Chapter I

1.1 Overview One of the interesting changes in the last twenty years as the developed economies became service economies is that the emphasis in marketing changed from transactions to relationships. This shift is still not fully comprehended by many business people, but it is radically reshaping the effective methods of doing business. In the twentieth century, mass marketing took over, thanks to the existence of new mass media such as radio and television, reinforced by the mass production methods made possible by assembly-line standardization. This productfocused era, which held roughly from 1920 to 1960, resulted in a view of sales as transactions. As business gradually changed, service became most of every developed economy, and the things that mattered in service were different.