Developing relationship marketing with customers: a Scandinavian perspective

Abstract

For long‐term survival and growth, libraries and information centres need to build, develop and maintain a relationship with their customers. Highlights the shifting paradigms that have affected the traditional concept of libraries and attempts to focus the emerging issues that influence the service‐provider and customer relationship. The foremost challenge witnessed by library managers is how to provide easy and quick access to information products and services without compromising service quality while maintaining customer focus at the same time. A relationship marketing approach, initially evolved in Scandinavia, is suggested as a way to build relationships with the customers. Some experiences drawn from a pilot study conducted in Finnish libraries have been interpreted in the framework of a relationship marketing approach. The key issues raised are how relationship marketing principles can contribute to developing relationships with customers in the library and information environment. Stresses that building relationships with customers has become more critical to meet their ever changing various needs, wants, and demands. A list of further reading relating to Scandinavia is appended.

The Impact of Relational Governance on Relational Exchange Performance: A Case of the Taiwanese Automobile Industry

“…Acquiring and evaluating customer requirements and disseminating this information within the organization helps reduce interfunctional problems (Bhatt & Troutt, 2005). Building customer relationships has become increasingly critical to meet customers' ever-changing needs, wants, and demands (Singh, 2003). Because the marketing concept promotes placing the customer's interest first, numerous researchers have considered customer focus to be the most fundamental aspect of corporate culture (Deshpande, Farley, & Webster, 1993) and a central tenet of market orientation.…”

Comparative analysis of library marketing studies in Korea and other countries from 2000 to 2013

“…In general, library marketing studies have been primarily focused on public and academic libraries (David and Sagun 2011;Gambles and Schuster 2003;Spalding and Wang 2006;Staines 2009). A range of articles have discussed the application of marketing methods to select academic or public libraries in specific countries (Broady-Preston and Steel 2002;David and Sagun 2011;Koontz, Gupta and Webber 2006;Nkanga 2002;Singh 2003). The number of studies focusing on school library and special library marketing is relatively small (Hwang 2011;Kang 2013;Kim 2007;Lee 2007), and studies focusing on special libraries are particularly rare (Lee 2007;Singh 2006).…”

“…As Wood and Young (1988) insisted, it seems that libraries began to realize that they needed to respond to apparent community needs and to analyze their needs actively. In this context, some library marketing scholars use the term 'customers' instead of 'users' or 'patrons' (Garoufallou et al 2013;Gupta 2012;Koontz, Gupta and Webber 2006;Singh 2003). User-centered mindset is not new to the library studies field.…”

Personalized service? Changing the role of the government librarian

“…Information professionals are taking a more strategic approach to marketing their services, especially in the academic and corporate sectors [30,33,[43][44][45]. The profession has also recognized the relatively new concept of 'relationship marketing' as particularly relevant to library and information services in the context of developing closer working relationships and partnerships with customers and colleagues: customer relationship management offers mutual gain, as the process of building the relationship enables the service provider to become more attuned to and thus better placed to satisfy customers' information needs [44][45][46][47][48][49].…”

“…[30,33,[43][44][45] The profession has also recognised the relatively new concept of 'relationship marketing' as particularly relevant to library and information services in the context of developing closer working relationships and partnerships with customers and colleagues: customer relationship management offers mutual gain, as the process of building the relationship enables the service provider to become more attuned to and thus better placed to satisfy customers' information needs. [44][45][46][47][48][49] Branding is another key concept gaining attention in academic, national, public and (particularly) special libraries. [30,45,[50][51][52][53][54] Libraries need to position themselves as the primary conduits of information in their organisations.…”