Relationship marketing is a form of marketing that evolved from direct response marketing; places emphasis on building long-term relationships with customers rather than individual transactions. Relationship marketing involves understanding customers' needs and wants throughout their lifecycle and providing a range of products or services accordingly. The term relationship marketing became popular in the 1980s when the focus of marketers began to shift from customer acquisition to customer retention (Gronroos, 2012). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The concept was heavily influenced by reengineering theory, which was gaining traction at the same time. Organizations undergoing reengineering have structured themselves around comprehensive tasks and processes rather than functions. Therefore, cross-functional teams should be responsible for the entire process, from start to finish, rather than passing the study from one separate functional department to another. Traditional marketing is said to use the functional department approach, which is now deemed too limited to provide a usable framework for evaluating and developing customer relationships (Chen, 2013). Price is the monetary cost a customer incurs to purchase products or services. It is the critical determinant that influences the customer's purchasing decision. Customers typically select their service providers based heavily on perceived price. The amount consumers are willing to pay varies due to their different needs and wants. Therefore, the perception of the price of the same service or product may differ from individual to individual. A higher price perceived by consumers could negatively influence their likelihood of purchasing (Peterson, 2012). A service is a process consisting of a series of more or less intangible activities that normally, but not necessarily always, take place in interactions between the customer and the service employees. and/or physical resources or goods and/or systems of the service provider, which are provided as solutions to customer problems (Morgan, 2014). The concept of branding has often been discussed in marketing literature. Brand building is not only an important driving force for marketing physical products, but also a vital issue for service companies. Brand image was defined by Tseng (2014) as the perception of a brand reflected by brand associations retained in consumers' memories. Palmer (2015) further argued that customer loyalty is the main key to the success and failure of every business which can only be achieved by providing the desired level of quality products and services to those who have the ability to satisfy so efficiently their needs and desires. The author further argued that when a company increases the number of its potential customers, its costs continuously decrease and it is able to gain a sustainable competitive advantage over competitors and maximize sales, revenue and profit margin. Fontenot (2014) states that loyalty is a continuous process that starts from some cognitive beliefs and ends with the final purchase of a product or service. Increasing the level of customer satisfaction and making them loyal to specific brands is the main and important objective of relationship marketing (Agarwal, 2012). Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get an essay, 2013).