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Consumer marketing companies have lavished more resources on attracting new customers than on satisfying old customers. In today's low growth and highly competitive marketplace, however, customer retention increasingly joins customer getting as an important area of analysis and planning. Marketers can better cultivate relationships with existing customers in these ways: designing an optimal customer portfolio, formulating a special marketing mix, and modifying the marketing organization. The balancing of marketing efforts between winning new customers and holding onto old ones will prove instrumental in pursuing sales and profit growth in the 1980s.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb008094. When citing the article, please cite: Larry J. Rosenberg, John A. Czepiel, (1984), “A MARKETING APPROACH FOR CUSTOMER RETENTION”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 1 Iss 2 pp. 45 - 51.

Describes how customers potentially influence the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of other customers in many service environments. Explains why service marketers and operations marketers should be aware of the impact of such customer‐to‐customer relations. Examines the issues of customer compatibility and customer behaviour, finding that the classification of compatible and incompatible behaviours is often situation‐specific. Explores how the way customers affect each other can be positively influenced.

Argues that all service encounters can be thought of as sharing common elements and common problems. Considers some common issues faced by a variety of personal service providers, maintaining that researchers and managers can understand consumer classification and evaluation of services by comparing functionally dissimilar services. Analyses data from a consumer survey on attitudes to 16different household and personal services. Uses cluster analysis of these services, showing two dimensions, Service Locus and Service Instigation. Examines the relative importance of service attributes across these clusters.

Proposes that service quality can be improved by focusing on customer problems. Describes a problem‐centred research program used to establish the types and pervasiveness of customer problems and to evaluate the effect of each on customer satisfaction. Makes it possible to identifycritical problem areas and to establish service priorities accordingly. Offers recommended guidelines for designing and conducting problem‐centred consumer research.

Discusses niche and relationship marketing strategies as responses to fragmentation of the mass market. Considers the different perspectives of these approaches and how the two may be integrated into an overall marketing strategy. Concludes that marketers need to move from a top‐down approach of segmentation to a bottom‐up approach of aggregating individual needs, and an integrative relationship marketing system using a customer database is a way of doing so.

Offers a fresh outlook for managing the delicate interaction between the customer and the contact employee in the service environment. Emphasizes that the quality of the customer‐employee interfacehas a great effect on customers′ perceptions of the quality and value of the service, as well as on their satisfaction. Suggests a model of how companies can improve this interface by treating employees ascustomers and customers as employees, thus developing lower cost and higher quality services and also higher levels of satisfaction on the part of both customers and employees. Recommends various steps for management to take.

Suggests that an understanding of the difference between friendliness and courtesy can help providers to meet customer expectations and improve perceptions of service quality in a variety of service situations. Focuses on the issue of first‐name usage as a gesture of friendliness which is open to misinterpretation. Notes that this aspect of friendliness has been much debated in the popular press and has been identified as part of consumer service by some service organizations. Concludes that consumers express strong preferences for the level of friendliness they want from any type of service encounter, and that expectations will vary from one service to another and also from one customer to another.

Some service elements and processes address the minimal requirements and expectations of customers, while others go a step further to add value to the service experience. This article describes and illustrates a simple method of looking at customer satisfaction survey data that service marketers can use to distinguish minimum requirements from value enhancements.

Considers the interaction between customer and provider in professional service encounters, where extended person‐to‐person discussions frequently take place. Describes an experiment in which subjects read and reacted to stories describing such encounters, which included three service variables – competency, outcome and courtesy. Reports on the emotional responses of the subjects, finding that courtesy was responsible for most of the variation in response. Discusses the managerial implications resulting from the study, notably the importance of courtesy in professional service encounters.