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that for obvious reasons, are not elaborated upon. One does not have to agree with all Dr Nine says to recognize originality of thought, and a fine scholarship.

The essays by Kaufman and Lane 'Time, Potency, and Exchange: Making the Most of the Time Resource'; Allaway and Richard, 'The Spatial Dimension ' ; and JoNel Mundt and Dennis E. Garrett, 'Externalities of Exchange: foundations for Future Study', take the reader places in exchange theory he/she has likely never been before. For suggestiveness and fecundity of thought, these are the are perhaps the best of a very good collection.

The fascinating set of related essays on the medium of exchange by: Gregory-Allen, 'An Examination of Exchange Media from an Historical Perspective' ; Maxwell, 'Some Ingestible and other Types of Consumable Currencies'; Gup, 'The Changing Role of Legal Tender: An Historical Perspective'; and Lindley and Black, 'Means of Payment in Marketing', are a refreshing read. Since all of these authors come from outside of marketing, they add considerable breadth, and some fine scholarship. The essay by Lindley and Black on the various forms of payment in marketing exchanges is a commendable reflection on the revolutionary role of technology in marketing in a social context.

The more conventional treatments of exchange theory by James and James, 'Reciprocity Within a Community'; Gould, 'Exchange as a Vital and Fundamental Consumer Behavior Problem'; Brunswick and Lusch, 'Refinements in the Model of Internal/external Market Exchange'; Mowen, 'The Evaluation Process and its Impact on Decision Making in Exchange Relationships'; Gassenheimer, 'How Exchange for Resale Differs from Exchange for Consumption'; Fine, 'Inequitable or Incomplete Social Marketing: The Case of Higher Education'; and Gundlach and Murphy, 'Exchange: Ethical and Legal Foundations' , represent extensions, or restatements of well-established research trajectories. As such, they are probably less valuable than their companion essays. However, they provide an excellent foundation for the more adventurous efforts.

The 'afterwords' accomanying most of the essays add much in the way of balance, clarification and challenge. Of particular interest are comments by O. C. Ferrell. Dr Ferrell was one of the principal participants (the other was Richard Bagozzi) in what remains perhaps marketing's most interesting and important public debate to date - - on the subject of exchange.

Marketing Exchange Relationships, Transactions, and their Media would have turned the world of marketing thought upside down if it had been published in 1972. Too much water has passed under the bridge for this to be true today. After " . . . we have become familiar with . . . [a] new i d e a . . , after it has become part of our general stock of theoretical concepts, our expectations are brought more into balance with its actual uses, and its excessive popularity is ended" (Geertz, 1973 pp. 3-4). Besides, the world is too abuzz with new Messianic ideas promising to solve all of problems[ But only when ideas are brought into proper balance are they fit to do a real journeyman ' s work in our intellectual productions. Franklin Houston's book is a fine contribution to the refinement and advancement of our general stock in trade.

Reference Geer tz , C. (1973) The Interpretation o f Cultures. Basic Books , New York.

Terry C l a r k Goizue ta Bus ine s s School

Emory Univers i ty Atlanta , G A , U S A

Relationship Marketing: Bringing Quality, Customer Service and Marketing Together

M a r t i n C h r i s t o p h e r , A d r i a n P a y n e a n d D a v i d B a l l a n t y n e

B u t t e r w o r t h - H e i n e m a n n Ltd. , Oxford , U K

In his novel The Discoverers, Daniel Boorstin asserts that "The greatest words ever written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita -- unknown territory." As the marketing discipline increasingly confronts the relationship marketing paradigm, academicians and practitioners alike are treading on terra incognita. The only certainty is that the territory or domain of relationship marketing does not follow a single path.

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Relationship marketing is borne out of many schools of thought, ranging from a service orientation championed by Gr6nroos to the network-interaction perspective pioneered by the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) group. There are many paths in between, as well.

Although there are many divergent conceptualizations of relationship marketing, there is widespread agreement that relationship marketing is an integral strategic direction for confronting the challenges posed by the dynamic and progressively global competitive marketplace.

To date, there has been a paucity of books which confront the domain of relationship marketing despite its widespread applications in the predominant forums for marketing research. In this book, Christopher et

al., proffer four compass points on a comprehensive journey through the Anglo-Australian perspective of relationship marketing.

As the book's title implies, the first three compass points are quality, customer service and marketing. The relationship marketing orientation in the Anglo-Australian school of thought is the nexus of these compass points. However, a major contribution lies in the final compass point: an extended view of the market itself. The authors depict this junction using a Venn-type diagram. This diagram affords the reader a model-driven organization for the text. Yet, the model is merely a starting point for a detour from a traditional transactional approach to a relational exchange orientation.

