ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the purpose and process of building a company's relationship capital through customer relationship management (CRM). Although many B2B companies have practiced customer relationship management for a long time, now organizations in the consumer services market and even marketers of consumer packaged goods, such as Best Buy, work to build long-term customer relationships. Marketers named this customer focus relationship marketing. As originally defined, relationship marketing is about establishing, maintaining, enhancing, and commercializing customer relationships through promise fulfillment. Most companies also use relationship marketing techniques to build mutually supportive bonds with stakeholders other than consumers, such as employees and supply chain companies. Customer experience management (CEM) can refer to one transaction experience or the sum of all transactions over the duration of the relationship. Management must start with a vision that fits the company culture and makes sense for the firm's brands and value propositions.
