Unit 4:

Electronic Relationships, E-CRM & Technology for

Customer Relationships

E-CRM as a Concept, Digital Marketing, Important CRM Software,

Online Buyer Behaviour, Front Desk Management Technology,
Implication of E-Commerce for Customer Relationships, Nature of e
Relationships
 Electronic Customer Relationship Management
(e-CRM)
■ Coined by Oscar Gomes eCRM (Electronic Customer
Relationship Management) encompasses all standard CRM
functions with the use of the net environment i.e., intranet,
extranet and internet.
■ Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships
with customers through the use of information technology (IT).
■ eCRM processes include data collection, data aggregation, and
customer interaction.
■ Compared to traditional CRM, the integrated information for
eCRM intra-organizational collaboration can be more efficient
to communicate with customers.
■ As the Internet is becoming more and more important in business life, many
companies consider it as an opportunity to reduce customer-service costs,
tighten customer relationships and most important, further personalize
marketing messages and enable mass customization.
■ eCRM is being adopted by companies because it increases customer loyalty
and customer retention by improving customer satisfaction.
■ E-loyalty results in long-term profits for online retailers because they incur less
costs of recruiting new customers, plus they have an increase in customer
retention.
■ Together with the creation of sales force automation (SFA), where electronic
methods were used to gather data and analyze customer information, the
trend of the upcoming Internet can be seen as the foundation of what we
know as eCRM today.
■ eCRM can be defined as activities to manage customer relationships by
using the internet, web browsers or other electronic touch points.
■ The challenge hereby is to offer communication and information on the
right topic, in the right amount, and at the right time that fits the
customer's specific need.
■ It is a well-structured and coordinated process of CRM that automates
the processes in marketing, sales and customer service.
■ An effective E-CRM increases the efficiency of the processes as well as
improves the interactions with customers and enables businesses to
customize products and services that meet the customers’ individual
needs.
■ Electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM) involves the
integration of Web channels into the overall enterprise CRM strategy with
the goal of driving consistency within all channels relative to sales,
customer service and support (CSS) and marketing initiatives.
■ Electronic customer relationship management (E-CRM) is the application
of Internet-based technologies such as emails, websites, chat rooms,
forums and other channels to achieve CRM objectives.
■ Electronic customer relationship management provides an avenue for
interactions between a business, its customers and its employees
through Web-based technologies.
■ It can support a seamless customer experience and maximize customer
satisfaction, customer loyalty and revenue.
■ The process combines software, hardware, processes and
management’s commitments geared toward supporting enterprise-wide
CRM business strategies.
■ Electronic customer relationship management is motivated by easy
internet access through various platforms and devices such as laptops,
mobile devices, desktop PCs and TV sets.
■ An effective E-CRM system tracks a customer’s history through multiple
channels in real time, creates and maintains an analytical database, and
optimizes a customer’s relation in the three aspects of attraction,
expansion and maintenance.
■ A typical E-CRM strategy involves collecting customer information,
transaction history and product information, click stream and contents
information.
■ It then analyzes the customer characteristics to give a transactional
analysis consisting of the customer’s profile and transactional history,
and an activity analysis consisting of exploratory activities showing the
customer’s navigation, shopping cart, shopping pattern etc.
■ Businesses that implement an E-CRM solution are able to align their
processes around technology to effectively deliver seamless, high-quality
customer experience across all channels.
■ Customers have the power to help themselves through online
personalized services that are made available on demand.
■ The Internet provides a simple and ideal medium where customers can
get information from websites, buy products and find answers using FAQ
sections, forums or chat rooms.
■ As we implement eCRM process, there are three steps life cycle:
■ Data collection
– About customers preference information for actively (answer
knowledge) and passively (surfing record) ways via website, email,
questionnaire.
■ Data aggregation
– Filter and analysis for firm's specific needs to fulfill their customers.
■ Customer interaction
– According to customer's need, company provide the proper feedback
to them.
 Benefits of e-CRM
■ Improved customer relations, service and support
■ Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty
■ Greater efficiency and cost reduction
■ Increased business revenue
■ Matching the customers’ behavior with suitable offers
 Advantages of e-relationships
■ E-relationships have changed the competition scenario completely.
■ Small companies are able to compete with global giants with little capital
investment.
■ E-commerce has substantial reduced the trading barrier.
■ The companies can avoid many traditional players in the supply chain,
thereby changing business structures.
■ For example, consumers are able to book flights directly with airlines
rather than going through a travel agent.
■ The technology has enabled companies to gather information of
consumer through a reward card or electronic purchase.
■ This helps companies understand the consumer better and thereby
offering customized products to consumers.
 Disadvantages of e-relationships
■ The biggest drawback of e-relationships is that it removes human touch
from the equation.
■ Every interaction is done by looking at the computer screen.
■ The introduction of e-commerce may have reduced overhead cost for the
company, but is has also made many consumer adverse in dealing with
companies.