The first compass point emerges from Deming's total quality management (TQM) philosophy. The authors note that the TQM philosophy has forced marketers to adopt a process-orientation rather than a production-orientation. As TQM extends beyond the factory floor to all facets of service delivery, the authors exhort a shift from monitoring product quality outputs to integrating quality throughout the value chain. In this way, the book advances the prevalent production standard to each link in the marketing channel.

The authors suggest that the integration of quality is generated from the customer rather than the producer. While this may echo the traditional marketing concept, it does provide a rationale for TQM as a solution to customer problems rather than as a proposition for simply refining existing products or services. Accordingly, this view counsels that TQM is not merely a production phenomenon - - TQM is a mechanism for delivering customer satisfaction. The authors summarize that TQM "creates an opportunity to turn transaction-based marketing into relationship-based marketing" (p. 31).

The next compass point in their Anglo-Australian model is customer service. After discussing the multifarious notions of customer service, the text extends a broader definition based on two fundamental components: building customer bonds and ensuring long-term, mutual advantage. The authors propose that customer service is not a transactional outcome. Customer service is seen as an evolutionary process which starts before the transaction and continues beyond the exchange itself. At each step, the relationship marketer's role is to enhance the value of the product or service offered.

The role of marketing is the third compass point in the authors' "map" of relationship marketing. In the text, an expanded marketing mix is offered in lieu of the conventional Four Ps. The Six Ps model extends product, price, promotion and placement to include processes and people. The book makes a convincing a rgument for the ex tended market ing mix , explaining the concurrent downs t r eam a n d upst ream relationships that characterize the marketing channel.

The process component suggests that all work functions are processes which govern the distribution of a product or service to the final customer. As a separate activity, process management is an integrative means for fostering a match between internal and external environments. People are viewed as contributors to process management and to the development and maintenance of customer relationships. Here, the authors highlight a central premise of the Anglo-Australian view: relationship marketing includes both intra- and inter-organizational exchange.

The final compass point is a broadened view of the customer. Six markets are discussed: internal markets, referral markets, influence markets, employees markets and supplier markets revolve around customer markets. This broadened view of the market is adequately supported by real-word examples. Both academicians and practitioners will be better equipped to engage in relationship marketing when they recognize the multifaceted scope of the markets they serve.

These compass points do more than provide a direction for the text. The compass points provide a bridge between the transactional and relational perspectives of marketing. This is intuitively appealing because the compass points do not necessarily dispel the basic tenets of marketing at the crux of most curricula and bus iness practice. Rather, the compass points offer a marke t -dr iven extension that encompasses a variety of relational exchange phenomena.

Book Reviews

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This is not to suggest that Christopher et al., advocate a "business as usual" twist. In fact, the book clearly endorses a marked departure from conventional marketing practice. In admonishing total service quality as a destination for relationship marketing, the authors build on the seminal contributions in the marketing literature over the past quarter-century.

The agglomerative approach adopted by the authors provides several advantages. First, the model of relationship marketing is not a Gestalt leap of faith. The authors explain how they arrived at their perspective of relationship marketing. When treading on unknown territory, the beginning of the journey can be very insightful. The reader is privy to the authors' model development. So, the reader does not need to have blind faith in the prescriptions for customer retention.

Another major advantage lies in the authors' punctilious efforts to link relationship marketing theory with practice. The authors accomplish this in several ways. In the first half of the book, the reader is treated to corporate mission statements and other glimpses of actual companies ' marketing practices. These glimpses reinforce an overarching theme in the book: the need to match an organization's mission to the markets it serves.

The second half of the book offers a more in-depth, critical perspective of how the model is operationalized in real-world settings. In five, easy to read cases, the authors link each compass point to a multitude of relationship marketing settings. The only shortcoming here is the brevity of the cases. Here, the cases tend to focus on customer problems rather than outcomes.

The cases range from the banking industry's shift to a customer orientation to the quality leadership program at Rank Xerox. In the mini-cases, the authors truly adhere to the "practice what you preach" precept counselled at the start of the book. Christopher et al., mindfully navigate the reader through each company's marketing practices, stopping along the way to provide normative implications for practicing relationship marketing.

However, the prescriptions offered in the book may leave some readers with additional questions. For example, the authors duly note a five-stage process for service bench marking. The first stage recommends the identification of a firm's competitive arena. This is a difficult question for most practitioners (let alone academicians) to confront.

The authors suggest that "a precise definition of the 'competition' needs to be given some thought" (p. 97). This might prompt an additional question, "Is the competitive arena static?" Obviously not. In a dynamic competitive environment, the identification of a f irm's competitive arena is especially difficult. This potential hurdle makes it difficult to catapult to the competitive position matrix championed by the authors. The competitive position matrix requires that organizations have an ability to 'map' their relative competitive positions in a market. As new technologies emerge, a firm's competitive advantage, parity and barriers are likely to change as frequently as the market itself.

