Study of the Practice of Applying Educational Tools of Relationship Marketing for the Customer Involvement Development in the Business Services Market

The master's thesis is devoted to research of the problem of forming the clients involvement in modern relationship marketing. The author aims to study the practice of using online educational tools for forming clients involvement in the business services market, also author makes recommendations for improving their use. The main topic of the first part of the research is a general analysis of the concept of relationship marketing. The author analyzes other main concepts, makes general definition of educational tools and describes its advantages and disadvantages. The result is the author`s classification of educational tools for relationship marketing. There are three types of them: events, associations and materials. The main topic of the second part of the research is an analysis of behavioral and perceived indicators of customer involvement. In addition, the main problems of practice using educational tools were identified. To identify gaps and main characteristics of educational tools, the author uses a formalized questionnaire survey of 483 representatives of companies that receive business services and its results are described too. The main topic of the third part of the research is describing the major institutional problems of using educational tools as part of relationship marketing. The author proposes a heuristic checklist model for identifying and overcoming the gaps in the use of educational tools for relationship marketing, whose goal is to formalize and optimize the process of studying the client’s needs for education and increasing the effectiveness of the relevant tools. Also the author proposed mechanism of forming clients involvement in interaction with the company based on educational tools of relationship marketing.