Customer Relationship Management

Professor Moez Limayem

August 2009
Introduction
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business strategy aimed at acquiring, retaining and building
a long term relationship with the customers. It requires the use of IT to achieve the objective of profitability
through enhanced customer relations. Peter Keen asserts we are on the threshold of a shift from a
transaction-based economy to a relationship-based economy. The challenge over the next few years will be
for Marketers, Business Unit executives to work closely with IT Professionals in order to understand the
emerging CRM/eCRM solutions and to see how they can be used to increase the profitability of the business.
To remain competitive in today’s global economy, there is an urgent need to strengthen customer relations
for ways to extend market reach, improve quality and customer service so as to increase profitability. This
doctoral seminar is specially tailored to this need; it provides knowledge about CRM and its main concepts,
the technologies and the strategies for implementing customer relationship initiatives. Moreover, doctoral
students will be exposed to important research questions in this area as well as the relevant
literature, theories and research methodologies.

Aims & Objectives

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
 Understand the main concepts related to CRM and e-CRM.
Recognize the important CRM initiatives.
Apply CRM concepts for enhancing marketing and customer service.
Comprehend the best approaches for redesigning business processes for CRM.
Be aware of the main information technologies enabling CRM.
Assure a successful implementation of CRM.
Have a good understanding of important research in this area
Identify important research question related to CRM
Plan for an empirical research in this area

Professor
Dr. Moez Limayem is the Walton professor and Chair of the Information Systems Department at the Sam M.
Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas in the USA. Until recently, he was a professor at HEC
Lausanne. Dr Limayem was also a professor and the BBA Electronic Commerce program coordinator at the
Information Systems department of the City University of Hong Kong. Before joining City University of
HK, he was the chair of the Management Information Systems department at Laval University in Canada.
He holds an MBA and a Ph.D. in MIS from the University of Minnesota. His current research interests
include IT adoption and usage, CRM, Knowledge Management and electronic commerce. He has had
several articles published in many journals such as Management Science, Information Systems Research,
Communications of the ACM, IEEE Transactions, Accounting, Management & Information technologies,
Group Decision and Negotiation, and Small Group Research. He has been invited to present his research in
many countries in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and in the Middle East. He won the best MIS paper
award at the ASAC conference in 1998 and the ICIS conference in 2003. Dr. Limayem also acts as a
consultant for the UNESCO and several private and public companies.

In 1994, Professor Limayem won the prestigious HERMES award for excellence in teaching. In 1995 and
1998, he won the award for the best MIS teacher in the Faculty of Business Administration at Laval
University, and he recently received the 3M award of the best teacher in Canada. In November 2001, he

p. 1 of 5
won the Teaching Excellence Award at City University of Hong Kong and in January 2003, he received the
best teacher award of the Information Systems Department at City University of Hong Kong.

Dr. Limayem has more than 15 years of experience in executive training in the USA, Canada and Hong
Kong. He is the highest rated Executive MBA instructor at CityU, Concordia University (Montreal Canada),
and at Laval University (Quebec, Canada). He is the president of the Association of Information and
Management (AIM) and the program Co-Chair for the International Conference on Information Systems
(ICIS 2009). Dr Limayem is an Academic Founding Member of the Mediterranean School of Business
(MSB).

Detailed Outline & Readings:

Session 1 – Introduction Session 2 – CRM Technologies

 Living in e-World  Operational CRM
 CRM  SFA
 What is and what is not CRM  CSS
 Objectives of CRM  EMA
 The Importance of CRM  Analytical CRM
 CRM Functions  Collaborative CRM
 Benefits of CRM  CRM Products Overview
 CRM Foundations
Readings:
Riley (2008), Ubiquitous Computing: An Interesting New Paradigm,
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_fall/projects/say-cheese/marcia/mfinal.html
Wailgum (2008), ABC: An Introduction to CRM , http://www.cio.com/article/40295
Anonymous (2008), Introduction to CRM,
http://dl.sugarforge.org/training/training/IntroductiontoCRM/CRM_Fundamentals.pdf
INSIDECRM (2007), CRM Buying Guide, http://www.insidecrm.com/pdf/hosted-crm-buyers-
guide_7-07.pdf
INSIDECRM (2008), CRM Comparison Guide,
http://www.insidecrm.com/whitepaper/pdf/hosted-crm-comparison-guide_0508.pdf

Session 4 -- Doing Research in the area of

Session 3 – BPR for CRM
CRM
 Problems with Traditional  Identification of important research
Organizations questions in the area of CRM
 Business Process Reengineering (BPR)  Students present their research
 BPR & CRM questions
 Present State of BPR
 Redesign Principles and Tactics
 Best Practices

p. 2 of 5
Readings:
Barker (2008), How is CRM Defined, http://www.digitaldealer-magazine.com/index.asp?
article=1249
Alt, R., and Puschmann, T. (2005) Developing Customer Process Orientation - The Case of
Pharma Corp., Business Process Management Journal, 11(4), pp. 297-315,
http://verdi.unisg.ch/org/iwi/iwi_pub.nsf/wwwPublYearEng/435C82B442AA6248C125705
E00305347
Anonymous (2003) Introducing the Transformational Change Cycle to CRM, Strategic
Resource Development Group Ltd, http://www.srd-grp.com/crm.php/transformational-
change-cycle
Knowledge Management, Institute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen,
http://verdi.unisg.ch/org/iwi/iwi_pub.nsf/wwwPublRecentEng/9E047CC0ED6401CDC1256
E18003A2D73

