Relationship line

Relationship Marketing

Customer service, loyalty, reviews and PR — keeping customers, and turning them into advocates.

Relationship marketing is about what happens after the first sale. It is usually far cheaper to keep a customer than to win a new one, and loyal customers spend more, cost less to serve and recommend you to others. This line of the map covers the service, loyalty and reputation work that makes that happen.

Customer service

Service is marketing. Every enquiry, complaint and delivery is a chance to confirm or undo the promise your advertising made. Make it easy to reach a person, answer quickly on the channels customers use, and give front-line staff the authority to put things right. A well-handled complaint often produces a more loyal customer than no problem at all.

Loyalty schemes

Loyalty schemes range from stamp cards to the big coalition programmes. They work when the reward is meaningful and easy to understand, and when the business actually uses the data the scheme collects. Personalised offers based on purchase history usually beat blanket discounts, which simply give margin away to people who would have bought anyway.

Reviews and reputation

Online reviews strongly influence buying decisions. Ask every satisfied customer for a review, reply to reviews — good and bad — politely and promptly, and fix the problems negative reviews reveal. UK consumer law explicitly bans fake reviews and hiding negative ones, and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) enforces it.

Public relations

PR manages reputation with the media and the wider public. It has its own guide: see public relations.

Measuring relationships

Track retention and repeat-purchase rates, customer lifetime value, complaint volumes and resolution times, and a simple satisfaction or recommendation score. Look at why customers leave as closely as why they join.