Exploring the links between the expectations of relationship marketing and the reality of electronic-CRM

The much debated relationship marketing paradigm suggests that the marketingstrategy should be framed in terms of the development of long-term and mutually rewardingcustomer relationships, rather than simply focussing upon the promotion and selling ofproducts and services. Moreover, customer relation management, typically enacted throughelectronic CRM software, is often promoted as the ideal mechanism for implementingrelationship marketing on a company-wide basis. However, the question of whether theanticipated benefits of relationship marketing can actually be delivered through theapplication of e-CRM software is still one that needs to be addressed, empirically. To thisend, this study develops a conceptual framework, which models the links betweenrelationship marketing and e-CRM, before using this to explore the outcomes of the adoptionof e-CRM applications by a sample of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), operatingin the mail order sector. The key findings presented in this paper are twofold: the driver for e-CRM adoption has primarily been the need to integrate the front and back offices whenoperating in an increasingly complex multi-channel environment and, consequently, e-CRMhas not delivered relationship marketing.