Failures of Transactional Marketing: An Analysis

Failures of Transactional market An AnalysisA. R. Lacey (1996), in Dictionary of Philosophy explains range as a sh bed assumption or an accepted guess which governs the outlook of an epoch and its go about to scientific problems giving standard forms of solutions to problems. Within the physical and genial sciences, it is parking lot for mavin range of a part, a dominant paradigm to be prevalent. Currently, the dominant selling paradigm, the accepted model of how merchandising courses and should be integrated with the peace of brainpower of the world, is what has come to be called Transactional trade (TM) (Gronroos, 1996 Aijo, 1996 Gummesson, 1987 Berry, 1983 Jackson, 1985 Payne, 1995).This research is principally concerned with what has been called Relationship market (RM), a term alluded to by Thomas (1976), but first explicitly used by Berry (1983 see Kotler, 1992 Gronroos, 1990, 1991 Hunt and Morgan, 1994 Berry, 1995 Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995 Turnbull and Wilson, 1989). The foundations of Relationship Marketing argon inextricably mixed with the development and practice of Transactional Marketing. The underpinning theories and notionualisations of RM often simply make up in relation, or opposition to the guess and practice of Transactional Marketing. It is therefore necessary to understand Transactional Marketing before RM groundwork be fully comprehended.The American Marketing Association has defined (transactional) merchandising as the process of syllabusning and executing conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and attends to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organic lawal objectives. (AMA Board, 1985). The market concept is a very simple but powerful idea. The best way for a company to meet its objectives, profit making or new(prenominal)(a)wise, is by whole customers-the achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding customer ineluctably better than the competition (Jobber, 2001). This is best done by all members of the firm pursuance to serve the needs of the customer, even at the expense of producer inconvenience. If this concept is adopted by the establishment, it leads to what is called a market orientation. The analysis and subsequent re calculate of transactional market volition be in two parts, an appraisal of its theoretical origins, development and weaknesses and an examination of the standard ways in which firms implement it. The next section will critique the Transactional Marketing Paradigm on two main fronts. These being firstly, criticisms based on theoretical weaknesses or omissions, and secondly, criticisms around the way in which theory and models have been misunderstood or ignored by firms. Both of these categories however, emerge out of the unique economic and social environment inwardly which the transactional trade paradigm developed (Webster, 1992 Aijo, 1996).1.1. THE BIRTH OF merchandise THEORYThe origins of Transactiona l Marketing argon in microeconomics, North America and the 1950s. Prior to WWII, economists developed price theory to embrace what they called oligopolistic competition (Chamberlain, 1933 Sheth, Gardner and Garrett, 1988 Waterschoot and cutting edge Den Bulte, 1992). This theoretical development led early trade theoreticians (McGarry, 1950 McKitterick, 1957 Alderson, 1957 see Gronroos, 1994, 1996) to create lists of marketing variables deduced from econometric, profit optimising equations- the so called functionalist school of marketing (McGarry, 1950). In turn, this inspired Borden (1954) to introduce the concept of the marketing mix, a list of 12 variables (product, price, branding, distribution, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, display, servicing, physical handling, fact finding and analysis which the marketer would have to ascertain in any given situation. And would blend the various ingredients or variables of the mix into an integrated marketing progra m. (Gronroos, 1994b350).In a seminal work, McCarthy (1960) presented the marketing mix focus approach, reconstructing Bordens headmaster 12 variables into the now familiar 4P model (Price, Product, Promotion and Placement). The theoretical foundations of this model have been severely questioned (Waterschoot and Van Den Bulte, 1992 Gummesson, 1987 Sheth et al, 1988 Webster, 1992 Duncan and Moriarty, 1998). Principally, these questions stem from the fact that the original microeconomic variables, derived through empirical induction had solid theoretical foundations, whilst Bordens list had only second-order links to these foundations and, crucially, was not intended as an exhaustive definition or method of implementation but merely as a set of guidelines oceanic abyss down a fully integrated marketing program. Real world developments and its ingrained simplicity ensured the organize and rise of the 4P model and its attendant Marketing Mix Management theory. 