The proportion of a company’s business that is online.
Published in Chapter:
eCRM Marketing Intelligence in a Manufacturing Environment
Aberdeen Leila Borders (Kennesaw State University, USA), Wesley J. Johnston (Georgia State University, USA), Brett W. Young (Georgia State University, USA), and Johnathan Yehuda Morpurgo (University of New Orleans, USA)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 7
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-026-4.ch197
Abstract
This article examines the issue of electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) in a manufacturing context. ECRM has been described as the fusion of a process, a strategy, and technology to blend sales, marketing, and service information to identify, attract, and build partnerships with customers (Bettis-Outland & Johnston, 2003; Jaworski & Jocz, 2002). Although some customers still pay a premium for face-to-face or voice-to-voice interaction in today’s hightech world, through external (e.g., advertising) and internal (e.g., word-of-mouth) influence, the diffusion of the use of eCRM to build and sustain customer loyalty as a firm’s strategy is on the rise. Manufacturers use the knowledge of their customers’ needs and preferences to manage profitable customer interactions. This increased use of eCRM as a new manifestation (technological consolidation) of firmly established customer relationship management techniques has been shown to improve customer relationships and enhance customization (Kennedy, 2006).