Reflections on the Implications of Relationship Marketing

It is now widely accepted that the goal of any business is to create and sustain mutually beneficial relationships with customers. Equally widely accepted is the view that the cement that binds successful relationships is the two way flow of value that is, the customer derives real value from the relationship, which converts into value for the organisations in the form of enhanced profitability. This is the context from which the philosophy and practice of relationship marketing has emerged. Undoubtedly, relationship marketing marks a fundamental shift in both marketing theory and practice. However, although the literature on this topic is large and continuously expanding, relationship marketing remains an ambiguous concept and this is why more research is needed. To provide a more comprehensive understanding of the implications of relationship marketing, the theory framework is described in detail and the research questions are introduced. The findings of this research derive from a larger exploratory, qualitative study which sought to test the relevance of this framework applied to the French banking sector and to gauge whether French banks had adopted the relationship marketing concept fully or had only been partially successful in its implementation. Furthermore, the intention was to establish the extent to which banks had attempted to overcome any problems encountered in implementing relationship marketing and to identify what still needed to be done.