1950s North America - a huge domestic market of manifestly homogenous and insatiable customers -led to rapid increases in the demand for standardised consumer goods and the crowning of the United States as the dominant marketing culture. In time it became the basis of modem transactional marketing (Takala and Uusitalo, 1996 Kotler, 1992 Aijo, 1996).The simplicity and communic powerfulness of the marketing mix paradigm, in combination with its apparent success, combined to turn marketing into a exceedingly effective impact machine (Gr6nroos, 1996c 16). Transactional Marketing rapidly became the overwhelmingly dominant marketing paradigm (Dixon and Blois, 1983, Kent, 1986).1.2. MARKETING IN CONTEMPORARY ORGANISATIONSGiven the great number of organisations which pay at least lip-service to the wideness of marketing, a diversity of methods of implementing transactional marketing is inevitable (Brodie et al, 1997). The most typical structure, and one commonly found at bottom the context of end-user orient ated firms (Christy et al, 1996) is to have within the organisation a sub-unit, separate from the rest of the firm, with responsibility for marketing market analysis, advertising, sales promotion, pricing and distribution (Buttle, 1996 Deshpande and Webster,1989 Gurnmesson, 1994). The principal focus of this research is on the family relationship amid much(prenominal) firms, and their customers.In everyday marketing vocabulary.marketing discussion section, an organisational unit, is used as a synonym for marketing function (Gronroos, 1994). The implication is clear, Transactional Marketing theory suggests that marketing can be treated as a separate, discrete function, instead than as an integrated one (Berry and Parasuraman,1995 Waterschoot and Van Den Bulte, 1992 Palmer, 1994 Payne, 1995 Thomas, 1996). The existence of these marketing departments echoes much about the functionalist, scientific econometric origins of transactional marketing. The philosophy of implementation pr evalent within western vexation is that specialists should themselves take care of a task for specialists (Gronroos, 1996). In many businesses, the marketing department is seen as having total responsibility for various marketing tasks, such as market analysis, market planning, advertising, sales promotion, pricing, distribution and product packaging (Gronroos, 1994). This begs the question that if the marketing department takes care of these entire fundamental issues, what exactly is the rest of the business for?One of the primary and most traditional Justifications of adopting a marketing orientation sooner than a sales or production orientation is that marketing integrates the other functions of the business (Bennett, 1996 Jackson, 1985) into a to a greater extent coherent whole, built around the needs and wants of the customer. The conclusion of creating a marketing department is to bring about a situation where, within an organisation, marketing department is used as a synon ym for marketing function, which is the process of taking care of the fulfilment of customer needs and desires. As a consequence, the rest of the organisation is alienated from marketing, and the marketers are unaffectionate from design, production, deliveries, technical service, complaints handling, and other activities of the firm (Gronroos, 1994). Marketing is being treated as a specialist focal point function, rather than a general management issue (Gronroos, 1996).Within such organisations, there is a clear-cut distinction inferred from marketing mix management theory surrounded by those who are involved with marketing, and those who arent. This process has been called the Ghettoisation of marketing (Gummesson, 1987).It has been strongly argued (Gummesson, 1987,1990,1994 Duncan and Moriarty, 1998 Aijo, 1996 Christy et al, 1996 Heide and John, 1995) that the distinction betwixt the marketer and non-marketer is an artificial one. Opportunities for marketing activity are not particular(a) to those inside the marketing department. What do the following people have in common a telephone operator connecting a customer with a salesperson an installation team from the supplier spending two weeks on the buyers premises installing and testing late equipment a management consultant presenting a progress report in an assignment? (Gummesson, 1991). The answer is of course, that these are all people international the marketing department, therefore by definition not responsible for marketing where, nevertheless, their attitudes and way of doing their job have an impact on the customers perception of the firm (Gronroos, 1996).These non-marketers, with their influence on the firms ability to market itself efficiently and effectively have been called part-time marketers (Gummesson, 1987).1.3. SUMMATION OF THE PROBLEMS INHERENT TO THE MARKETING MIXThe origins of marketing mix management theory, and the transactional marketing paradigm it gave rise to be in the USA , the nineteen-fifties and microeconomics. The theoretical foundations of this paradigm are questionable in terms of its translation from econometric modelling and its pedagogical simplification. At best, the 4P model was adapted for the unique marketing environment created by the post WWH American autarchy. The theoretical weaknesses of the transactional marketing paradigm have been highlighted by radical changes in the business environment, such as the globalisation of competition and the increasing sophistication of consumers and products. These weaknesses are especially apparent in contexts that are significantly different from that of its origins -most noticeably services marketing and European markets. The academic response has been to avoid the problem by papering over the theoretical cracks. Within