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Beyond the frills of relationship marketing
Lisa O’Malleya,*, Andrea Protherob,1
a
College of Business, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
b
Department of Marketing, University College Dublin, Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Abstract
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.
D 2002 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Relationship marketing; Literate consumers; Relational rhetoric; Intrusive marketing
1. Relationship marketing (RM) in consumer markets
RM is currently accepted by many academics and practi-
tioners as ‘‘the new orthodoxy’’ (Petrof, 1997) within
marketing and is now considered appropriate in low inter-
action exchanges (Dwyer et al., 1987; Sheth and Parvatiyar,
1995). The adoption of RM by mass marketers was prim-
arily driven by practitioners (Copulsky and Wolf, 1990;
Blattberg and Deighton, 1991; Shani and Chalasani, 1992)
in the belief that it would offer increased profitability
through customer retention (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990).
Relational strategies in this context are communicated
through advertising, customer care, and customer loyalty
programs and are managed thorough direct and database
marketing techniques.
The objective of RM is to establish, develop, and
maintain relationships with customers and other stakeholder
groups (Berry, 1983; Jackson, 1985; Morgan and Hunt,
1999; Gro¨nroos, 1994). Relationships are held together by
normative as opposed to contractual methods (Heide and
John, 1992; Gundlach and Murphy, 1993; Weitz and Jap,
1995) and, therefore, trust (Crosby et al., 1990; Anderson
and Narus, 1990; Morgan and Hunt, 1999), commitment
(Dwyer et al., 1987; Morgan and Hunt, 1999), and mutual
benefit (Czepiel, 1990; Heide and John, 1992; Gro¨nroos,
1994) are integral relational elements. Consequently, con-
temporary firms espouse as their aim the development and
maintenance of mutually beneficial relationships with their
customers.
The roots of RM are metaphorical in nature (Hunt and
Menon, 1995; Sheaves and Barnes, 1996; O’Malley and
Tynan, 1999) and theory is influenced largely by analogies
with close personal relationships and, in particular, marriage
(Levitt, 1983; Dwyer et al., 1987). Thus, values and con-
cepts from social exchange theory are regularly employed in
making sense of interaction in the contemporary market-
place. In contrast to other dominant metaphors in marketing,
which variously highlight victory, conquest, and self-interest
(Desmond, 1997), the ‘‘relationship’’ metaphor emphasizes
cooperation, mutuality, and trust (O’Malley and Tynan,
1999). As a result, within this ‘‘new paradigm’’ (Gro¨nroos,
1994), contemporary marketing is argued to have shifted
‘‘from manipulation of the customer to genuine customer
involvement; from telling and selling to communicating and
sharing knowledge; from last-in-line function to corporate-
credibility champion’’ (McKenna, 1991, p. 68). Thus, in
contrast to a transactional approach, marketing within the
RM paradigm is represented as ‘‘helpful’’ and ‘‘fair’’ with
‘‘win–win’’ outcomes increasingly possible for both con-
sumers and marketers (Kotler, 1991). Moreover, Sheth and
0148-2963/$ – see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0148-2963(02)00450-2
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +353-61-202232; fax: +353-61-213196.
E-mail addresses: Lisa.omalley@ul.ie (L. O’Malley),
andrea.prothero@ucd.ie (A. Prothero).
1
Tel.: +353-1-716-8979; fax: +353-1-716-8019.
Journal of Business Research 57 (2004) 1286–1294

Parvatiyar (1995, p. 265) argue that RM represents ‘‘enlight-
ened self-interest’’ and enhances the image of marketing in
society. Furthermore, it is posited that RM results in more
focused marketing strategies, increased customer loyalty,
decreased price sensitivity, and the creation of opportunities
for up-selling and cross-selling (Dwyer et al., 1987; Reich-
held and Sasser, 1990; Gro¨nroos, 1994; Pine et al., 1995),
all of which result in improvements to marketing’s effec-
tiveness and efficiency (Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995). As a
result, relationships have come to be regarded as an import-
ant source of competitive advantage. However, as Polonsky
et al. (1999, p. 43) argue, because ‘‘firm–stakeholder
relationships change over time. . . strategy may have unin-
tended or undesired consequences.’’ In particular, because
marketing occurs ‘‘in society, with society’s permission and
support, and purportedly, in part for society’s benefit’’
(Camenisch, 1991, p. 246), the societal impact of RM is
worthy of further investigation.
The majority of studies focus on the organizational
motivation for RM and, as such, the consumer side of the
equation has attracted less consideration, representing a
significant limitation within the RM discourse (see Sheaves
and Barnes, 1996; Fitchett and McDonagh, 2000; O’Malley
and Tynan, 2000). Indeed, few empirical studies have been
initiated, which critically consider the consumer’s point of
view, and those that do, suggest that contemporary ap-
proaches to operationalizing RM are inappropriate and may
actually inhibit successful relationship development (O’Mal-
ley et al., 1997; Fournier et al., 1998). Furthermore, there are
suggestions that in mass markets, the tools and techniques
employed are more representative of stalking and rape than
they are of courtship and love (Tynan, 1997). Indeed, critical
theorists argue that RM does little more than provide a
cosmetic moral face for marketing (Alvesson, 1994; Des-
mond, 1997) with statements of ‘trust,’ ‘commitment,’ and
‘mutuality’ dismissed ‘‘as either simulations without content,
or alternatively sentiments driven by the instrumental desir-
ability of the relationship’’ (Smith and Higgins, 2000, p. 87).
This paper reports an attempt to seek views of consumers
towards RM and to conceptualize their perceptions from a
broader, societal perspective. In so doing, this work enhan-
ces our understanding of the problems inherent in the
operationalization of RM in mass markets. Specifically, it
is our contention that deliberate attempts on the part of firms
to engender closer relationships with consumers have had
unintended and largely undesirable effects. We argue that
the RM discourse lacks meaning for contemporary consum-
ers because they are inherently distrustful of organizational
activities and organizational motivations.
2. Methodology
This study relies upon the real world of everyday thought
and experience as a basis for theory development. This world
is composed of the terms and ordinary language that people
use in order to give meaning to the world and to their lives
(Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Gordon and Langmaid, 1998;
Thompson and Hytko, 1997). Nineteen phenomenological-
type depth interviews (Mick and Buhl, 1992) were con-
ducted to gain access to informants’ subjective meanings and
to generate understanding, while six phenomenological
group discussions (Calder, 1977) were employed in order
to assess the degree to which these experiences, attitudes,
and/or values were shared (Hedges, 1985) with others. The
data were collected during the spring of 1999 in the UK.
Details of informants are provided in Tables 1 and 2.
Two trained interviewers conducted the interviews, with
the initial choice of informant theoretically motivated and
additional informants recruited via snowball sampling tech-
niques. Each interview lasted for approximately 2 hours and
was based upon an unstructured open-ended interview guide
intended to access the private feelings and language used
by informants. Interpretive and judgmental skills were
employed throughout the interview in choosing which
avenues to pursue and which to curtail. Such decisions
were made as a result of the stated themes and priorities
of the research, with a concomitant emphasis on maintaining
the contextual meaning of informants’ responses. Interviews
were treated as extended conversations, in which the
researcher interacted with interviewees as an ‘‘insider’’ to
the research (Jones, 1991).
Each interview was audiotaped with interpretation based
upon full transcripts. Interviews were reviewed and consid-
ered in batches of four and subsequent interview schedules
were amended to address emerging themes. Because the fle-
xibility or rigidity with which opinions are held is better
exposed in a group setting (Goldman, 1962; Basch, 1987),
the depth interviews were supplemented by six phenomeno-
logical group discussions (Calder, 1977). Group participants
were recruited using theoretically motivated purposive sam-
Table 1
Details of informants
Name Age Occupation
Andrea 30 Office worker
David 45 Teacher
Hazel 34 Full-time mother
Janet 47 Psychologist
Jerry 32 Unemployed
Joanne 24 Nurse
Julian 36 Management researcher
Kay 27 Postgraduate student (Journalism)
Margaret 61 Retired school teacher
Mike 27 Administrator
Neil 32 Works in health service
Pippa 42 Secretary
Richard 37 Bank clerk
Rosemary 45 Administrator
Samantha 30 Hair stylist
Sarah 25 Engineer
Stafford 65 Retired senior bank employee
Stewart 18 Apprentice electrician
Tim 45 Engineer
L. O’Malley, A. Prothero / Journal of Business Research 57 (2004) 1286–1294 1287

pling based on prespecified criteria (see Morgan, 1997) in the
form of a recruitment questionnaire. Each of the groups was
demographically homogeneous in order to facilitate the
emergence of a shared perspective (Calder, 1977) and com-
prised six to eight participants (Gordon and Langmaid, 1998).
Participants were paid a nominal fee of £10 for taking part in
the group discussion. The group discussions were both video-
taped and audiotaped and full transcripts were prepared.
In terms of data analysis and interpretation, the approach
advocated by Tesch (1990), which emphasizes the source
and context of data as well as the accommodation of the
analyst’s values, was employed. This focused upon decon-
textualizing and recontextualizing the data and essentially
involved ‘slicing up’ portions of the data into meaningful
segments, which were then organized and sorted as part of a
process of recontextualizing. This provided a new context
for the data, and enabled the researchers to think both with
and about the data (Tesch, 1990). Overall, a part-to-whole
mode of interpretation was employed (Thompson et al.,
1989) involving two levels of analysis: ideographic (within
interviews and within groups) and nomothetic (across inter-
views and groups). In terms of presenting the findings,
verbatim data excerpts are widely used for both interviews
and group discussions in order to maintain data integrity and
to allow other readers to draw their own meanings and
insights (Calder, 1977). Moreover, the interpretive stance
adopted by the authors is made explicit through the links
with various literatures and in the subsequent discussion.
The extent to which the themes discussed here are corrobo-
rated and substantiated by research in other areas suggests
that our findings form a useful basis for theory development.
In this regard, we believe that these interpretations generate
particular insights into the unintended and largely unantici-
pated consequences of RM. However, we recognize that our
findings are indicative and suggestive, rather than conclus-
ive (Delorme and Reid, 1999).
3. Findings
Given that RM emphasizes mutually beneficial relation-
ships with various stakeholder groups in society (Morgan
and Hunt, 1999) and that these relationships are governed by
norms rather than contracts (Heide and John, 1992), the
values and expectations of society towards organizational
RM strategies are relevant. While Bagozzi (1995) suggests
empathy, kindness, sociability, loyalty, and gratitude as
likely moral virtues, informants in this study highlight the
importance of honesty, integrity, and trust in their lives:
Friendship, trust, respect, love, is that a value? We need to
trust each other and find friendships. They are the basic
values we need in society so we can function I guess.
Tim
Loyalty and honesty; it’s all I ever really ask. I don’t
like to be messed about.
Andrea
Honesty is the first thing that comes to mind. Loyalty to
one another. Loyalty to one’s partner.
David
I think honesty; I think I need to be able to trust
somebody and to have them trust me, and openness.
Rosemary
Informants consider that these values are important
throughout society and believe that firms, as well as indi-
viduals, should adhere to them in their commercial activities:
I think honesty transfers to. . . society not just to
individuals. It’s down to everyone I suppose, it’s the
politicians, it’s industry. . . it’s everyone.
Neil
Bagozzi (1995, p. 227) asserts that these moral values are
important for exchange because they can override lower-
order motives (e.g. profit, self-interest) and, therefore,
emerge as ‘‘self-regulatory mechanisms for action.’’ Indeed,
given that cooperation, mutuality, and trust are highlighted
within the RM paradigm, our expectation was that contem-
porary firms would be perceived as adhering to these core
values. However, not only are firms seen not to promote
these values, in some cases, their activities appear to under-
mine them. This is important in that RM is argued to
incorporate ‘‘all marketing activities directed towards estab-
lishing, developing and maintaining successful relational
exchanges’’ (Morgan and Hunt, 1999, p. 23). Specifically,
the main areas of concern that emerge from the study are:
1. The rhetoric inherent in relational communication
strategies.
2. The use of customer care and customer loyalty programs
to further organizational goals.
3. The intrusive nature of organizational communications.
4. The rhetoric inherent in relational communication
strategies
Marketing communications are very visible aspects of
firms’ marketing strategies and, as such, it is not surprising
that informants discuss such activities at length. Although
informants do not intuitively employ relational language
Table 2
Group discussion breakdown
Group Gender Socio-economic
group
Age Number of
participants
1 Female C2D 24–34 8
2 Male ABC1 24–34 7
3 Female ABC1 35–44 7
4 Male C2D 35–44 6
5 Female ABC1 45–54 6
6 Male C2D 45–54 8
L. O’Malley, A. Prothero / Journal of Business Research 57 (2004) 1286–12941288

themselves, they are not unfamiliar with it, perhaps because
firms widely employ such language within their marketing
communications:
What you get is like, a lot of corporations will use the
language of relationships, of sort of mutual dependence
and co-operation, but that’s only because it’s good PR
and so-called business enlightenment. But I don’t know
if it actually works. It’s like corporate mission
statements. I don’t doubt South West Trains have got
a huge one hanging in their managerial offices and that
it sounds wonderful. But all the stakeholders know that
whilst it’s underpinned by the profit motive, you can
just forget it.
Jerry
I think they might try to convince people so [that they
have a relationship]—but I don’t think they really
believe it. They are trying to sell. They would like you
to feel they care about you. . .
Margaret
I think the companies portray a positive image, I
suppose they have to, we’re doing this, we’re doing it all
for you, and we’re not concerned about ourselves. And
the consumers think hang on, they’ve put the price up on
this or. . . The two probably cancel each other out.
Excerpt from Group Discussion,
Male, ABC1, 24–35 years old
Informants believe that firms emphasize the notions
of customer relationships, customer care, and customer
rewards rather than the pursuit of profit, but that this
remains the primary motivator. Indeed, Stern (1997) asserts
that many firms currently emphasize concern for consum-
ers in their advertising as a basis for encouraging
exchange:
Only in adverts, I’ve never seen people talk about how
they’ve got a great relationship with their bank. . .
This phenomenon is also evident in the increasing use of
emotional appeals in consumption-related activities (Dei-
ghton and Grayson, 1995) and ‘‘emotion management’’ in
business (Hochschild, 1983). Advertising reflects this dis-
course and appropriates the emotions and vocabulary of
private life to represent consumption. For example, in the
UK, the National Westminster Bank recently used the
slogan, ‘‘Isn’t it time you started a meaningful relation-
ship?’’ in their advertising. However, given that contempor-
ary consumers are advertising literate (O’Donohoe and
Tynan, 1998; Ritson and Elliott, 1999), it seems that they
are able to deconstruct advertising messages and, in doing
so, assume them to be rhetorical in nature. Informants
highlight that the suggestion that organization–consumer
relationships exist is communicated primarily through com-
mercial advertising and is not something they have much
faith in:
Supermarkets are giving you something else in your
life, we’re giving you petrol, pharmaceuticals, DIY. . .
Now we’ll give you relationships.
Yes, supermarkets know you’ve got to shop some-
where, and they’re all pretty similar standard of service.
So, if they produced the latest gimmick. . .
ABC1, 24–35 years old
The suggestion is that firms promote relationships with
their customers and communicate that they are concerned
about them. Implicit in the statements above is that the
communication of organizational relationships with consum-
ers is done, not for the good of the customer, but rather, for the
good of the firm. It is the role of profit in business that helps us
to understand why informants view RM as little more than
rhetoric. Informants believe that the use of relational lan-
guage is intended simply to make consumers more open to
organizational advances:
Like support and mutual need and things like that? Well,
I’m sure a company would like us to think like that. But,
no because at the end of the day, you know why they are
in business. It’s usually for their shareholders, not for
my benefit—so that’s the bottom line on it.
Jerry
And the thing is you look at a board of directors of any
sort of a big company. . . they’re not going to be talking
about how they can please the customer more and what
it boils down to is, the accountants say how much
money is coming in and they sit around and say how
can we make more money. . .
Well, that’s just part of the grand plan of getting you to
spend your cash isn’t it?’’
For these informants, the profit motives of commercial
firms render relational terminology inappropriate. That is,
although it is recognized that firms advocate ‘‘support and
mutual need,’’ it is simultaneously believed that firms do
not really buy into that philosophy. Although the
exchange occurs between the organization and the con-
sumer, it is the shareholders that are thought to gain the
most.
No it’s not a relationship because at the end of the day
the bastards want my money [laugh].
Richard
There are also suggestions from informants that firms
variously attempt to ‘‘forge’’ and ‘‘force’’ links with con-
sumers, and while informants recognize that collectively

they are important to firms, they argue that as individual
customers they are unimportant.
. . . They deal with millions, thousands, hundreds at
least. I think in a sense that we are nobodies. . . just
numbers and profit.
Kay
It depends on the size as well. Like Tesco’s. . . they’re a
national company. As far as I’m concerned a lot of it is
false. They’re not doing it because they’re desperate to
keep your business. . .
Yeah, they don’t give a damn if you turn up or not, as
long as they’ve got money in their cash till.
As such, informants generally perceived profit to be the
clear organizational driver:
Most businesses are just money grabbing. It’s hard to
have lived through the 1980s and not have got that
impression really.
Pippa
As Gabriel and Lang (1995, pp. 135–136) argue, ‘‘for
all the outpourings on quality and corporate culture, profit
remains the overpowering objective of most companies.
Why else are they in business?’’ Consequently, marketing
practitioners are believed to have brought the idea of
relationships at a superficial level only and specifically
to increase profit. Therefore, informants view the com-
munication strategies that portray firms as customer rela-
tionship builders cynically. Thus, informants do not accept
the ‘‘win–win’’ philosophy espoused in the RM literature.
Despite the emphasis on mutually beneficial relationships,
a key question relates to what benefits are accrued and to
whom.
5. Customer care and loyalty programs
In contemporary RM strategies, there is increasing
emphasis on customer care programs, sometimes under
the guise of customer relationship management, in order
to retain satisfied customers and ultimately reduce market-
ing costs (De Souza, 1992). However, despite their omni-
presence, informants in the study were suspicious of
customer care programs offered by contemporary firms. In
particular, promises of personalized services are deemed to
be impossible to deliver in a mass market context:
I think customer care; even though it was a buzzword of
the late 80s early 90s has really just flopped now. It’s
really gone out of vogue. . . Everywhere is too big and
impersonal. People haven’t got the time or the knowl-
edge of you as a consumer to give you what you need
or want, or the after-care service.
Samantha
In particular, informants view customer care as a means to
an end for the firm and not something that is intended
primarily for the benefit of the consumer. One informant
recounts the story of an organization with which he regularly
interacts, emphasizing profit over customer benefit. The
incident involved the purchase of a tape recorder and the
salesperson was insistent that the informant also purchase
insurance. However, he questions whether product insurance
is explicitly for the consumer’s benefit (in terms of peace of
mind), or simply another way of increasing profits:
It doesn’t make sense. To me this is not customer
service. This is you getting a commission out of the
insurance. If you really care for your customers, then
you will provide the insurance for half the price, forget
about your commission, or have a negligible commis-
sion. I think. . . they fall short in this area.
Julian
This story outlines how product insurance is promoted as
another ‘customer care’ element, a strategy that this inform-
ant views as devious. Similarly, ‘‘rewards’’ for using store
cards are viewed skeptically:
I mean, I was in Debenhams on Sunday and they were
desperately trying to push you to sign up for a store
card and say they’d give you 10% off on Sunday,
however much you spend. I mean they are all doing
that. . . Every company is like that aren’t they?
Female, C2D, 24–35 years old
Indeed, store cards and loyalty schemes are viewed by
informants largely as mechanisms to increase purchase
behavior rather than to reward loyal customers:
These cards are intended to make you go back there.
And you know that’s why they’re doing it—to try to get
customer loyalty. And you know that’s why they issue
these vouchers—to make you go back there. That’s
why Tesco developed Club Card. . .
Informants are concerned that the activities of firms
conducted under the guise of RM may actually result in
harm for consumers. For instance, it is suggested that the
attempts of firms to increase consumption activities, through
the use of consumer loyalty programs, for instance, may
result in increasing consumer debt:
They say things like you’re a valued customer. . . have a
gold card. . .
I know I’m a good customer. I know I don’t go
overdrawn. But I don’t need them to write to me and
patronize me to try and get me overdrawn.

More fundamentally, despite the suggestion of a relation-
ship, informants recognize that if their consumption activ-
ities ultimately result in debt, firms are unlikely to be
supportive of them.
. . . if you go broke, they [the finance company] won’t
ring you up and say you can have this on us until you
get some more money. All they want is your money.
. . .When anything goes wrong all these bigger
organizations get very impersonal. . . if ever you have
a problem nobody wants to know.
Stafford
Consequently, the extent to which RM has resulted in
redressing power inequalities and has created win–win
outcomes between consumers and marketers is highly
questionable. Indeed, it has been argued that RM does
not actually ‘‘achieve greater representation of the indi-
vidual’’ (Fitchett and McDonagh, 2000) and ultimately
RM programs are important only because they ‘‘add profit
to the bottom line’’ (Buchanan and Gilles, 1990). Inform-
ants are not unhappy about the pursuit of profits by
contemporary firms per se, but recognize that customer
care and customer loyalty programs exist primarily to aid
the company, not the consumer. If a consumer does go into
debt, for instance, informants feel that firms would no
longer wish to maintain a relationship with them. With that
in mind, informants are cynical of relational strategies
because the relationship between company and consumer
is not an equal one. As a result, Fitchett and McDonagh
(2000) stress that the ‘‘relationship marketing discourse
does not travel well into situations where the relative
resources, power bases and interests of both parties vary
considerably.’’
6. Intrusion of organizational communications into
consumers’ lives
For many informants, the adoption of a relational per-
spective appears to sanction attempts by firms to collect
information about customers and to be more intimate and
familiar in their communications with customers. Thus, the
final area of anxiety identified in the study relates to
informants’ concerns regarding the level of intrusion of
companies into their private lives in the form of direct
communications. In this regard, Smith and Higgins (2000,
p. 83) suggest that it is the use of direct and database
marketing techniques that has ‘‘stimulated ethical qualms
within and beyond the marketing discipline’’ (Smith and
Higgins, 2000, p. 83):
I suppose I’ve got quite cynical about companies and
what they have to offer. You are always bombarded with
insurance companies, always bombarding you with the
next deal. . . and I just feel cynical now that companies
that provide what we need are a nightmare.
Stafford
For this informant, personalized marketing communica-
tions are ‘‘a nightmare’’ because of the volume received.
The word bombarded portrays marketing practice ‘‘as both
aggressive and hapless’’ (Fischer, 2000, p. 227) and
demonstrates a distinct absence of the sensitivity, mutu-
ality, and dialogue that permeate the RM discourse.
Although often regarded as a problem for prospecting
organizations, in this study, informants were equally con-
cerned with the nature and volume of communications
from firms with which they already do business. Moreover,
the intimacy direct marketing purports to achieve was not
recognized by informants:
I think the trouble with a lot of the telephone contact
you have now with big companies is. . . If somebody
says Hello Mr. Crane, I’m Sharon—you know that
that’s not genuine, that’s part of the telephone speech
training. It’s a bit false I think.
Stafford
. . .It seems very impersonal, it’s as though they’re just
trying to push further services and they are trying to
build a relationship with you. But it’s not quite
happening. They’ve got a frostiness about them.
Whereas you really do feel they’re just doing this
because it’s their job and they’ve got so many calls on
their quota or on their targets to achieve per day, and
that’s what they’re doing.
Samantha
For other informants, the sale and sharing of their
personal data by various firms represented a significant
concern, both in terms of the potential sensitivity of some
information as well as the subsequent increases in direct
communications from other companies:
You don’t like people knowing a lot about you, from an
insurance point of view. The supermarkets have a look
at your loyalty card, see that you buy 120 cigarettes
every week and then not offer you life insurance. You
can say that they have too much information on you.
Male, C2D, 35–44 years old
These credit companies or whatever, they pass your
name on and. . . they know all about you don’t they. . .
so you get all this unsolicited mail all the time.
I think its irritating because I get so much junk mail
coming through the door and you forget to tick the box,
and all of a sudden. . .I hate it, it drives me mad.

Furthermore, informants believe that they have no con-
trol over the volume or content of direct marketing and this
is problematic for them:
You choose to go to the shop don’t you, you choose to
have a look at the advertisements, you choose to have a
chat with the girl on the counter or whatever. When that
letter comes through you door, you didn’t choose
that. . .They’re invading your space. And there’s so much
of it as well.
Interestingly, this issue of control is not only related to
direct communication, but is equally relevant to service
encounters. For example, informants in one group discussed
how sales personnel attempt to influence the consumer,
particularly when they receive commission for their efforts.
However, these informants wish to be left alone to make
their decisions. They describe the atmosphere in the sales
environment as follows:
It’s almost like suspended disbelief. I know I’m here
spending money, but can I pretend I’m actually making
the choices as opposed to you?
Consumer information is vital to many companies’ RM
strategies and, as such, marketers are developing an increas-
ingly voracious appetite for data on existing and potential
customers. Informants were concerned with abuses of their
physical and information privacy. Physical privacy relates to
the volume of communications received by consumers, and
this appears to have increased as a result of relational
strategies. Information privacy refers to the ability of in-
dividuals to determine the nature and extent of information
about them being communicated to others (Westin, 1967).
The dilemma is one of balancing consumers’ rights to
control access to their personal information and companies’
rights to information access for business purposes (Cespedes
and Smith, 1993). However, this balance has not been
achieved, with informants increasingly concerned with
regard to the manner in which companies use such data,
and in particular with industry practices in terms of selling
and sharing individual level data (Patterson et al., 1997).
Thus, the use of direct and database techniques within RM
suggests that marketers operate within a more contemporary
conceptualization of warfare, which is ‘‘primarily about the
manipulation of the flow of intelligence and information to
know all one can know about an adversary while keeping
the adversary from knowing much about oneself’’ (Des-
mond, 1997, p. 345). As such, it is obvious that many firms
have struggled to adapt to this new way of doing business.
Essentially, marketers have not considered that all marketing
activities and all consumer–firm interactions have an impact
on the development of a relationship. More fundamentally,
marketers appear to have acted opportunistically in harness-
ing the language and concepts of RM, but have failed to
internalize its basic philosophy.
7. Discussion
The study shows that informants are literate in understand-
ing the language of business; as such, they are cynical of what
they perceive to be the rhetoric of RM. Informants believe that
marketers are buying into ‘‘this customer relationship lark’’
because, very simply, it is the latest marketing fad. As such,
both organizations and consumers sustain exchange in a state
of suspended belief. It appears to many informants that
organizations are trying to sell relationships to consumers
through their marketing communications strategies.
Informants in this study believe that many marketing
practitioners employ relational language such as mutuality,
cooperation, and trust in a rhetorical sense only. As a
result, while marketers may use the terminology of RM,
they appear not to have altered their processes to accom-
modate the new paradigm (see O’Malley et al., 1997). The
apparent divide between rhetoric and practice may result
from the fact that ‘‘. . .communication is treated as a
downstream activity in marketing companies, and com-
partmentalized as discrete actions that are unrelated to the
company’s business strategy’’ (Lannon, 1995, p. 160). In
the contemporary environment, RM is regarded as just
‘‘good PR.’’ However, if RM fails to move beyond the
superficiality of language, it justifies suggestions that it
represents rhetoric rather than reality for many people
(O’Malley and Tynan, 2000).
Gro¨nroos (1999) has suggested that in order to make RM
successful, organizations may find it necessary to replace the
term marketing with other terms that consumers may find
more psychologically acceptable. However, our study shows
that informants were wary of any relational language utilized
by organizations. Moreover, trust in organizations may have
actually diminished because informants see RM as a rhet-
orical device. They view customer care and customer loyalty
programs primarily as efforts to increase consumption and
anticipate increasing consumer debt as a potential (and
undesirable) consequence. Furthermore, exacerbations in
consumers’ physical and information privacy are attributed
to the increasing adoption of RM strategies by contemporary
organizations. Utilizing both visual and verbal language (see
Hall, 1997) in the form of customer care, direct marketing,
marketing communications campaigns, and the like, inform-
ants have become critical of such relational tools and see
themselves as having a ‘them-versus-us’ relationship with
firms. Although mutually beneficial relationships are
stressed in advertising and direct communications, consum-
ers view the ensuing relationship as being orchestrated by the
firm, primarily for the firm’s own benefit.
Customer care and loyalty schemes, while being pro-
moted as customer benefits, are widely viewed as attempts

to up-sell, cross-sell, or lock consumers into specific
exchange relationships. Indeed, informants suggest that
organizations are making promises they cannot deliver on
and, consequently, their experiences as customers seem to
have deteriorated. This finding is substantiated by sugges-
tions elsewhere that consumer complaints in the US are at
an all time high (Fournier et al., 1998), and that the
organizational focus on engendering loyalty appears not to
have fulfilled its promise with a recent National Complaints
Culture Survey (Management Services, 2000) demonstrat-
ing that customer loyalty is actually decreasing in the UK.
8. Implications and conclusions
The use of RM is designed to raise customer expectations
and makes implicit promises to customers and other stake-
holder groups. As a result, the creation of RM has sown the
seeds of new problems, as well as new opportunities for
marketing. Organizations that wish to engage in RM in a
mass market context should consider how their strategies
might result in unintended consequences. The use of various
RM tools, as indicated in this paper, may not have the desired
outcome of developing cooperation, mutuality, and trust
between a firm and its consumers. Consequently, the views
of Fournier et al., (1998, p. 49) seem particularly pertinent
here: ‘‘Let’s put our relational motives on the table: no fluff,
no faked sincerity, no obtuse language, no promises we don’t
keep—just honesty about commercial intent.’’
Organizations must carefully manage their operations to
avoid suggestions that they are cashing in on the latest issue
or fad. They will need to work hard to overcome perceptions
that RM exists only at the level of discourse (see Fitchett
and McDonagh, 2000; Sturdy et al., 2001). This has
important implications for customer communications, in
particular, and more fundamentally requires a whole
rethinking of contemporary marketing systems. As such,
this goes beyond the remit of any individual organization.
Despite this, individual firms can strive to ensure that they
consider the impact of their strategies on numerous stake-
holder groups. In doing so, firms must be cognizant that RM
is not a strategy that can be created; it is a position that must
be lived. It must be evident in every part of the organization,
every member of staff, every communication, and every
single detail of the organization’s business operations.
Overall then, informants are concerned with the lengths
to which firms will go to in order to attract and keep their
custom. They view company actions in key areas with
suspicion and do not believe that they engage in actions
for the simple good of the consumer. As such, ‘‘the
obligations on the part of companies seeking this pseudo-
personal relationship are huge and consumers can feel
betrayed when these obligations are violated’’ (Lannon,
1995, p. 163).
This paper has provided much needed empirical data on
consumers’ opinions about their relationships with organ-
izations. Our research suggests that RM has had the unin-
tended consequence of increasing consumer distrust of
organizations’ activities and motives. Thus, despite ‘‘the
rhetorical moral buttressing’’ inherent in relational strategies
(Smith and Higgins, 2000, p. 87), our informants emerge as
literate consumers of marketing communications and savvy
exchange participants who appear to recognize relational
strategies as shallow and potentially divisive in nature. Thus,
suggestions that ‘‘win–win’’ outcomes are possible for all
consumers and organizations are undermined, particularly
within mass markets. Specifically, a tension emerges from
the communication of altruistic concerns by many organ-
izations, against the backdrop of the recognized need for
profit maximization.
In terms of avenues for further research, greater under-
standing of consumers’ perceptions and experiences of RM
is required because the RM literature, as it stands, con-
tinues to espouse the benefits of RM from an organiza-
tional perspective. In particular, research that investigates
consumer experiences of relational strategies by different
types of firm, and in different countries, would be insight-
ful. Moreover, greater elucidation of the role of trust/
distrust in contemporary exchange would address the
relevance and potential utility of RM in a mass market
context. Further insights into how consumers regard con-
temporary organizations, the values that they wish to
see portrayed by commercial entities, and the relative
emphasis of functional and symbolic attributes in different
exchange contexts would all usefully inform future
marketing strategy.
This paper has explored contemporary RM discourse from
the point of view of an important, but greatly underrepre-
sented, constituent—the consumer. The findings presented
here suggest that, although popular, RM may have failed in
promoting a more positive image for marketing. While it is
demonstrably simple to appropriate relational language to
convey cooperation, mutuality, and trust between a firm and
its consumers, delivering on such promises is difficult,
particularly in an environment where shareholder demands
and profit maximization drive business.
Acknowledgements
We thank Maurice Patterson and Pierre McDonagh and
the anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier
drafts of this manuscript.
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