Relationship Marketing And Consumer Relationships

Collaborative networks are formed of collaborators - the term collaborator means that the actor is engaged in a relationship with other parties or organizations towards a common goal. The actor may be a a firm, a specialist person or even a customer that helps another person, an organization in its business activities and operations without owning or being part of other unit, or organization. They cooperate together in a collaborative value system. The term value system will be used to imply that each of the collaborators as well as of the activities create more exchanged value for the whole system. (Faulkner, 1992; Gummesson, 1996; Jarillo, 1993; Webster, 1992; Zikmund and D’amico, 1995; Zineldin et al., 1997; Zineldin, 1998). Zineldin

But it can also be seen as an extension and concentration. The article focuses mainly on the new relationship marketing towards customers in the mass market of goods, which evolved from the concept of stronger relationships between and in organisations. It shows, that the concepts and the methods between Business to Business relationships and Business to Consumer relationships are hard to compare and in many ways are different. Even though in both cases the changing environment and the fast development of communication and computer technology were at the heart of the evolvement. The article by O’Malley and Tynan (2000) also mentions the problem that not every company can and is interested to build a tight relationship with its customers. It only makes sense for enterprises that sell products with a high involvement from the customer’s side. One of the main differences found by O’Malley and Tynan (2000) in relations between organisations and between customers and organisations is, that the latter ones are much simpler, less intense and often of a shorter duration (Gruen 1995). Zinaldins (1998) sees all the subjects in the economy as one organism, the suppliers, the competitors and the consumers. Whereas O’Malley and Tynan (2000) suggest to differentiate between businesses among each other and between

Firstly, they point out, that in their view, systems are networks at the same time, therefore we may suggest that Collaborative Value Systems, as put by Zineldin (1998) are the same as Collaborative Value Networks (Camarinh-Matos & Afsarmanesh, 2006). It connects to Zineldin (1998) by emphasizing that 'Every single relationship should be treated as investment for the company' and make a clear difference between transactions and relationships, stating that the act of sale is not just a pure sale of the product, but should be viewed as creating a customer; the customer needs to be understood and not left anonymous and the relationship should continue by focusing on service instead of on products (Uta, Jüttner & Wehrli, 1994). This can be exemplified on a customer who when selecting a product will be approached by a proactive attitude from the side of supplier, helped to choose the best product based on customer's needs and preferences (understanding the customer) and offered post-purchase service and enhancements to the original