firms, the creation and stagnation of marketing departments has ghettoised, neutered and isolated marketing from the consumer and even the rest of the firm. As a result of this, transactional marketing treats the consumer as passive and fails to fully recognise the marketing importance of interaction between front-line staff and customers.Transactional Marketing fails its own definition. It is a production orientated definition of marketing, not a customer orientated one.THE ORIGINS OF affinity MARKETINGTHE OTHER MARKETING THEORIESThe origins of Relationship Marketing are in Europe, the nineteen-eighties, and dissatisfaction with the Transactional Marketing paradigm. It was storied earlier that transactional marketing theory was principally developed from its origins in end-user, consumer markets. Relationship Marketing draws on a broader theoretical base (within a marketing context), with concomitant development within the services and business to business (B2B) marketing literatures. The term Relationship Marketing, alluded to by Thomas (1976) was first explicitly used by Berry (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991 Berry, 1995 Gummesson, 1987 Gronroos, 1996 Payn e and Richard, 1993 Robicheaux and Coleman, 1994 Payne and Frow, 1997). It has also been called customer-focused management (Gummesson, 1994), or relationship management (Payne, 1996). Berry (1983) used the term within the context of criticising services marketing literature, arguing that researchers and businessmen have concentrated far more on how to attract consumers to products and services than on how to retain those customers. He advocated a switch from a transactionary approach, where marketing effort was focussed on customer attraction, to a relational approach, where the attraction of new customers should be viewed only as an intermediate step in the marketing process (Berry, 1995), and the primary objective was retaining customers.Berry (1983) defined Relationship Marketing as attracting, guarding and -in multi-service organisations -enhancing customer relationships. Simultaneously, Hammarkvist, Hakansson and Mattson (1982), working within the arena of business-to-busines s marketing (Gronroos, 1996), advanced similar definition (Andersson and Soderland, 1988 Anderson, Hakansson and Johanson, 1994) all activities by the firm to build, maintain and develop customer relations. (Hammarkvist et al, 1982 cited Gurnmesson,1987). That relationships should be managed and built has become a cornerstone of both(prenominal) the Nordic and the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) School of marketing (Mattsson, 1997 Gronroos, 1996c). This parallel development within separate areas of research is far from simultaneous (Takala and Uusitalo, 1996). As with the Transactional Marketing literature, each of these streams of research emanates from within a particularized business environment (Aijo, 1996).SERVICES MARKETINGIt was argued earlier that the Transactional Marketing Paradigm habits origins within a unique and highly specific business environment, that of the North American consumer goods markets of the 1950s. It was advertize suggested that these orig ins limited the nurture of TM as a universal theory of marketing, and that primarily within the context of end-user orientated literature, development consisted of re-jigging a redundant theoretical format.The deviation from this specific business environment was greatest within the domains of service marketing and business to business marketing (Mattsson, 1997), albeit in very different ways. The theory and practice of transactional marketing assumes that consumers are available in great number and behave passively. Within industrial and service markets, the interactive Participation of the customer is required to successfully complete the exchange (Gummesson, 1987), within business, customer-firms are often limited in numbers. An ancillary implication of treating the customer as passive, manyone to whom things are done (Dixon and Blois, 1983) is to instil within the business the philosophy of competing with customers, rather than interactive co-operation.Transactional Marketing Theory maintains the assumption of its microeconomic origins in that the marketing mix is a tool used to help a company optimise maximise its profit function (Waterschoot and Van den Bulte, 1992 Gronroos, 1991). It is because of this that firms consider marketing objectives met at the point of customer attraction -i.e. moment of exchange. When marketing a service, it is argued that the objectives should not only be to only to attract, but to then keep and maintain the customer-to develop a long-term relationship with them (Bitner et al, 1994 Cravens and Piercy, 1994 Gronroos, 1991 Gummesson, 1987b). When selling a physical product, the costs of production are offshoot by the revenue of the purchase. With a service, the majority of costs are often incurred whilst setting-up the service (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991 Booms and Bitner, 1981), for example accountancy and banking. The implication of this is that longer-term system, in conjunction with placing significant ferocity on cu stomer retention will yield dividends (Berry, 1995 Payne and Richard, 1993 Parasuraman et al, 1991 Gronroos, 1990), and indeed, empirical evidence to represent this has