Chapter 06

Go to the websites for Starbucks (www.starbucks.com or www.starbucks.co.uk), Ritz/Carlton Hotels (www.ritzcarlton.com), and Harley Davidson (www.harley-davidson.com) and see if you can see why these companies seem to be so successful in building relationships with consumers. What are their missions? How important is relationship building to them? How do you know this from examining the websites? What do these websites have in common? How might others make use of these?

Go to the websites for Tesco (www.tesco.com) and for Nectar (www.nectar.com) and see if you can determine why their loyalty schemes have been so successful when so many others have failed. What can you tell about their focus on customer intelligence gathering from the websites? How can you tell how important loyalty and repeat purchases are to these companies from their websites? What can other companies learn from this? What types of businesses would be good candidates for this? Why?

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 06.