The Evolution of CRM from the Perspective of an Emerging Country: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

From traditional groceries to mobile commerce, marketing has passed through several ages in its history, and so has the relationship between the seller and the customer. The CRM evolution process differs according to the history of different countries. This study offers a perspective on CRM from an emerging country, Turkey, and will demonstrate the stages of customer relationship management (CRM) in that country. In Turkey’s collective culture in the 80s, grocery stores existed with a strong relationship between the seller and the store. The owner was called “uncle grocery” and usually came from the same quarter as the customers. In this era, which we will call “CRM 1.0,” sellers knew their customers well. They knew their needs and the problems they were having in their homes, and they even knew about their family lives. Over time, supermarkets were introduced at the beginning of the 90s, and shopping malls were built after that. We can call this era “CRM 2.0.”These large stores offered products cheap, as they bought them from their suppliers in huge quantities. As a result of the development of technology, it’s now possible to talk about “CRM 3.0,” in which the Internet has become the focus of customers’ shopping lives. This era began in Turkey in the 90s, and online commerce soared in the last decade, paralleling the development of mobile commerce. The evolution of technology continues at a great pace. The next step is said to be the Internet of Things. Maybe in the future we will talk about an evolving customer, from “humans” to “objects”.