This study aims to extend previous research studies investigating drivers of customer equity in a business-to-business environment. The study also aims to address the role of relationship benefits on customer equity in a business-tobusiness environment beyond psychological, functional and social benefits. Furthermore the study focuses on the importance of building relationships influencing customer equity in organisations operating in a business-to-business environment. The study is based on two phases. Phase one consisted of face-to-face interviews with experienced professional individuals from three different industries. These industries covered financial services, utility services and property development within a South African demographic. The data gathered from these interviews was combined with literature to understand the drivers of customer equity and the role that relationship benefits play on customer equity. Data was also gathered from a 146 questionnaires and statistically processed. Significant findings made in the study reflect the importance of customer equity within business-to-business environments. Further focusing on the importance for organisations to build long-term relationships with their customers. this will finally explain the significant impact that relationship benefits have on customer equity beyond psychological, functional and social benefits for organisations in business-to-business environments. The study recognises that the individual customers and the organisation on its own will both benefit from developed customer equity, highlighting the fact that not one driver of customer equity is exclusive to the next. Contributions made for academic purposes include hypothesised variable on customer equity, with the main aim on relationships. This study will be beneficial for various departments in organisations that interact with customers and want to improve their customer relations, specifically organisations operating in a business-to-bu

In their efforts to become more customer-focused, companies everywhere find themselves entangled in outmoded systems, metrics, and strategies rooted in their product-centered view of the world. Now, to ease this shift to a customer focus, marketing strategy experts Roland T. Rust, Valarie A. Zeithaml, and Katherine N. Lemon have created a dynamic new model they call "Customer Equity," a strategic framework designed to maximize every firm's most important asset, the total lifetime value of its customer base. The authors' Customer Equity Framework yields powerful insights that will help any business increase the value of its customer base. Rust, Zeithaml, and Lemon introduce the three drivers of customer equity -- Value Equity, Brand Equity, and Retention Equity -- and explain in clear, nontechnical language how managers can base their strategies on one or a combination of these drivers. The authors demonstrate in this breakthrough book how managers can build and employ competitive metrics that reveal their company's Customer Equity relative to their competitors. Based on these metrics, they show how managers can determine which drivers are most important in their industry, how they can make efficient strategic trade-offs between expenditures on these drivers, and how to project a financial return from these expenditures. The final section devotes two chapters to the Customer Pyramid, an approach that segments customers based on their long-term profitability, and an especially important chapter examines the Internet as the ultimate Customer Equity tool. Here the authors show how companies such as Intuit.com, Schwab.com, and Priceline.com have used more than one or all three drivers to increase Customer Equity. In this age of one-to-one marketing, understanding how to drive Customer Equity is central to the success of any firm. In particular, Driving Customer Equity will be essential reading for any marketing manager and, for that matter, any manager concerned with growing the value of the firm's customer base.

One of the most important new concepts in marketing is customer equity—here’s the essential information you need to create and manage it! This book presents thought-provoking, cutting-edge writing on customer equity management. The editors and contributing authors are top international marketing researchers who share their expertise in this new area of marketing research and practice. Capturing Customer Equity: Moving from Products to Markets is designed to enable academics to chart out future research directions and to help marketers to apply recently developed frameworks to the creation and management of customer equity in domestic and international markets. Handy charts, tables, and figures make complex information easy to access and understand. Capturing Customer Equity: Moving from Products to Markets is divided into five chapters: Developing Relationship Equity in International Markets This chapter delves into the realm of relationship marketing to define the term relationship equity and presents strategies for enhancing relationship equity in international markets via personal relationships as well as consistent processes and outcomes. This chapter, written by the editors and their partner Arun Sharma, also looks at specific implications for relationship marketing theory and practice in international markets. Dimension and Implementation Drivers of Customer Equity Management (CEM)—Conceptual Framework, Qualitative Evidence, and Preliminary Results of a Quantitative Study This chapter explores theoretical considerations as well as qualitative and quantitative research applying confirmatory factor analysis. It identifies three important dimensions of Customer Equity Management (CEM)—analytical, strategic, and operational—as well as three types of CEM implementation drivers, which represent determinants of the three CEM dimensions. Authors Manfred Bruhn, Dominik Georgi, and Karsten Hadwich present the measures they’ve developed for the CEM dimensions and drivers. These measures provide valuable help to practitioners and academics who need to understand how to manage and implement systematic customer equity management. A Network-Based Approach to Customer Equity Management This chapter, by René Algesheimer and Florian von Wangenheim, moves beyond the dyadic relationship marketing concept to present a theoretical framework for extending current thinking on customer equity towards the network perspective. Based on the current literature in social work, this chapter examines the characteristics that are likely to be powerful predictors of a customer’s network value. Practical implications are highlighted, and directions for further research are suggested. Strategies for Maximizing Customer Equity of Low Lifetime Value Customers The management of customer equity has become a major issue for many firms. This chapter examines strategies designed to assist firms in their relationships with customers who have low lifetime value. By examining the relevant literature as well as industry strategies, author Arun Sharma explores the reasons why “transactional” and “discount” customers have largely been ignored by marketing strategists, and proposes methods to enhance segment penetration and the performance of firms. Implications for managers are also highlighted. Customer Value-Based Entry Decision in International Markets: The Cnocept of International Added Customer Equity Market entry decisions are some of a firm’s most important long-term strategic choices. Still, the international marketing literature has not yet fully incorporated the idea of relationship marketing in general, and the customer value concept in particular, as a basis for market entry decisions. This chapter, by Heiner Evanschitzky and Florian von Wange

Today, Automobile industry comprises a large and growing portion of the world's total business. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become one of the favorite markets for automobile companies around the world, primarily as the Middle East has been one of the more resilient regional markets compared with North America and Europe. In UAE, almost all companies in this industry, large or small, are affected by global events and competition. In the current competitive business environment in UAE, the principal issues faced by automobile firms must be addressed for the long term sustainability of these firms. In this backdrop, the customer relationship focus can not only address the issues facing the automobile firms but also show the path to the long term sustainability of the business by making it more profitable through acquisition of profitable customers and retention of customers. This book establishes the significance of customer relationship focus in building customer equity in a competitive scenario and also provides insight into different factors that affect the customer value and thereby help in building the customer equity.

Introduction to Business covers the scope and sequence of most introductory business courses. The book provides detailed explanations in the context of core themes such as customer satisfaction, ethics, entrepreneurship, global business, and managing change. Introduction to Business includes hundreds of current business examples from a range of industries and geographic locations, which feature a variety of individuals. The outcome is a balanced approach to the theory and application of business concepts, with attention to the knowledge and skills necessary for student success in this course and beyond. This is an adaptation of Introduction to Business by OpenStax. You can access the textbook as pdf for free at openstax.org. Minor editorial changes were made to ensure a better ebook reading experience. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.