The underlying objective of relationship centered marketing is to strengthen the seller-buyer relationship in a cost-effective, understandable and repeatable method to improve customer retention, which simultaneously improves profitability.
Your profit potential increases with every returning customer.
Customer retention and improved profitability have been inextricably linked by numerous studies, and countless examples continuously happening in every type of business. The statistics vary dramatically, but all arrive at the same conclusion. Customer retention equals higher profitability. Citing a particularly well-researched study, noted author and business strategist Frederick F. Reichheld, in his The Forces of Loyalty vs. Chaos essay wrote, “Then, we studied a wide array of industries, and found that a 5 percentage point shift in customer retention consistently resulted in 25-100% profit swings.” (Of note, this essay is available by name on the Internet and reviews the many benefits of loyalty and its relationship with business.)
RCM is “The high road to better profits.”
“Better profits” truly is a plural, especially if its description includes the manageability and demeanor of the transaction and the feeling of accomplishment, at both the seller level and throughout the “selling” business, regardless of its size, when customers return to buy from you again. (Conversely, learning that you lost your customer’s business to someone else can be, to varying degrees, demoralizing.)
Imagine if every customer referred just one of their friends to do business with you.
Moving further up the “high road” of RCM are its referral generation capabilities. Imagine if every customer, client, patron or patient of yours referred just one member of their network (family, friends, etc.) to do business with you, and they did it without any incentive other than their regard for their relationship with you. And, equally important to the selling process, think of the credibility created for you before that referred customer ever speaks to you. Not only do people do business with those they know, like and trust, they are more inclined to refer their family and friends to a seller they feel that way about.