prime members get free two days shipping and a host of other free or discounted products and services. "And once consumers have purchased goods from Amazon.com they tend to return; 80% of its customers are repeat" (Gillies, Rigby& Reichheld, 2002, p. 76). Furthermore, company ranks high in customer service and satisfaction. They achieve this by providing feedback to customer service representatives four times a month, via phone or e-mail, based on monitoring their contact with customers and provide training for areas of weakness. (Gillies, Rigby& Reichheld, 2002).
Question:
How can online retailers form strong relationships with customers that are technology adverse?