been found. Reichheld and Sasser (1990) have demonstrated across a variety of service industries that lucre climb steeply when a company successfully lowers its customer defection ratethe researchers found that the firms could improve profits from 25 percent to 85 percent by reducing customer defections by just 5 percent. Not only do loyal customers generate more revenue for more years, the costs to maintain existing customers frequently are lower than the costs to acquire new customers (Berry, 1995). Other studies have provided further evidence of the benefits of a long-term, customer retention strategy within competitive consumer-service markets, Storbacka (1997), Gwin (1988) and Perrienet al (1993) in banking, Crosby and Stephens (1987) in insurance. Moments of Truth and the Crucial Role of the Part-Time Markete r. Firms producing end-user products often sell through an intermediate, retailing company. As such, opportunities for marketing are indirect via mass-media and market research (Henry, 1994). The interaction required within service and business-to-business marketing enforces a more direct approach (Gronroos, 1994). The image and constitution of the firm cannot solely be constructed through promotion. Interaction between a consumer and the firms part-time marketers (Gummesson, 1987) will result in that consumer have a positive or negative perception of the company (Price et al, 1995 Cravens and Piercy, 1994) a process that Gronroos (1982) calls perceived service quality.Given the intangibility of service products, this perceived service quality is of the utmost importance, the consumer has puny else by which to judge the firm outside of his direct interaction with it (Ferguson,1996 Bitner et al, 1994). The marketing effort of the part-time marketers therefore forms the bulk of the firms marketing impact (Gronroos, 1996), often they are the only marketers around (Normann, 1983). Research shows that the customer will judge the quality of the service and form an attitude to the provider both from the experience of the production1delivery process and of the futurity benefits of the service (Lehtinen, 1985).In a situation where the majority of marketing activity does not come from the full-time marketers within the marketing department, it makes little sense to plan the activities of this department separately. It was argued earlier that if such a department is considered by the rest of the firm to be taking care of the marketing function, it will become increasingly difficult to create an interest in marketing amongst unwitting part-time marketers (Gronroos, 1982 Christy et al, 1996). A marketing orientation is only achieved when all members of an organisation has asked them how do I contribute to excellence in customer relations and to revenue (Gummesson,1991 6 0).An auxiliary concept to that of the part-time marketer is that of points-if-marketing (Normann, 1983), more poetically called moments of truth. These are natural opportunities emerging in the production and delivery process for example, the interaction between a doctor and a patient (Gummesson, 1991). For these occasions to be positively resolved, marketing essential(prenominal) be designed-into the process, rather than tacked-on.RELATIONSHIP MARKETING DEFINITIONS FROM SERVICE LITERATURESince Berry (1983), other authors have presented alternative definitions of Relationship Marketing within the services marketing literature. RM concerns attracting, developing, and retaining customer relations (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991). establishing a relationship involves giving promises, maintaining a relationship is based on fulfilment of promises and, finally, enhancing a relationship means that a new set of promises is given with the fulfilment of earlier promises as a prerequisite. (Gummesson, 1991). The core of these ideas from services marketing is the interpersonal interaction between buyer and seller interaction. The organisation should be structured and managed so that promises worth making can be kept. Clearly, a relationship between two parties is something that grows in strength through ingeminate exchanges over a period of time, it is not instantaneously generated.BUSINESS TO BUSINESS AND NETWORK MARKETINGSuch moments of truth also exist within a business-to-business context. If the interaction between producer and consumer is crucial in services marketing it is doubly so within B2B marketing -principally because of the relatively low number of customers/suppliers (Andersson et al, 1994 Blois, 1997 Dabholkar et al, 1994). These dyads do not exist in isolation. Within the business marketing literature it has become clear that the theoretical foundations of contemporary work are not divided up with the Kotlerian (Andersson and Soderland, 1988) market ing mix theory, which has microeconomic ancestry. Instead, network-theory, which attempts to model the process of resource exchange in markets where both buyer and seller are firms or other organisations has its origins in empirical work conducted over the last 20 years, principally in Northern Europe (Mattsson, 1997). The results of these studies, when assessed as a body of work, highlight several commonalities in the exchange behaviour between firms that contradict business philosophy derived from the transactional marketing paradigm (Elg and Johansson, 