Likewise, the authors concede that while many organizational missions emphasize a cus tomer orientation, "the reality of business life frequently falls short of these noble sentiments" (p. 112). The verity of this assessment of real-world business settings is never fully reconciled with the transition to leadership presented in Chapter 5. While the authors have suitably identified service quality as an ideal for organization's strategic intent, they have not described how the firm can transform its value system from a reactive to an adaptive mode.

Finally, a major premise of the book is that an organization should rely on customers' perceptions of its offerings and market position. However, marketers have long admonished the importance of chaping their customers' perceptions, as well as reacting to their customers ' perceptions. This does not diminish the market orientation advocated in the book. It merely suggests that organizations are simultaneously shaping and responding to cus tomers ' perceptions. In high technology industries like pharmaceuticals and telecommunications, customers often rely on manufacturers to reshape their perceptions.

Certainly, none of these issues are fatal flaws of the book. The need for greater specificity is to be expected in light of the relationship marketing paradigm's embryonic stage of knowledge development. By identifying gaps in their journey, the authors have provided a number of directions for future research. Indeed, many of these issues could be confronted in future research with an eye cast toward a process for management 's transformation to a relationship value orientation.

A Final Word This book will be useful to marketing academicians and practitioners alike. While the authors' model clearly reflects an Anglo-Australian perspective of relationship marketing, the book does echo many of the sentiments of the North American and European views of relationship marketing, as well.

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Although relatively few colleges and universities offer stand-alone courses in relationship marketing, this book is a valuable teaching resource. From a pedagogical perspective, the book would make an excellent addition to any marketing management, product development or services marketing course.

The integration of total quality and customer service is an important principle for any marketing student to understand. The current focus on relational exchange and TQM makes this very timely reading. The book is well-written and easy to read. Because the text is less than 200 pages, it is ideally suited as supplemental reading.

The book will be equally useful for marketing practitioners attempting to understand and implement relationship marketing in their organizations. Although it is not a cookbook approach, the book provides a clear, uncomplicated description of relationship marketing and some timeless prescriptions for getting and keeping profitable customers.

It has been said that "a journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step." The authors have taken a giant step to accomplish exactly what the book's title implies. Relationship marketing theory and practice are at an early stage of development. So, the book could not possibly provide the ultimate destination.

Rather, the book provides a provocative, well-developed excursion through relatively unknown territory. To its credit, the book offers academicians, students and practitioners with some valuable compass points for navigation paths to long-term, mutually-satisfying customer relationships. In this way, the book is an excellent starting point for reconciling discordant paths to developing relationship marketing theory.

Louis Pelton University of North Texas,

Denton, TX, USA

Book Reviews

The One to One Future D o n P e p p e r s a n d M a r t h a R o g e r s

Doubleday, New York, 1993, 464 pp., US$22.95, ISBN 0-385--42528-7

In the same way the Industrial Revolution has freed our bodies from physical labor . . . . the Information Revolution would free our minds . . . . armed w i t h . . , the ability to collect, analyze, and transmit data, people would be able to work wherever they liked, exercising their individual creativity in a diverse panoply of endeavors of the mind (p. 351).

The One to One Future is the outcome of a fruitful partnership between a former advertising executive and a marketing academic. As such, it combines intriguing conceptual ideas along with suggestions for their implementation. While the authors state that this is not just a book on relationship marketing (customized production and individually addressable media are the other two components of one to one marketing), clearly relationship marketing is the dominant theme of the book. The one to one future is that in which there will be a one to one relationship between seller and buyer.

About half the book contains original ideas that could really make a difference to the success or failure of a marketer's strategy and programs. But the rest is a rehash of conventional marketing wisdom. Take, for instance, Chapters 3, 4, 6, 7, and 10. Chapter 3, Collaborate with Your Customers, points out that acquiring a new customer is about five times as costly as retaining an existing customer, what service marketers have known for some time. Chapter 4, Differentiate Customers, Not Just Products, puts forward the well-known pareto principle, that 80% of a fn-rn's business comes from 20% of its customers. Chapter 6, Manage Your Customers, Not Just Your Products, calls for a shift in organization from product management to customer management. While this may be new to consumer packaged goods manufacturers as the book points out, this form of organization has been implemented in business-to-business marketing firms as national accounts, or market managers, or industry managers. Chapter 7, Engage Your Customers in Dialogue, emphasizes the importance of marketing research and customer feedback, a building block of the marketing