Xtreme Cafe Gaming Station

Electronic Customer Relationship Management (eCRM)

              Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships with customers making use of Information Technology (IT). The integrated information for eCRM intraorganizational collaboration can be more efficient to communicate with customers. eCRM is enterprises using IT to integrate internal organization resources and external marketing strategies to understand and fulfill their customer. ECRM is being adopted by companies because it increases customer loyalty and customer retention by improving customer satisfaction, one of the objectives of eCRM.

              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. 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.

Major differences between CRM and eCRM

Customer contacts

• CRM- contact with customer made through the retail store, phone, and fax.
• eCRM- all of the traditional methods are used in addition to Internet, email, wireless, and PDA technologies

System Interface

• CRM- implements the use of ERP systems, emphasis is on the back-end
• eCRM- geared more toward front end, which interacts with the back-end through use of ERP systems, data warehouses, and data marts

System overhead (client computers)

• CRM- the client must download various applications to view the web-enabled applications. They would have to be rewritten for different platform.
• eCRM- doesn't have these requirements because the client uses the browser

Customization and Personalization of Information

• CRM- views differ based on the audience, and personalized views are not available. Individual personalization requires program changes
• eCRM- Personalized individual views based on purchase history and preferences. Individual has ability to customize view.

System Focus

• CRM- System (created for internal use) designed based on job function and products. Web applications designed for a single department or business unit
• eCRM- System (created for external use) designed based on customer needs. Web application designed for enterprise-wide use.

System Maintenance and Modification

• CRM- More time involved in implementation and maintenance is more expensive because the system exists at different locations and on various servers.

• eCRM- Reduction in time and cost. Implementation and maintenance can take place at one location and on one server. wikipedia