1996). B2B partners are characterised as active and mutually dependent, with the buyer and seller both able to initiate an exchange. Interaction between the organisations was not the sole purview of a marketing department but instead between the equivalent departments in each firm -inter functionally.In practice, it was recognised that the marketing emphasis had switched from optimising the marketing mix to the management of the fi rms relationships (Andersson and Soderland, 1988). Network theory suggests that markets are heterogeneous, rather than homogenous (Matthyssens and Van Den Bulte, 1994). The marketing objectives of the firm became to establish, develop and decide when to terminate its relationships with the customers and suppliers in its network (Hammarkvist et al, 1982).This divergence from the transactional marketing paradigm was driven by factors in the business environment (Blois, 1997 Andersson and Soderland, 1988). Many of the economic and social characteristics of Scandinavian countries where much of the empirical work was conducted helped to highlight the differences between consumer markets and business to business markets (Andersson and Soderland, 1988). These economies have been traditionally noted for high levels of concentration in industry, a considerable amount of interaction between firms, the state and labour unions, and the national dependence on the export of highly complex product s (Porter, 1985). In general terms, business-to-business markets are characterised by a limited number of potential customer-firms, encouraging businesses to maintain relations with their partners over-time (Anderson and Narks, 1984, 1990), rather than the start-stop philosophy of transactional marketing. The change magnitude level of interaction between the partners and the individualistic requirements of each customer obviate the need for a standardised marketing program (Dabholkar et al, 1994). Relationships must be tailored, not off the peg (Harland, 1996).The management of relationships is a complex issue, Hakansson and Johanson (1992) acetones relationship management problems as either limitation or handling problems. Limitation problems concern the firms management of its portfolio of relationships -its collection of dyadic interactions. These problems concuern which, if any, of the firms relationships should be emphasised (Andersson and Soderlund, 1988). To misquote Clausew itz, he who emphasises everything, emphasises nothing. Handling problems concern the manner in which relationships are established, and once established, how they are maintained, developed and judged get hold of for termination.Within a network, what are the relational objectives of an organisation? Transactional Marketing advocates a competitive stance, the results of any interaction between a buyer and seller must result in one winning -and one losing (Doyle and Engermann, 1992 Donaldson, 1996). Network theory espouses co-operation to produce a win-win situation (Deshpande and Webster, 1989). Despite this, network theorists consider that firms must work to deepen chosen relationships, to achieve some level of power -also called bonds over their partners whilst striving to remain free of such bonds themselves (Andersson and Soderlund, 1988). Relationships can create bonds of several types, planning, knowledge, legal and social (Berry, 1985).The end of the relationship will incur switching costs, not necessarily stringently financial. The original quote being He whose fends everything, defends nothingBUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP MARKETING DEFINITIONSSince Hammarkvist et al (1982) defined relationship marketing within the context of business network marketing, others have proposed alternatives. RM is an emergent disciplinary framework for creating, developing and sustaining exchanges of value between the parties involved, whereby exchange relationships evolve to provide continuous and stable links in the supply chain (Ballantyne, 1994) .. Is not directly aimed at immediate minutes but is based on building, supporting and extending customer relationships (Matthyssens and Van denBulte, 1994). RM is the process of co-operating with customers to improve marketing productivity through efficiency and effectiveness (Parvatlyar, 1996). At the tit of these ideas is the concept of a partnership where both parties require co-operative behaviour from the other i n order for the relationship to be mutually beneficial -neither has many other alternatives, to buy from or supply to. The focus is not at the level of one-on-one interaction of services marketing, but is instead much wider -it is necessary for turgid groups on both sides to contribute.THE RELATIONAL CONSTRUCTS OF COMMITMENT AND TRUSTUntil quite recently, little attempt had been made to provide network theory with the conceptualisations necessary to understand the processes of relationship maintenance and development. Whilst an initial model was presented by Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987), the first serious attempt test a model in a structured manner was in a seminal paper by Morgan and Hunt (1994), (see Kalatatis and Miller, 1996 Hunt, 1997 Gronroos, 1996a Gummesson, 1997).Relationship Marketing refers to all marketing activities directed towards establishing, developing and maintaining successful relational exchanges. Morgan