An integrative framework for customer relationship management: towards a systems view

Abstract

Customer relationship management (CRM) is predicated on the notion that understanding and responding to customers is key to customer satisfaction, retention, and ultimately revenue growth and profitability. With the increasing power, reach, and role of information and communications technologies (ICT), business organisations are increasingly finding new grounds and opportunities for exploiting these technologies. However, many issues surrounding CRM remain largely unresolved. In particular, overemphasis on the marketing and business strategy perspectives has overshadowed the nature of CRM as information system. This paper proposes an integrative framework with particular emphasis on the systems perspective of CRM, and presents a client/server architecture for the CRM system. The framework and the architecture are intended to better assist in the understanding, development, and implementation of CRM systems.