Electronic Customer Relationship Management

Citation

Keary, M.Y. (2007), "Electronic Customer Relationship Management", Online Information Review, Vol. 31 No. 5, pp. 707-708. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520710832388

Four years ago the editors carried out an evaluation of customer relationship management (CRM) – a business strategy to acquire and manage relationships with customers so as to maximize long‐term value. In this updating evaluation they have expanded it to include electronic customer relationship management (eCRM), which enables a company to manage customer relationships in real time.

In their original research the editors were particularly concerned about the growing importance of CRM in information systems. This review looks at new research to see whether CRM as a subfield of information systems has matured or languished with the passage of time. Papers selected provide evidence to illustrate advances made, as well as the issues and challenges that remain for further study.

The initial chapters explore the role of CRM and eCRM, and in particular the interrelationships between them, by first looking at the critical success factors for eCRM and supply chain management implementation. Another author discusses the importance of customer loyalty in relation to eCRM, and investigates models for customer satisfaction and complaining behaviour.

Part 2 covers organisational success factors of CRM, such as how the challenge of managing change impacts on CRM and eCRM systems. Following this, the results of a cross‐industry benchmarking project are presented, and the final paper illustrates how a state‐of‐the‐art IT infrastructure for eCRM can be designed for use in financial services alliances.

Part 3 looks at the enhancing performance of CRM and introduces a customer knowledge management process model that focuses on the characteristics of knowledge during its life cycle. The writers analyse the relationships and environmental variables that influence the processes of knowledge development, dissemination, modification and use. A companion paper examines the effects of ICT on three CRM elements – market orientation, IT investment and mass customisation on CRM performance.

The final group of papers investigate CRM in business‐to‐consumer commerce, so that online shopping is the theme of both papers. In the first, the authors conducted an analytical review of the literature on consumer online shopping beliefs, affective reactions, attitudes, intentions, behaviours and satisfaction. The second looks at website design, the failure to meet customer expectations and the improvements that need to be made to meet the consumers' desired level of satisfaction.

These essays provide a useful review of important advances made in information systems customer relationship management. However, the editors point out that there are still some issues that have been neglected. These include: resistance and usability; the integration of CRM with other enterprise systems; the integration of analytical, operational and collaborative CRM, as well as its interfaces with other disciplines. This collection of papers highlights very interesting research results with extensive bibliographies, but it also points the way for more investigative work on CRM to be carried out.