Segment selection by relationship strength

Abstract

Relationship management is becoming more important in direct marketing. Measuring the strength of relationships is important, since relationship strength can be used as a segmentation variable. However, in measuring relationship strength, usually one or more behavioral indicators are used (e.g., the R/F/M formula), so that these indicators measure customer quality instead of relationship quality, which is mainly determined by customer perceptions. This paper shows some preliminary results of a relationship audit, which is dependent on customer attitudes towards the relationship.