Using e-CRM to create customer insight in SMEs

Harrigan, Paul, Ramsey, Elaine and Ibbotson, Patrick (2009) Using e-CRM to create customer insight in SMEs. The Academy of Marketing Conference, Leeds, UK. 06 - 08 Jul 2009. pp. 1-14 .

Abstract

CRM can be thought of, at a fundamental level, as managing customer relationships; SMEs do that. In fact, it is their close relationships with customers that often provide SMEs with their unique competitive advantage (Carson et al., 1995; Zontanos and Anderson, 2004). The crux of the current study is to pose the following question; if SMEs intuitively follow relationship marketing and CRM principles, what potential is there for technology to facilitate this process? This is based on the understanding that e-CRM is, at a fundamental level, managing customer relationships with the use of IBTs (Chen and Ching, 2007; Ortega et al., 2008). From this perspective, the literature certainly makes robust links between technology and relationship marketing (Gummesson, 1994; Chen and Ching, 2007). Moreover, literature pertaining to larger organisations positively advocates the role of technology in CRM, asserting that what traditional CRM delivers can be considered only a fraction of e-CRM (Pan and Lee, 2003). To investigate the nature of e-CRM in SMEs, this study analyses its role in a particular capability of the SME - customer information management. It is held that customer information is the ‘engine’ that drives CRM (Payne and Frow, 2006), making this an important area in which to investigate the e-CRM activities of SMEs .

This record has no associated files available for download.

Contributors

Download statistics