Abstract
Since the origins of the concept, marketing has always been concerned with customer requirements. But there was little emphasis on customer contact and service because the industrial revolution allowed a mass production at low costs. The attention was on the production and the market share. This traditional transactional marketing model was shaken about twenty five years ago for two reasons. First, product differentiation became more important as the number of products available increased. Second, the growing IT capacities allowed a more elaborate segmentation of the markets. Consequently, a new paradigm arose: the one of relationship marketing. The scope of relationship marketing is broad and encompasses a network of stakeholders (Gummesson 1999). Among these stakeholders are the customers. The relationship marketing concept relates to ‘one-to-one' marketing, seeking to fulfil the needs and wants of each individual customer, in contrast with mass marketing. One-way communication model has been replaced by a two-way communication, blurring the line where the customer begins and the organisation ends. Peters and Waterman (1982) first introduced the idea of focusing on customer retention on a long-term scale. Accordingly, the customer relationship management (CRM) emerged with the aim of retaining and developing its customers. A few years ago, the development of Internet has begun to affect media consumption and buyer behaviour (Chaffey et al. 2006). As CRM is by definition customer-centric, the concept of e-CRM appeared to follow this particular trend changing customers. This paper will discuss to what extent e-CRM is different and effective compared to traditional CRM.
