The role of interactive media in relationship marketing

Abstract

This thesis is an assignment from Mölnlycke Health Care, and concerns how a company in the health care industry can use interactive media in customer communication, in order to improve relations. The purpose is to describe how the customers in Europe would like to receive information and communicate with the suppliers, investigate the possibilities of using Internet/e-mail and telemarketing and to present a recommendation for future communication with these media.

We present and give an understanding of important concepts needed for solving the research problem. It contains information about factors affecting the communication strategy and its design, and the new conditions set by the interactive media. To get a deeper understanding of our case company and the setting of the thesis, we also describe Mölnlycke HC's market and its stakeholders.

To solve our research problem, different kinds of data had to be collected and analysed. The methods used are a quantitative part consisting of 500 questionnaires, and a qualitative part that includes several interviews. The data is then presented and analysed based on the four parts of communication design; target, media, message and timing. Summarising the most important findings from the analysis, we attempt to answer how MHC can use interactive media in the communication with their customers. The result showed that there was interest for using Internet, e-mail and ceratin telephone solutions, but the possibility and barriers varied among the countries. Some practical recommendations are given as well as areas for future research.