■ For example, automated call center has known to create a lot of
disgruntled consumers because of time a consumer spends in reaching
the human agent.
 Digital Marketing
■ Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the
Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop
computers, mobile phones and other digital media and
platforms to promote products and services.
■ Its development during the 1990s and 2000s changed the way
brands and businesses use technology for marketing.
■ As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into
marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly
used digital devices instead of visiting physical shops.
 Digital Marketing
■ Digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing
combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine
marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content
automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce
marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail
direct marketing, display advertising, e-books, and optical disks and
games have become commonplace.
■ Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital
media, such as television, mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callbacks,
and on-hold mobile ring tones.
■ The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing
from online marketing.
 Online Buying Behavior
■ Describes the process of online shopping from a consumer’s
perspective.
■ It is often described as the study of trends, including the
influence of online advertising, consumer willingness, the
prevalence of comparison shopping, among others.
■ The decision-making process of an online consumer is often
very different from that of a consumer in a physical store.
■ Companies are increasingly studying online consumer behavior
in order to adapt their sales and marketing strategies to appeal
to the internet purchaser.
 Online Buying Behavior
■ Online sales have increased all over the world, with more and
more shoppers looking to the Internet before they head out to
malls or other stores.
■ In order to remain competitive, many companies are electing to
devote at least some of their marketing capital to the online
space.
■ Companies decide many of the finer points of online sales,
including advertising strategies, page layout, and ease of
website searching by analyzing online consumer behavior.
■ Almost eight out of every ten U.S. shoppers made an online
purchase in 2013.
 Online Buying Behavior
■ The field of online consumer behavior can be broad.
■ In many respects, the study of online consumer behavior is the
study of the intersection between online consumers and online
businesses.
■ Analysts look at how consumers respond to various aspects of
an online business, and compare the factors that led to a
consumer either making a purchase or leaving the website.
■ The consumer psychology of making purchases online is
usually a major part of an analyst’s considerations, and
analysts often conduct market segmentation studies based on
gender, age, and relative sophistication.
 Online Buying Behavior
■ Online consumer behavior can also be forward-looking.
■ Behavior studies can tell businesses how consumers are
responding to ads and site layouts, but they can also predict
how consumers will respond to other future campaigns or web
features.
■ Market analysis in the online space often leads to innovation.
■ Businesses develop new advertising campaigns, and come up
with different ways to reach potential purchasers based on
behavioral statistics.
 Online Buying Behavior
■ Some online merchants have websites that are designed to
replicate an actual shopping experience.
■ Sometimes, the way corporations use behavioral data are
straightforward, such as sponsoring links on certain sites or
optimizing home pages to appear more readily in search
engines.
■ Increasingly, however, market responses are more tailored to
the consumer individually.
■ Social networking promotions, interactive homepages, and
special offers for subscribers of e-mail or messaging updates
are all examples of ways in which online consumer behavior
has influenced the modern retail world.
 Online Buying Behavior
■ Increasing brand awareness is a focus of digital marketing strategy for a
number of reasons:
■ The growth of online shopping
– A survey by Statista projects 230.5 million people in the United
States will use the internet to shop, compare, and buy products by
2021, up from 209.6 million in 2016.
– Research from business software firm Salesforce found 87% of
people began searches for products and brands on digital channels
in 2018.
■ The role of digital interaction in customer behavior
– It’s estimated that 70% of all retail purchases made in the U.S. are
influenced to some degree by an interaction with a brand online.
 Online Buying Behavior
■ The growing influence and role of brand awareness in online consumer
decision-making.
– 82% of online shoppers searching for services give preference to
brands they know of.
■ The use, convenience, and influence of social media.
– A recent report by Hootsuite estimated there were more than 3.4 billion
active users on social media platforms, a 9% increase from 2018.
– A 2019 survey by The Manifest states that 74% of social media users
follow brands on social sites, and 96% of people who follow businesses
also engage with those brands on social platforms.
– According to Deloitte, one in three U.S. consumers are influenced by
social media when buying a product, while 47% of millennials factor
their interaction with a brand on social when making a purchase.
 Implication of E-Commerce for Customer
Relationships
■ The concept of relationship marketing (RM) was established by
marketing professor Leonard Berry in 1983.
■ He considered it to consist of attracting, maintaining and enhancing
customer relationships within organizations.
■ In the years that followed, companies were engaging more and more in a
meaningful dialogue with individual customers.
■ In doing so, new organizational forms as well as technologies were used,
eventually resulting in what we know as customer relationship
management.
■ The main difference between CRM and e-CRM is that the first does not
acknowledge the use of technology, where the latter uses information
technology (IT) in implementing RM strategies.
