Business and Investment Center

Relationship Marketing is targeted at building stronger and long lasting relationships with clients and other companies. The business is done with a strategic orientation, where the relationship is improved with existing customers rather than finding new customers. It is meant to cater to the needs of individual customers. Its major part involves studying the need of the customer and how it changes in different circumstances.

Relationship marketing applies techniques like marketing, sales, customer care and communication. The relationship is not only enhanced but its life period is increased by these strategies. And as the customer realizes the value of relationship, they are drawn closer. This marketing not only focuses on building relationship and attracting customers to their products and services but also how to retain them.

A raw form of Marketing came into existence in the 1960s. But, organizations were still facing difficulty in selling products, so a system was developed to sell low cost goods to larger group of customer. Leonard Berry and Jag Sheth originated this marketing, in 1982. It was started in B2B markets and industries, which involved long term contracts for many years.  Over the period of time, various marketing strategies were improved and relationship marketing was one of them.

Relationship marketing is applicable where the customers have many options in the market for the same product or service and the customer is entitled to make a selection decision. In such a kind of market, businesses try to maintain their clients by providing comparatively better products and good service and hence, achieving customer loyalty. And once it is achieved it becomes difficult for competitors to do well in the market. The customer turnover wasn’t paid attention on as the main attention was on customer satisfaction. This kind of marketing was initially named as defensive marketing. Offensive marketing is the marketing strategy where not only new customers are attracted, but also the sales are stepped up by increasing the purchase frequency. This kind of marketing concentrates on freeing dissatisfied customers and acquiring new customers.

According to a research, the cost of retaining an old customer is only ten percent of the cost of getting a new customer, which makes sense to not to run around to get new customers in relationship marketing. And according to another research done by cross-sectional analysis, says that, a five percent improvement in customer retention is responsible for twenty-five to eighty-five percent of the profit. Usually high cost is incurred when getting new customers, so if sufficient number of existing customers is retained, there will be no need of acquiring new customers.

Once the customer trust is gained his chances of switching to other company becomes relatively less, he buys goods in bulk, he buys other supplementary goods and he starts neglecting average price variation. This maintains the unit sales volume and there is an increase in dollar-sales volume. The existing customers will be like a living advertisement. If he is satisfied with the company he will recommend it to his friends and acquaintances.

Since the existing customers are familiar with the process, it will take less time and money to educate them about the procedures putting fewer burdens on employees also and making them feel more satisfied with their jobs. The customers are divided into groups based on their loyalty. This procedure is known as relationship ladder of customer loyalty. The groups in ascending order are prospects, customer, client, supporter, advocate and partner.

Due to the advancement in computers and Internet, software has been developed to facilitate customer relationship management. With the help of this software the tastes, activities, preferences, and complaints of customers are tracked. Almost all the companies have this software in their marketing strategy, which benefits the customer as well as the company.

Thus the main aim of relationship marketing is to construct and maintain relationship with committed clients who are meant to bring profit to the company. The other benefits achieved are confidence building and social benefits.

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Internet banking savings accounts are being used more every year by people across the country and around the globe.  They offer a better alternative to traditional savings accounts.  People who use internet banking savings have good reasons to do so.

If you opt for a traditional savings account instead of an internet banking account, you will get a very low interest rate.  In fact, you will not make enough on your money to cover the cost of inflation.  Savings in traditional banks are generally around 1% annually.

This low interest rate barely makes it worth your effort to save.  You will be better off to buy things at today’s prices.  That way, when money is worth less, you will not have your money sitting in a traditional account where it will then buy less than it can now.  Internet banking provides an alternative to this situation.

Many traditional banks have worked to establish incentives to encourage saving among their customers.  They have set up programs where extra money can be put into savings automatically.  They have also encouraged the use of automatic transfers to your savings weekly or monthly.

These measures do not work because the interest rates are so low that people see no future in saving.  However, with internet banking, all that changes.  Internet banking institutions tend to offer rates more along the lines of 4.5% to 5%.

This difference allows consumers to put money in internet banking savings accounts and know that it will retain its value over time, as long as the rates stay up.  With the traditional savings, rates would have to soar to even come close to this level.

Another advantage of internet banking savings accounts is a good deal for the small investor.  You may not have large amounts of money to save at one time.  If not, you are like many financially strapped Americans.

In many traditional banks, this means that you will be given the lowest possible interest rates.  If you go to a brokerage firm, you cannot open a money market account for less than $1000 as a minimum balance.  Sometimes it is even more.  This is not so for internet banking savings accounts.

If you have your savings through internet banking, you will be able to have high interest rates at any level of investments.  You can start your internet banking savings account with as little as $100.

You might have to pay service fees until you reach a certain threshold, usually a few hundred dollars.  After that, you will be making money at better rates than you ever could at a traditional bank.

One downside of internet banking is that some of the major banks will not deal with customers who demand a lot of time.  They will discourage these customers from using their services because they are too hard to handle.  This is not true of all internet banking, but if you need a lot of help, you should be aware of it.

Overall, though, savings done through internet banking institutions still work out better for most people than traditional savings accounts.  There is just no reason to deny yourself the best interest rates your money can earn.