Rethinking customer relationships

Lance A. Bettencourt, Christopher P. Blocker, Mark B. Houston and Daniel J. Flint

Business Horizons, 2015, vol. 58, issue 1, 99-108

Abstract: Success in business markets demands going beyond satisfactory exchanges with customers. Conventional wisdom therefore dictates that firms must build close customer relationships. Yet, unfortunately, the meaning of a close relationship from the customer's viewpoint can get lost in translation. We find that, contrary to the widely held use of the relationship metaphor in business, customers do not actually want interpersonally meaningful relationships; in fact, these are often viewed with cynicism and are seen as a burden. Rather, customers seek value creation attuned to their particular contexts to drive instrumental objectives. This article highlights the thorny, often veiled aspects of customer relationships and re-directs attention to the essential connections that help suppliers successfully co-create value with customers.

Keywords: Buyer-seller relationships; Relationship marketing; Collaboration; Partnerships; Value creation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681314001414
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bushor:v:58:y:2015:i:1:p:99-108

DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2014.09.003

Access Statistics for this article

Business Horizons is currently edited by C. M. Dalton

More articles in Business Horizons from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().