B2Bridge

"Although business and consumer marketeers both try to obtain customer loyalty, they do that in fundamentally different ways", says Robert Salle, professor marketing at EM Lyon.

Indeed, consumer marketeers try to obtain brand loyalty, making customers react to their offering more positively and even motivating them to pay more attention to their offering than to the competition. Ultimately, loyal customers will influence their personal social network to stimulate positive reactions to the brand. Brand loyalty hence is a mechanism to increase the number of positive reactions to the supplier's actions.

Business marketeers try to obtain trustworthy relationships through account management, by witch they hope to increase the chances for straight rebuys without re-negotiation. Or they increase customer loyalty by increasing the switching costs, i.e. the cost needed to switch to another supplier. Or they allow key customers to help define the specifications of future products so that the products are a perfect match to the customer's needs. Ultimately, they even join production or research forces with their customers. This way, business marketeers increase the intensity and efficiency of their customer interactions.