Answer questions Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Answer questions - Assignment Example102). It became homely that mass advertising and promotional programs were quickly losing their effectiveness. Several new segments began to appear and it was becoming costly for companies to forgather these customers with the same arisees. Southeast Asian companies entered the markets and began using their core competency of operational efficiency to lure customers and price competition to beat competitors. However, the same did not translate into sustainable competitive advantage for most of the players as brand loyalty and profit margins continued to decrease (LeSueur, 2007, p. 98). Experts were quick to realise that the rules of the game have changed and companies that paying attention to survive and prosper will have to differentiate between transactional selling and relationship because the former further focuses on customer accomplishment, whereas, the latter has a more balanced focus on customer acquisition and retention (Nash, 20 00, p. 52). Discussion At its very core, the goal of merchandising is to generate value for the customers while overly maximising the profits of the organisation. However, transactional marketing and relationship marketing take very different approaches to achieve these objectives. The transactional marketing approach views the client solely as a means to an end while, the relationship marketing approach takes the liberty to consider the person with whom the sale is being as the end in himself or herself. The transactional marketing approach places the utmost importance on making as many sales as thinkable in the shortest span of time. Therefore, transactional marketers do not find themselves in position of spending time and resources at building relationships with their customers (Nash, 2000, p. 52). Also known as the traditional marketing approach, transactional marketing mainly focuses on get-up-and-go the product through mass advertising and promotion. There is little or no emphasis on customer services. Organisations that employ a transactional approach atomic number 18 highly likely to follow a dedicate technique, where the focus would remain on the four Ps of marketing without any focus on the activities that are strategically required once the purchase has been made by the customers (Clow, 2007, p. 47). Relationship marketing, on the other hand, dust focused on building valued and close long-term personal relationships, which are built through highly targeted and personal interactions. Important here to note is that organisations that follow a relationship marketing approach do not consider their brand to be their great asset, but rather they take the greatest pride in their ability to satisfy their customers and keep them happy (Spiller & Baier, 2005, p. 75). Furthermore, following relationship marketing is a time consuming and painstaking process because it requires a complete rethink of the entire value chain, cable model and operations str ategy of the organisation. It requires a top-down shift of the organisational strategy. Relationship marketing, at its very core, represents a strong commitment from the side of the organisation to understand the customers and invest at building relationships with customers (Morgan & Hunt, 1994, p. 25). Customers who feel machine-accessible with companies are likely to profit the company in