Creating long-term relationships with the help of a customer club

During the last fifty years the market has changed from a product-oriented industry into a more market-oriented where the company puts the customer in the center. In order to be able to compete on a highly competitive market, a company has to be able to meet every single customer’s needs and expectations. To do this the company has to have a close relationship to the customers and trying to make them loyal to the company, because in general it cost five to ten times more to sell to a new customer then to an old customer. In order to create long-term relationships to the customers the company has to start working with customer care. Through working with customer care the company hopes to create satisfied and loyal customers. One of the most popular ways of working with customer care in the retail business is through a customer club. This master thesis examine how three well established companies in the retail business work with a customer club in order to create long-term relationships. The companies that have been examined are Intersport, MQ and Stadium. This work has shown that the case companies all have the same main goal of working with a customer club that is to get to know their customers and create long-term relationships. They are all working with a customer database in order to get to know their customers and using the database for targeted marketing in order to create an even stronger relation to the customers. To entice the customer to become a member in the customer club and come back to the company all of the case companies offer their customers bonus, special offers and experiences. All of the case companies also work with collaboration partners which gives them the possibility to give their customers unique and special experiences. Through all of the offers the case companies hopes to create an even stronger bond between the company and the customers.Validerat; 20101217 (root