Value‐driven relational marketing: From products to resources and competencies

Marketing from a relational perspective, or relationship marketing, requires that a firm offers more resources and activities than a core product (goods or services) in order to satisfy the long‐term value needs of its customers. In the present article a value‐driven approach to how such long‐term needs are fulfilled is discussed. The analysis goes beyond the product concept and develops a resources‐and‐competencies approach to the market offer. However, a relational approach to marketing can be expected to be successful only if the firm adopts a true relational intent and the customer is in a relational mode. Therefore, the concepts of relational and transactional intent and relational and transactional mode, respectively, are also introduced and discussed.