In response to Eddie's Post...

Which company do you think has been doing the best at keeping their products on top of their competition?

Today there is so much competition between company's, sometimes it seems like too much. When I go to the grocery store there is almost a hundred different brands of everything! sometimes it seems over whelming. But the product I think is staying on top of the market the best is not found at the grocery store, I believe it is the Apple company. From laptops to IPods, IPhones, to a music downloading store online, they seem to have every technological product that people today want.

I think Apple stays on top of there competition by being the first with a new product. When MP3 player's first came out, everyone wanted one and most people would buy a Ipod, now there are so many chooses. also the Iphone was a big breakthrough for Apple. before the Iphone, many people never downloaded applications to there phones, other than games or ring tones, now there is an app for virtually anything. Many company's are following Verizon and adding apps to there phones as well. But apple will always be the original for the phone with apps. The Iphone also included a touchscreen, I don't know if it was the first phone with a touch screen, but it was the first one I had ever seen. After Apple came out with that, again the competition followed, now almost everything is touchscreen.

Because of Apple's stunning technology and innovation it is ahead of the competition. I think any company that is copied by it's competition is the one at the top. I don't know if Apple is the most profitable within there competition, but for me I think they are the best in the field.

Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing is basically a focus on customer relationship management. it uses information about customers to create marketing strategies that develop and sustain desirable long term customer relationships. Because of the growth of technology, relationship marketing has expanded from not just face to face interaction, but e-interaction also. The goals of relationship marketing are simple, to find, attract and win new clients, nurture and retain those that the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold and reduce the costs of marketing and client services. Relationship marketing has been strongly influence by re engineering. according to the re engineering theory, organizations should be structured by complete tasks and processes rather than functions. Traditional marketing uses the marketing mix, but according to Ian Gordon's book on relationship marketing, "the marketing mix approach is too limited t provide a usable framework for assessing and developing customer relationships in many industries and should be replaced by the relationship marketing alternative model where the focus is on customers, relationships, and interaction over time, rather than markets and products."
Relationship marketing is so important to company's, and should be one of the main goals of any company. In a study found in the Journal of Retail Banking, it showed that a 5% improvement in customer retention can cause an increase in profitability between 25 and 85%. These increased profitability's in good relationships occur for many reasons, but some are:

• free word of mouth promotions from valued customers
• customers who are satisfied tend to stay with the company and are less likely to go to another competitor
• regular customers are less expensive to service, because they are familiar with the process of buying, so they need less education and therefore less company time.
• customers who are happy, make employees happy, in return happy employees make happy customers.

(above from the European Management Journal)

all in all, good customer relationships cause less hazards within the company. The company will have increased profitability, better customers, and happier employees. For me, I think that relationship marketing is the most important thing a company can do.

Do you think company's should focus more on relationship marketing? What company's do you think have strong customer service and therefore have good relationships with you or others?