Beyond the frills of relationship marketing

This paper presents an empirical study of UK consumers' perceptions and experiences of their relationships with commercial firms. The study considers how the relational strategies pursued by organizations have led to a deterioration of consumers trust. Three main areas of concern are: the relational rhetoric employed by firms; the motives behind customer care and loyalty programs; and the use of marketing techniques considered to be intrusive and unacceptable. Consequently, relationship marketing (RM) strategies may have the unintended consequence of making consumers more distrustful of organizations than before such strategies were adopted.