A Study on The New Trend of e-CRM

Understanding how to effectively manage the relationships with customers has become a very important topic to both academicians and practitioners in recent years. As a result deploying, customer relationship (CRM) initiatives has become very common. Yet, the existing academic literature and the practical applications of CRM strategies do not provide a clear indication of specifically what constitutes CRM.In recent years CRM has made significant strides world over as an effective aid to serve customers. There may be hardly any organization which in some way or the other is not using CRM philosophy. CRM received fillip with the advent of internet and related web enabled technologies. As companies make the transition from a product-only focus to a customer focus, CRM emerges as a technology that brings customers closer to organizations to retrieve information online. Customer Relationship Management is no longer considered a business trend, but an industry standard that is required to secure and maintain competitive advantage. CRM, when correctly and effectively utilized, results in increased profitability and greater customer loyalty, two key needs for any organization. In view of considerable research and developments in web enabled CRM area during last two decades it becomes necessary to take stock of emerging technologies and identify emerging opportunities and bottlenecks in implementation. In this paper it is attempted to review developments in e-CRM that facilitates online service to customers. Apart from review of technology related developments, the study focuses on identification of thrust areas resulting benefits and implementation strategies.