Managing the automotive marketing and sales cycle through mail: Part 3

Abstract

This report builds upon the authors' previous report on relationship marketing in the financial services industry. It is based on:-research commissioned by the Royal Mail into the state of relationship marketing in the UK automotive industry and the use of mail in managing customer relationships-our wider research programme in which we examine how companies in many sectors are managing customer relationships and their use of different media and systems to do so-consulting and training engagements in the automotive industry. The paper is published in three parts. The first part (in Vol. 8, No. 1 of the Journal) deals with the authors' research aims, methodology and findings. The findings relating to the ten automotive companies interviewed for the study are then reported in more detail. Part 1 concludes with an overview of the modelling process. Part 2 takes the examination of modelling further with a description of acquisition modelling and a time series approach to relationship marketing modelling called approach management. A discussion on how to manage the future customer concludes the second part of the paper. This third part uses relationship stage analysis to examine how mail is used in selling cars and makes recommendations for future practice.