and Hunt (1994)They further argue that Relationship Market ing requires the successful management of relationships with the firms partners. Such management requires the establishment, maintenance and development of relationships, in which understanding of concepts like commitment and trust are keys. Morgan and Hunt have suggested that commitment and trust are amongst the key mediating variables that distinguish productive, effective relational exchanges from those that are inefficient and ineffective (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Furthermore, commitment and trust between partners in a network leads directly to co-operative behaviours in three ways. Firstly, they predispose the partners towards actively preserving relational investments. Secondly they help to prevent partners from adopting short-term, opportunistic behaviours. Thirdly, they help to support the view of high-risk actions as being prudent in the longer term (Hunt, 1997). Morgan and Hunt construct what they call a KMV (Key Mediating Variable) model to show the profound importance of commitment and trust in marketing relationships.THE BEGINNINGS OF A RELATIONAL PARADIGM?The increasing awareness of the limitations of the Transactional Marketing Paradigm, in conjunction with the development of run marketing and Network marketing has led to calls for a substantial change in the marketing philosophy, practice and ethos (Daskou, 1997 Clarkson et al, 1997 Palmer, 1994). in the authors view, the present marketing concept, as it appears in research, textbooks and seminars is unrealistic and needs to be re bug outd (Gummesson, 199 1). The need for a paradigm shift in Marketing, based on a Relationship Theory is being advocated more and more strongly ( Gronroos, 1990).This change is not skin-deep, it will not be quick, and it will not be painless. RM suggests different focus and different underpinning values for marketing that, in my view justify calling RM a new paradigm and the beginning of a new marketing theory. (Gummesson, 1994). It requires a totally new approac h to some of the fundamental thoughts in marketingthe transition from a transaction-orientated marketing mix-based practice of marketing to a relationship-oriented one is not an uncomplicated process. The old paradigm has deep roots in the minds of marketers as well as non-marketers in a company. (Gronroos, 1996).What then, is the association between Transactional and Relational marketing? Any meaningful answer to this hypercritical question requires a definition of Relationship marketing. The first definition of RM offered as a general rather than a business/services/consumer marketing specific definition is to be found in Gronroos (1991). Marketing is to establish, maintain and enhance, and where necessary end relationships with customers and other parties at a profit so that the objectives of the parties involved are met. This is done by a mutual exchange and fulfilment of promises. As Aijo (1996) notes from the work of Sheth et al (1988), Throughout its historymarketing has bee n generally dominated at any one time by one prevailing perspective. The implication of this is firstly, that the transactional paradigm will be completely replaced by the relational paradigm, and that secondly, the association between the alternative paradigms is competitive, rather than complementary. For some brief time, this view received wide support, no doubt influenced by the weaknesses of the transactional paradigm and incredible growth of relational literature (Berry, 1990 Gronroos, 1989 Dixon and Blois, 1989 Gurnmesson, 1991). Quickly, this simplistic view of the (non) association between transactional and relational was superseded by more sophisticated thoughts (Brodie et al, 1997Aijo, 1996). Gronroos (1991) considered that the true decision facing firings was not Transactional Marketing or Relationship Marketing, but rather where on a marketing strategy continuum the company should place itself In some cases, a firm could be justified in maintaining a purely transaction al approach. For some types of products and in some situations or for some types of customers a one-deal-at-a-time approach may be good strategy (Gronroos, 1991). This idea has great appeal, especially when it is considered that some sections of the wider marketing literature have discussed for years the interaction between the customer and aspects (we might say avatars) of the impression/relationship the firm has made in the mind of the customer-obvious examples of this would be store location strategies and especially branding. Indeed, the argument could be made that if the objective of the research project is to examine customer perspectives on their relationships with firms, an assessment of branding would be a key part of the literature review and would feed into the design of the research questions and fieldwork. A subtle but important distinction needs to be made between the relationship a customer has with a firm and the perspectives that customer has on relationship marketi ng as applied to them by the company. This research project is centred on the latter, not the former.This Transactional Marketing-Relationship Marketing continuum forms the basis of a simple model that developed by Gronroos. In this model he attempts to place various categories of goods/services at the appropriate place