Does electronic customer relationship management affect customer satisfaction and trust?

Abstract: Aim: This paper aims to explore and to understand how the E-CRM affects customer satisfaction and trust from customer perspectives in electronic commerce. Method: The research is an exploratory and qualitative study. A multiple case study involving 3 Swedish companies with 12 face-to-face interviews in Gävle, Sweden, was chosen to collect the empirical data for this study. Data were coded by hands and structured in the form of tables in accordance with 7 codes categorized in 2 themes. Coded data were interpreted to investigate the research questions by using the inductive method. Result & Conclusions: This study found that live chat and e-service quality in E-CRM directly affect how satisfied a customer feel with a company in e-commerce, thus affecting trust as well. However, the findings also showed that not all customers could perceive all the effects of E-CRM on their satisfaction and trust.   Suggestions for future research: Other features such as electronic word-of-mouth, internet branding or internet prices are suggested for the future research to have an in-depth understanding of E-CRM effects. Future studies may combine data from both company and customers to increase the validity and reliability. Furthermore, the population of samples could be collected in others cities or countries than in Gävle, Sweden to generalize the result more. The contribution of the thesis: This study contributes knowledge about E-CRM effects in Swedish e-commerce. Some differences related to existing theories were found in this research such as the effects of gender on trust or effects of prices on relationship building. Understanding the customer perspectives on E-CRM effects enables companies to have a proper E-CRM implementation and training for their organization and employees.