Services Marketing

Relationship marketing has become one of the most important tools for companies in the modern era. Those organisations which have not managed to apply efficient relationship marketing instruments were destined to lose their clients. On the contrary, by building intimacy with their customers, other companies have managed to acquire many new customers and retain existing ones. Relationship marketing has become particularly vital for companies in hospitality industry because of many negative tendencies in the external environment.

During the last years terrorist threats have become more and more real and many people stopped travelling as much in order to avoid possible terrorist attacks. The tragedy which occurred on 9/11 has forever changed people’s perception of travelling as a safe pastime. The appearance of deadly diseases like SARS and avian flu has also threatened the society and many people no longer want to travel as much as they would like to.

When choosing a place to stay, people are much more concerned with safety these days and they tend to require many more services than in the previous years in order to make a decision to stay in the hotel. By building a steady relationship with their customers, hotels ensure that they always have enough clients, even when the market has negative tendencies. Hilton Hotels Corporation has been very successful in building and maintaining a steady relationship with its customers.

By offering high quality of services to its customers as well as competitive prices, the company has attracted a large number of clients. Hilton standard is considered one of the highest standards in the world and for many people “Hilton” means the highest quality. Therefore, Hilton Hotels Corporation has been able to maintain a large share of the market for many years.

Bibliography

1. Berry, Leonard L. (1983), “Relationship Marketing,” in Emerging Perspectives on Services Marketing, Leonard L. Berry, G. Lynn Shostack, and Gregory D. Upah (eds. ), Chicago, American Marketing Association, 105-107. 2. Berry, Leonard L. (1980), Services Marketing is Different, Business, 30 (May/June), 24-29.

3. Berry, Leonard L. and A. Parasuraman (1991), Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality, New York: The Free Press. 4. Berry, Leonard L. and Thomas W. Thompson (1982), Relationship Banking: The Art of Turning Customers into Clients, Journal of Retail Banking, (June), 64-73. 5. Berry, Leonard L. (1995), On Great Service: A Framework for Action, New York: The Free Press.