Introduction
Although businesses develop interim goals that revolve around the attainment of remarkable sales, for instance, through advertising, very few of them have seized the opportunity brought about by relationship marketing. This concept focuses on promoting consumers’ loyalty. According to a study by Beverland and Bretherton, companies in New Zealand are yet to fully deploy relationship-marketing strategies such as strategic alliances to boost their profitability levels (200). This partial embracement of this business idea points to the possibility of the lack of awareness regarding the benefits associated with relationship marketing practices. It may also indicate organizations’ inadequate knowledge about how such strategies are executed. Moreover, this situation may suggest companies’ insufficient information concerning the impact of emotions on workers’ and clients’ decision-making plans. This thesis proposal utilizes concepts presented in the service-marketing triangle to emphasize the need for implementing relationship-marketing strategies in New Zealand companies as a way of improving their connections with stakeholders and, consequently, performance and profitability levels.
Service Marketing Triangle
A service-marketing triangle is a pictorial representation of essential promotion activities that take place among primary players in a services business. It represents the internal, external, and interactive marketing that occurs among businesses, employees, and customers (Expert Program Management). An institution can take advantage of the service-marketing triangle to empower employees, thus enabling them to deliver the goals of relationship marketing practices (Fernandes and Proença 45). Allowing workers to make independent decisions on matters that affect their areas of specialization can help them to devise ways to harness consumers’ emotions, hence winning their trust. They will have a chance to interact with customers, understand their desires and interests, and work towards fulfilling them (Expert Program Management). The service-marketing triangle treats employees as internal customers of an organization.
New Zealand companies can appoint staff members to track consumers’ activities via social media. This move can help them to learn about pending customer-related events and take the opportunity to wish them luck in their business endeavors. Consequently, the application of the service-marketing triangle may be fruitful in New Zealand due to its capacity to help in arousing consumers’ emotions and enhancing their loyalty after realizing the value attached to them by organizations. Equipping workers with skills to interpret customers’ behaviors as manifested in the service-marketing triangle can contribute to helping staff members to identify clients’ emotions and exploit them to the benefit of an organization.
How and Why Implement Relationship Marketing Strategies
Organizations can employ numerous relationship-marketing strategies to further their performances. In particular, Weinstein and McFarlane reveal how a Florida-based college, namely, Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship (HSBE), overcame its challenges of low enrollment rates by investing in the IMC strategy (102). It managed to develop constructive and long-term business links with its stakeholders, including students. An organization can embark on a face-to-face interaction or establish a blog where it can interact with customers to understand their interests and concerns. According to Claessens, this move helps companies to establish a personal touch with their clients.
Networking as a relationship marketing mechanism can be implemented by joining both online and offline groups that subscribe to an organization’s goals and aspirations. The primary benefit of this strategy is that it facilitates the creation of brand awareness. Moreover, it allows a company to grow its market share. More than 40% of New Land’s top organizations, which have not yet realized the importance of these relationship-marketing approaches, can benchmark from HSBE to augment operations in not only the wine industry but also other sectors (Beverland and Bretherton 200). Loyalty rewards constitute a blend of modern and traditional programs such as recognition and gift vouchers respectively. Today, many buyers treasure recognition. Appreciating customers for their contribution to an organization can improve their allegiance.
Benefits to New Zealand Companies
Implementing relationship marketing in the right way can have immense benefits to New Zealand companies. This claim follows the finding that only 60% of the sampled 200 leading organizations in this country have executed at least one relationship marketing strategy (Beverland and Bretherton 200). Research conducted by Yallop and Mowatt specifies the idea of abiding by Market Research Society of New Zealand’s (MRSNZ) ethical principles that guide the way stakeholders, including businesses, clients, and researchers, interact with one another (35). In New Zealand, strategies such as networking, integrated marketing communications (IMC), loyalty rewards, and building brand identity can help businesses to recognize, develop, sustain, and augment their linkages with clients and other stakeholders in a profitable manner (Beverland and Bretherton 201). In another study by Lau et al., New Zealand sought to improve its citizens’ perception of sports tourism as a business by establishing the stakeholder framework, which helped to “engage, embrace, and unite all New Zealanders’ support of “performing as a nation” (75). Once implemented across all sectors, this strategy can help New Zealand firms to promote brand loyalty, thus guaranteeing them to return customers.
Companies use social media to relay information regarding different products and services. Today, the majority of relationship marketing strategies are executed via the Internet. According to Forbes et al., no studies have been done to find out the impact of social media on New Zealand companies (4). However, this article, which focused on New Zealand’s wine sector, found that approximately 65% of businesses used various platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to interact with their clients (Forbes et al. 5). Consequently, being aware of the significance of this relationship marketing strategy, especially in helping to gather consumers’ feedback, can be fruitful for companies in New Zealand. According to Rasul, in addition to aiding in product and service development, efficient implementation of social media tools as a relationship marketing approach can help businesses to deliver tailored information to their targeted customers (261). These findings imply that the future of contemporary New Zealand businesses will depend on how effectively they will deploy digital media to interact with their stakeholders, including employees and clients.
Relationship marketing can help New Zealand firms to remain on top of their consumers’ needs if well implemented. According to a study by Rasul, the person-to-person connection associated with relationship marketing has enabled Apple to not only understand the needs of its clients but also work towards fulfilling them (263). For instance, utilizing the word of mouth as a relationship marketing strategy ended up improving clients’ experience with Apple’s commodities and services (Rasul 263). Hence, as Rouse asserts, once embraced across all New Zealand companies, this relationship marketing technique can help to offer consumer experience, which is critical in boosting loyalty.
The Significance of Emotions in Relationship Marketing
It is imperative to exploit consumers’ emotions to boost organizations’ performance levels. Targeting clients’ emotions can improve the effectiveness of relationship marketing (Harvey). New Zealand companies can leverage emotions to increase the efficiency of relationship marketing strategies. However, the article by Fernandes and Proença mentions the existence of positive and negative emotions, both of which influence business operations differently (45). According to these authors, positive emotions boost companies’ interaction with workers and stakeholders because they encourage them “to perform above and beyond the call of duty” (Fernandes and Proença 45). Thus, it is crucial to understand that emotions play a critical role in influencing employees’ and customers’ decision-making processes and commitment levels.
Companies such as Apple understand the benefits of emotions in relationship marketing. They define customer-business links, for instance, by forcing clients to make temporary sacrifices that may entail accommodating any price additions made on particular commodities (Fernandes and Proença 52). Moreover, emotion-oriented relationships help businesses to instill a sense of urgency in consumers by giving them a limited-time offer for specific products (Harvey). Customers feel bad whenever they miss good business deals. Thus, New Zealand companies can leverage clients’ emotions such as fear to improve the effectiveness of their relationship marketing mechanisms.
Conclusion
The survival of modern businesses depends on their capacity to establish strong ties with customers. Relationship marketing allows companies to connect with consumers, understand their needs, and develop lasting bonds. New Zealand companies have not tapped fully the benefits associated with relationship marketing strategies. This proposal suggests the need for increased adoption of these business approaches in New Zealand. Studies consulted to assemble this thesis reveal the possibility of companies recording improved performance and profitability levels, thanks to their embracement of relationship marketing practices. Regarding the service-marketing triangle, the integration of emotions into relationship marketing strategy has also been found to improve the performance of New Zealand companies. In addition, instilling a sense of necessity or urgency encourages customers to buy a particular product or service. Hence, the implementation of relationship marketing approaches in New Zealand will guarantee enhanced customer-business connections, which, in turn, will indicate improved productivity levels.
Works Cited
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