E-relationship marketing: changes in traditional marketing as an outcome of electronic customer relationship management

Marketing concepts and definitions have remained relatively unchanged until recently. Electronic customer relationship management (e CRM) has forced marketing managers to re-evaluate how, when and to what extent they interact with their customers. This paper is focused on the role of specific marketing concepts and how e CRM has enhanced or altered each concept. Every topic discussed is illustrated with current business examples. Several examples from the business trade press are used to illustrate the success an organization can achieve when using e CRM to enhance marketing skills. Relationship marketing (RM) has the potential to be a highly effective marketing technique. However, it has been problematic in retailing applications and caused confusions in interpreting research results. This paper analyzes problems of RM in the consumer market and reflects on the Internet's impacts on consumer RM. The problems in previous consumer RM research are traced to two roots: conceptual confusion and practical difficulties. To clarify the concept, it is proposed that RM can be classified to a broad sense or a narrow sense. It is stressed that RM strategy design has to comply with the relationship characteristics of targeted consumers. Alleviating practical difficulties in consumer RM, the Internet is presented as an effective facilitator for consumer RM success.