Relationship Management for a cultural institution: the case of the Out Off Theatre

This paper presents the results of an explorative investigation carried out to research the characteristics of managing customer relationships in an arts and cultural institution. Because of the difficulty in clearly identifying both the customer value of this kind of offer and its competitors from the customer’s point of view, and because of the continuous reduction in funding, arts and cultural institutions could benefit from better management of customer relationships. Our findings indicate that better customer relationships are part of an overall improvement in the management of the relations with all interlocutors, because market synergies can cause any marketing policy to affect the whole set of relationships.