 Important CRM Software of 2023
■ Salesforce CRM: Best for Small Businesses
■ PipeDrive: Best for Visual Sales Pipelines
■ monday Sales CRM: Best for Project Management
■ NetSuite CRM: Best for E-commerce
■ Freshsales CRM: Best for Communications
■ HubSpot CRM: Best for Integrations
■ Zoho CRM: Best for Remote and Hybrid Teams
■ Keap CRM: Best for Ease of Use
■ Quickbase: Best for Cross-Platform Integrations
■ Sage CRM: Best for Customer Support
■ SugarCRM: Best for Midsize Businesses
■ Insightly: Best for Customization
■ Zendesk: Best for Complete Customer Life Cycle
 Front Desk Management Technology
1. Cloud-Based Technology
– Cloud-based technology has been a normal feature of our lives for decades now.
– If you’ve ever used web-based email or file hosting services, you’ve already used cloud
technology.
– Cloud-based systems are especially relevant to the industry where it’s important that staff
are not tied to a specific terminal and where rapid sharing of information is important.
– Cloud-based property management services (PMS) will likely be increasingly widely
adopted.
– Cloud solutions for the front office help operations by allowing systems to be moved from
a physical location to the Internet.
– As well as making operations more convenient, cloud-based solutions make it much
easier to keep up with the latest technology trends.
– Moving operations to the cloud is highly cost-effective because cloud services require less
investment than purchasing extra computers.
– Cloud-based services are scalable, meaning firms can adapt to fluctuations in the need
for computer systems (for example, during high and low seasons).
– Software updates are handled by the service provider, reducing the workload for staff.
 Front Desk Management Technology
2. Self-Check-In Desk Technology
– Self-check-in technology was already becoming more popular in recent years.
– The advent of the pandemic turned it from a desirable upgrade into an essential
one.
– Guests now expect self-check-in facilities as a matter of course.
– E.g. Many hotels now use a check-in kiosk: a convenient one-stop facility that
can read debit and credit cards, take payments by card and sometimes cash,
print receipts, provide key cards, and handle other aspects of the check-in
process.
– Kiosks can offer additional services or upsell and inform guests of any add-ons
they want to purchase.
– A good kiosk offers an easy-to-read menu, an intuitive user interface, and simple
commands.
– In some cases, kiosk instruments can be configured with multiple language
options, making life easier for guests from overseas. Kiosks can be sanitized
between users, making them a convenient and safety-conscious option.
 Front Desk Management Technology
3. Specialized Mobile Apps
– Nowadays, we rely on our smartphones for almost every process or
activity. This has come to be included as a service trend, as well.
– E.g. As well as booking and paying for a hotel service, guests can
now use specialized apps to make their hotel stays more convenient
and comfortable.
– While many customers enjoy the human touch of in-person
interactions, others are more introverted and prefer their privacy.
– The app also allows customers to contact the front office and
communicate with staff in real time without calling down or leaving
the room.
– Payments can also be handled via the app, making life easier for the
customer and providing additional opportunities to increase revenue
for the firm.
 Front Desk Management Technology
4. Robotic Staff
– Robots in the industries are nothing new.
– In 2014, the sector was abuzz with the arrival of a robot butler — an AI-powered
device that would not only process orders from customers but deliver items as
per their requirement.
– The robot butler can bring customers items required within 15 minutes of
receiving an order especially in hospitality industries.
– While this innovation was generally seen as a novelty, physical automation is a
real and increasingly important feature in many modern firms.
– Perhaps the most dramatic example is the Henn-na Hotel, a Japanese hotel
boasting a staff that’s almost entirely robotic.
– Animatronic dinosaurs staff the reception desk, robots serve food, and rooms
have an adorable egg-shaped robotic assistant that responds to guests’ voice
commands. Of course, the human staff is still on hand to tackle jobs that the
robots can’t quite manage yet.
 Nature of E-Relationships
■ The rise of the internet and electronic commerce has changed the way in which customer
and company interact with each other.
■ The electronic commerce brings together more consumer and supplier, but it eliminates any
form of direct and face to face interactions.
■ For this specific reason electronic relationship are considered a formidable challenge for
many organizations.
■ The major of challenge revolves around the components of trust and commitment.
■ The advent of personal computers and with it internet has changed the way business gets
conducted.
■ This information technology age has brought its own set of challenges for relationship
marketing.
■ In the developed economies, it would be difficult to find anyone who has not gone on e-
relationship with any vendor.
■ E-commerce relationships for example may in form banking, online shopping, online search,
social networks etc.
■ Therefore, companies are trying to find ways to take advantages of e-relationship.
 Advantages of e-relationships
■ There are mainly two advantages of e-relationships,
– vast reach to the customer
– ability to serve the customer better.
■ The internet allows the companies to reach out to the consumers in ways
never thought before.
■ Unlike other medium before the internet, for example TV and radio it was
always one communication.
■ But the internet is an interactive medium. So whatever companies have
to offer, consumers can respond instantly and make a purchase.