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The most common suggestions from customers are that sellers should be honest, not be pushy or phony, show that they really care about the customer (not about the sale), listen, smile, be polite like a friend, earn the customer’s trust and keep it, and follow up and solve problems proactively—even after the purchase. Customers want more guarantees and warrantees, as many of their expensive electronics stopped working properly, with no one caring enough to help them. These difficulties referenced by customers are not just failures on an organizational level, but they are also failures on a personal, human-to-human level.
Recommendations
The recommendations are to plan and practice with employees the fundamental values behind long-term relationship-building success, how to address customers’ emotional needs in each relationship stage, to have empowered employees focus on creating relational/emotional moments of connection with customers, to intervene with “extras” and reassurance during the exploration stage, to invest in a customer’s emotional “bank account” (Covey, 1992), and to practice sustainability as a core principle and fundamental mission.
Through empathy with the customer journey, marketers may begin to earn the trust and commitment that lead to profits. The implications are that relationship marketers can meet customers emotionally “where they are” on the “map” of relationship stages. If relationship marketers consistently match customer communication in depth and breadth, considering the customer’s stage and level of trust, relationship marketers may earn a functional, long-term, committed customer relationship. Customer relationships must pass the customer “gut check” and generate prosocial emotions for the journey to evolve.