Employment Implications of Electronic Customer Relationship Management

Introducing and extending electronic Customer Relationship Management (e-CRM) practices in selected European enterprises had a considerable impact on work content and skill requirements but not on employment levels. While most companies stated that they created new jobs in the course of implementing e-CRM, the number of new jobs was not large in most cases. The changing content of jobs was examined using six characteristics of work and employment. The majority of the companies reported changes in functions or tasks, skills required, job enrichment or standardisation, and share of staff with particular functions. Personnel management and allocation of staff across the company’s departments remained untouched in most cases. Two particular types of work were also examined: It turned out that telework in CRM was rare, while mobile CRM workers were quite prevalent.