Session 6 -- Doing Research in the area of

Session 5 – Achieving Customer Satisfaction
CRM
 Achieving Customer Satisfaction  Identify relevant theories in the area of
 Measuring Customer CRM
Satisfaction  Students present their theoretical
 Dealing Better with Angry and models
Dissatisfied Customers
 The irate Mr. Snappy
 The overbearing Ms. Flash
 The talkative Mr. Yappy
 The exasperatingly indecisive
Mrs. Picky
 Enemies of Customer Satisfaction
Readings:
Anonymous (2008) Dealing With Angry Customers: Part 1 - The Anger, Leadership-tools.com,
http://www.leadership-tools.com/questions-angry-customers.html
Anonymous (2008) Dealing With Angry Customers: Part 2 - The Calm, Leadership-tools.com,
http://www.leadership-tools.com/dealing-with-angry-customers.html
Anonymous (2008) Response to Angry Customers: Part 3 - The Follow Up, Leadership-
tools.com, http://www.leadership-tools.com/response-to-angry-customers.html
Kurtus, R. Dealing with Customer Complaints (revised 22 June 2007), School-for-
Champions.com, http://www.school-for-champions.com/tqm/complaints.htm

Session 8 -- Doing Research in the area of

Session 7 – V-Business and V-CRM
CRM
 From e-Business to V-Business  Research methodologies in the area of
 From e-CRM to V-CRM CRM
 The case of Second Life  Students present their research
 Doing Business in Second Life methodologies as well as the expected
 The implications of Second Life for contributions of their studies
CRM and e-CRM  Conclusion
 V-Strategy
p. 3 of 5
 Readings:
Beal (2007), Does Second Life mean a new world for CRM?
http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid11_gci1255404,00.html
Lee (2008), When your Avatar gets sick: Hospitals in Second Life,
http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/62267.html
Schierholz, R., Glissmann, S., Kolbe, L., Brenner, W.: Mobile Systems For Customer Service
Differentation - The Case Of Lufthansa, Proceedings of the 10th Pacific Asia Conference on
Information Systems, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 06.07.2006, 2006, pp. 41-52.
http://web.iwi.unisg.ch/org/iwi/iwi_pub.nsf/wwwPublYearEng/911EB64B1AB4C802C125
71C3005368CC
Schierholz, R., Kolbe, L., Brenner, W.: Mobilizing Customer Relationship Management - A
Journey from Strategy to System Design, Sprague Jr., R. (Eds.): Proceedings of the 39th
Hawaii Conference on Systems Science, Kauai, Hawaii, 04.01.2006, IEEE Computer
Society, Los Alamitos, 2006.
http://web.iwi.unisg.ch/org/iwi/iwi_pub.nsf/wwwPublYearEng/4DE879589C282044C1257
103002D420F
Schierholz, R., Kolbe, L., and Brenner, W. (2005) Strategy Alignment of Mobile Solutions in
Customer-oriented Business Processes, Wirtschaftsinformatik, 47(1), pp. 17-24.
http://web.iwi.unisg.ch/org/iwi/iwi_pub.nsf/wwwPublRecentGer/D855B587CC7078E9C12
57122005F7D4F

Required Readings:
In addition to the readings mentioned under each section, a set of required recent research articles will also
be available from the instructor.

Reference Books
Greenberg, P. (2004) CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st
Century, Third Edition. New York, McGraw-Hill Osborne Media.
Bergeron, B. (2002) Essentials of CRM: A Guide to Customer Relationship Management. New
York, John Wiley & Sons.
Payne, A. (2005) Handbook of CRM: Achieving Excellence through Customer Management.
Butterworth-Heinemann.

Additional References

CRM Guru http://www.crmguru.com CRM Daily http://www.crmdaily.com

CRM Buyer http://www.crmbuyer.com CRM Assist http://www.crmassist.com
CRM Advocate http://www.crmadvocate.com eCRM Guide http://www.ecrmguide.com

Evaluation

The evaluation scheme is organized as follows:

1. In-class Participation (30%)

Students are encouraged to actively participate in class. Participation includes in-class
discussion with the instructors or among peers, information giving about anything inspired and
relevant and responses to others’ comments.

2. Prepare a Research Proposal in the General Area of CRM (70%)

In a group of 2 students, you will have to prepare and present a proposal for a research in the
general area of CRM. Specifically, the team should:
p. 4 of 5
- Read the articles included in the required readings package
- Identify an important and interesting research in the area of CRM
- Find the appropriate model that will serve as theoretical basis to investigate the research
question
- Propose a research methodology to be used to test the theoretical model
- Highlight the main theoretical and practical contributions of the study

Each team should present the different milestones of their work during sessions 4, 6 and 8.
They should also submit a research proposal summarizing their work.

p. 5 of 5