Effects of e-CRM Value Perceptions on Website Loyalty

Abstract

Web-enabled customer relationship management, or e-CRM, holds the promise to simultaneously achieve the conflicting goals of strategic flexibility and operational efficiency in developing and executing innovative e-commerce marketing strategies. A new multi-disciplinary field involving such diverse areas as marketing, information systems, and consumer behavior, e-CRM seeks to strengthen customer relationship via a portfolio of trust-building practices with the support of powerful information technologies. While most literature in e-CRM has focused on how firms formulate and implement e-CRM initiatives, there is a dearth of literature on viewing the overall quality of an e-commerce firm’s e-CRM practices from the consumer point of view. This research proposes such a consumer-oriented concept, e-CRM value, based on existing e-CRM research literature and examines the effect of e-CRM value on website loyalty. It was found that customers’ perception of e-CRM value has a positive causal effect on their website loyalty. The implications of this finding for the theory-building of e-CRM and marketing practices of e-commerce firms are discussed.