How co-operation can deliver added value to customers : from the customers view

The ways to do business are changing and relationships are becoming more important. One big change in relationship marketing is that companies are co-operating in many different ways. These different forms of co-operation have been a big part of this research since the theories are not consistent and business people do not have a clear picture of what concept of co- operation they are working with. The purpose of this study is to reach an understanding of how co-operation between selling companies can deliver added value to the customer. TeliaSonera’s personnel were interviewed and the literature was studied to get an understanding of how co-operations work. There were no theories about the customers’ experiences of selling companies in co-operation, bet there were some theories about how co-operations shall work between the co- operating companies to be successful. Because of the lack of relevant theories and since the studied co-operations are delivering services, are the theories that are brought up in this research from the service marketing and service production. Customers were identified and interviewed according to their earlier experiences of buying from co-operating companies. The service production theories and the success factors were used in analysing the interview results. The analysis gave some clear results that the customers identified as values that companies can deliver to them through co-operation. The customers want the companies to communicate their co-operation so that they can see the value. The customers also identified the success factors (summarised in table 7.1), from the theory, and if the co-operation follows those factors the customer will feel secure. If the co-operating companies have an understanding of the customer’s line of business it can make the customer gain trust. Gathering the right competences can make the customer get a whole solution and save them time and money. If the co-operation adjusts the level of involvement for the customer according to the complexity of the problem the customers will get the most of the buy.Validerat; 20101217 (root