| Summary: | Marketing is arguably amidst a paradigm shift. Marketing orientation is shifting away from creating exchanges (sales) to creating value (satisfaction) and relationships (cocreating value). Ultimately, the main objective of all marketing activities is value creation. In vast majority of cases, value is cocreated by several agents, especially the marketers and customers. From a value cocreation perspective, a single transaction can blossom to a process in which the customer and the marketer collaborate (rather than negotiate) for best total value through products, features, delivery terms, maintenance, and financing options for both business-to-business (B2B) as well as business-to-consumer (B2C) markets. Marketers increasingly need to develop and maintain long-term, win-win relationships with customers, distributors, dealers, suppliers, competitors, and other external influencers such as governments, media, nonprofit organizations, and pressure groups. In this book, we advocate an approach for managing customer relationships based on the use of the customer lifetime value (CLV) metric. Our premise is that measuring and maximizing CLV benefits not only marketers but also customers in measurable and concrete ways. However, in order to fully unlock the potential of the CLV metrics, it is instructive to be exposed to the history and conceptualization of relationship marketing, its three main types (B2B, B2C, and internal), and the nature of loyalty and rewards programs. We conclude with a discussion on the future of relationship marketing and the frontiers of value cocreation. Cases that illustrate the essence of each chapter along with key points to ponder and take-aways are presented therein.
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