Research Area Update #1

The topic I have decided to focus on is Customer Relations Management. This is a broad topic. If we were to narrow down this topic even feather, one might ask the question how do companies engage their customer? Is it though online communities? If so what type of messages are they sending to their customers every day? Are they using web 2.0 platforms as if they were one way communication platforms? Or are they listening to their customers and individualizing each message they send?

The company that has won the most awards for the CRM program is Dell. I will be looking more indepth at their practices and asking the question what truly makes them successful? I will be using Radian6 to measure conversations that are currently going on around their topic.

Over the break I did more research on CRM and there were a couple of key words that continually came up in the articles. They key words were e-loyalty, e-satisfaction, and security. I looked more into e-loyalty and there seems to be a direct correlation in several articles I’ve read between e-loyalty, satisfaction, design and security. The user must feel both secure and comfortable with the design in order to be satisfied. If they are satisfied the premise is that the customers will return and remain loyal to the brand, service, or product thus establishing e-loyalty.

I have read several studies but they compare different countries. Some articles look at individualist verses collective societies. Other articles look at consumers in Asia, US, and Europe.