MARKETING APPROACH FOR EXISTING CUSTOMER IN B2B
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As mass production reaches the technical limits of industrial technology, suppliers are finding it more difficult to differentiate their products for quality and cost. Many companies in the manufacturing industry are trying diverse approaches to differentiate their products and compete with their rivals. Some companies are moving beyond hard product development to focus on soft product development such as customer solutions in the aftermarket. Some companies are enlarging their businesses to new areas such as financial services. They are also driving their employees to be more innovative in product design to lower costs and provide better quality to increase brand benefits. Companies that are less innovative in product development strive to establish closer communications with their business partners. To increase sustainable competitive advantages in the difficult business environment, they must simultaneously reinforce brand benefits and the quality of relationships. In this research, I try to verify the relationship between brand benefits and customer value and between relationship quality and customer value by introducing customer value as a new construct. The results show that better quality, committed delivery, economical cost, and new features motivate buyers to purchase products. relationship quality influences customer satisfaction as transaction value followed by relationship value. Thus the better relationship quality motivates buyer to purchase supplier’s product with psychological satisfaction or pleasure. In conclusion, for existing customer, marketer needs to develop marketing strategy which supports the reinforcement of relationship quality between buyer and supplier. This study also provides implication for academic researchers. Until now there was no research to introduce customer value when it explains the relationship between relationship quality and customer satisfaction. This customer value introduction will help for researchers to analyze the relationship between consumer and marketing activity.