Managing relationships and the customer experience in services
Course description

The management of relationships is a theme that concerns researchers and practitioners in marketing for the last 30 years. Research has concluded that it is at least 5 times more expensive to find new customers than to keep the ones you have. On the other hand, education is a complex environment and as such, the educational experience is multi-faceted and the sustainability of relationships with customers difficult. This course will address the following questions:

  • Who is our customer in education and what types of customers exist?
  • How can we manage relationships with customers effectively?
  • What are the characteristics of the customer experience and how can we increase experience quality?
  • How are relationship quality; service quality, and experience quality related ?
  • What can we learn from other companies or organizations that are successful in managing customer relationships?

The participants will gain valuable insights into the results of relevant research in relationship and experience management and into real world examples of successful companies and organizations. This seminar will include a hands on approach to the specific situation that each participant wants to address in his/her line of work.

This course, which has the character of a seminar and workshop, will focus on the practical application of theoretical or empirically tested concepts in the areas of practice of participants.

Programme

This workshop is highly experiential and participative. It consists of short theoretical inputs, concrete exercises, and group discussions. Reflecting upon and applying each tool to your real-life cases from your everyday work, you will practise and gain new insights into your current dilemmas.

Day 1

  • Introduction to Relationship Marketing
  • Types of customers and types of relationships
  • Relationship quality
  • Factors affecting relationship quality
  • Relationship success and failure

Day 2

  • Introduction to the Customer Experience
  • Dimensions of the Customer Experience
  • Experience Quality
  • Relationship of experience quality with service quality and relationship quality

Day 3

  • Readings and case studies of companies in educational and similar fields.
  • Best practice
  • Practical guidelines

Day 4

  • Personal project: designing your own relationship strategy for your organisation
  • Sharing ideas
  • Summary

Day 5

  • First steps to getting started
  • Outdoor Activity
  • Evaluation – Debriefing and Closing

Duration:      5 days

Dates:            Upon request

Location:      Athens, Greece

Fields of application
  • Relationship Marketing and Customer Relationship Management
  • Service Quality and Experience Quality
  • Service Customisation
Designed for

This workshop is designed for staff members of any public or private organisation active in the field of education, training and Youth, or active in the labour market, more specifically for: Professionals in all categories of education, Marketing and Customer Relationship Management.

Relationship
Instructor

Pinelopi Athanasopoulou is an Assistant Professor of Services Marketing in the University of Peloponnese, Greece. She holds a PhD in Marketing from Cass Business School, an MBA from Manchester Business School, UK, and a BA in Business Administration from the Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece. Before joining academia she has worked for many years in the banking sector. Her research has been published in various major marketing journals including the International Journal of Bank Marketing, Managing Service Quality, Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing and the European Journal of Marketing. She is an internationally acknowledged expert in the area of Relationship Marketing and Relationship Quality. Her research interests include relationship quality; branding, and new service development.

Application deadline

Please note that the application deadline for Erasmus+ funding is the 5th of February 2020, 12:00 CET.

Participation Fee

The fee for this course is 670 Euros. More information on these funding criteria can be found on our Erasmus+ Workshop pages.

 It includes tuition fee and educational material, certificates of participation and Europasses, welcome cocktail, gala dinner, one week card for all means of transportation in the city of Athens, half day excursion to idyllic Neptune Temple at Sounion Cape (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounion) in Attica seaside.

 Accommodation and meals are not included in the above fee, but can be arranged by FRACTALITY at special price/low cost for half or full board, in three or four star hotels in the city center. We can always manage low prices for groups. Ask us about it!