How to gain and retain customers : a case study of how the daily work with CRM and e-CRM unfolds amongst large-scale firms in a contingent environment

Abstract: It has become increasingly important in the last decade to stay on top of the rapid digitalization, which has made efficient management of customer relationships increasingly essential for firms to implement within their business process. This has led to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the digital extension of it, electronic Customer Relationship Management (e-CRM) becoming cornerstones to the daily operations of many large-scale firms. Yet, there is only a limited number of research on CRM which also highlight the aspect of e-CRM, whereupon previous studies have not investigated how CRM and the digital aspect of it can stimulate customer relations in a business context within a contingent environment. This research will therefore attempt to fill in the research gap by studying how CRM benefit positive long-term customer relationships within large-scale firms. CRM has the ability to be a tool for firms to implement within their businesses in order to gain and retain customers through satisfaction and loyalty. Different types of CRM systems let firms interact with their customers in ways by providing services, collecting and storing data and comprehending this data of customer information. Various sets of CRM activities means that diverse sets of combinations of tools can be formed, depending on what the goal of the initiative itself is. However, due to the new environment and changing technologies, firms need to be even more adaptable. As a result of technological advancement, CRM has developed into something that furthermore consists of e-CRM. e-CRM involves traditional CRM activities, while being enhanced with technological aspects to it. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the daily work of CRM progresses in large-scale firms and how it aids them with gaining and retaining long-term relationships with their customers. In line with the purpose and research questions, a qualitative research method was formed. A multiple case study was decided upon which were performed with semi-structured interviews. The results show that the large-scale firms in this study interpret CRM differently. Furthermore, the results showed that there is no general template as to how firms should implement or work with CRM and its dimension e-CRM in order to gain and retain long-term customer relationships.