Relationship marketing in retail banks: superannuated concept?

All business is based on relationships. The firm only has to make them meaningful for its customers – provided that the customers want this (Grönroos 1994). Relationship marketing concerns the facilitation and managing of the relationships between the business and its customers and was developed as a response to the realisation that businesses were spending vast resources in time and money to attract new customers but very little on retaining existing ones. Relationship marketing is particularly relevant when a customer has alternative service providers to choose from, when the customer makes the selection decision and when there is an ongoing desire or need for a product or service, such as in the banking industry (Morgan & Hunt 1999)