Role of Services in Building Long-Term Relationships

For the last decades the importance of services has increased, this fact is recognized both by scholars and in business. It is becoming difficult to constantly improve products, therefore services are employed by companies to gain competitive advantage. The study provides the specific types of services assisting in relationships building. Based upon a literature review, the main service attributes are clarified and the drivers of the relationships such as trust and closeness are determined. Further, a furniture market in Europe is observed. Employing the obtained data, a list of offered services is formed. The primary objective of the study is developing of managerially useful list of services that can help furniture companies to build long-term relationships with B2B clients.