Using customer satisfaction research for relationship marketing: A direct marketing approach

It is demonstrated that customer satisfaction research is not only a tool to measure consumer attitudes, but can also be a proactive tool for managing customer relations.

Abstract

Relationship marketing has become an important and necessary concept in today's business world. Due to the importance of repeat business, it is in particular vital for retail businesses to focus on longer-term relationships with customers. In this paper we demonstrate that customer satisfaction research is not only a tool to measure consumer attitudes, but can also be a proactive tool for managing customer relations. Few companies have realized the opportunity to improve the relationship with a customer while performing marketing research. Any direct contact, including customer satisfaction surveys, is an important opportunity to improve the relationship with customers. In our paper we show that consumer research and relationship marketing are integrated components of an overall customer orientation, and that marketing research can be used as a tool to perform relationship marketing. A direct marketing approach is used, contacting customers by telephone. Our results show an increase in repeat business for automobile repair services with customers contacted by phone in a customer satisfaction survey. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc.