Chapter 1. The customer market domain addresses three broad
groups: direct buyers, intermediaries and final consumers.
To illustrate these groups, consider a manufacturer of domestic
appliances. This manufacturer sells to a number of approved whole-
salers, who in turn sell these products to retail outlets. Finally, these
retail outlets sell the appliances to individual consumers. In this
example the term Buyer refers to the wholesaler. The wholesaler
who sells to the retailer is termed the Intermediary. The individual
who purchases the appliance from the retailer is termed the
Consumer. The term ‘customer’ will be used generally in this
chapter to apply to all these groups.
For this example, the three groups in the customer market domain
are:
●Buyer – the direct customer of the manufacturer, i.e. the wholesaler.
●Intermediary – the retailer to whom the wholesaler sells the appliances.
●Consumer – the individual at the end of the channel who purchases the
appliance from the retailer.
These groups are shown in Figure 2.1. However, in some industries
there may be further intermediaries which create additional steps
within the distribution channel shown in this figure.
This chapter addresses five broad areas relating to the customer
market domain. Firstly, the nature of the major subgroups within
the domain – buyers, intermediaries and consumers – is discussed.
Secondly, segmentation of these groups is examined. Thirdly, the
nature of the decision-making unit (DMU) is briefly reviewed.
Fourthly, the topic of customer acquisition and retention is explored.
Fifthly, customer retention strategy and the economics of customer
retention are examined in some detail.
Buyers, intermediaries and consumers
The terms Buyers, Intermediaries and Consumers are used in a spe-
cific sense in this chapter. They represent commonly used terminol-
ogy in describing the customer market domain. However, it should
be recognized that some organizations may use these terms in other
ways or use different terms. For example, professional service firms
and organizations in the healthcare sector typically refer to clients
34 Relationship Marketing