It helps if your buyer's "role" is more than just a customer...
Relationship is Key to Successful Marketing of Value-Added Services
by Richard A. Wight

Customers are certainly being offered some interesting and creative choices these days, ranging from traditional services like appliance repair and warranty services to new value-added offerings like cable and satellite entertainment, security systems, credit cards and even life insurance.

The customer's decision to purchase a service from their utility stems from the value the customer attaches to the product/services and its relationship to customer loyalty. It also hinges on the customer's current relationship with their utility.

The nature of the relationship is simply the role the customer assumes when interacting with the utility. This role has a strong influence on customer expectations of the results/outcome of the interaction -- perhaps even more importantly in cases where choice is limited.

For example, rural electric cooperative customers may view themselves as customers, members, or owners... or all three. Municipal utility customers may view themselves as citizens and/or voters. In each case, the public power customer will tend to view the nature of the relationship with their utility very differently than do customers of investor-owned utilities.

Note that the nature of the relationship precedes expectations. the difference in a customer-service provider relationship can be a very powerful factor in the decision of what to purchase from whom, because the benefit of the purchase may go well beyond the actual service/product purchase to include loyalty and ownership or community contribution.

In terms of customer satisfaction, it is crucial that companies understand the nature of customer/employee connections by market segment. These connections can be very fragile. Is the source of the relationship primarily from one key employee? What is the customer ease of making connections with different individuals and what is the stability of the one-on-one account rep connection? How can the utility leverage its relationship with customers beyond the critical one-on-one connection so that the relationship is not sacrificed when there is employee turnover?

These issues are not exclusive to our industry. For further discussion of the issues, contact the author, and for further reading, check out Sybil Stershic's two-part article in AMA Services Marketing Today, "The 'Art' of Relationship Marketing," June 1996 and December 1996.

Dick Wight is President of Energy Market Solutions in Atlanta, GA. He presented a paper on "Value-Added Services -- A Strategy for Success" at the AESP 1996 Annual Meeting. For a copy of the paper call him at (770) 455-6994. The complete proceedings of the 1996 Annual Meeting are available from the AESP office.