Electronic customer relationship management: origin and opportunities

Today's online consumer has more complex needs and much higher expectations than ever before. Customers not only want to shop and get customer service through multiple communication channels, such as the telephone, Web text chat, electronic mail, and the Web, they desire the ability to move seamlessly from one medium to another. To support this capability, customer relationship management (CRM) is evolving into electronic CRM-"eCRM". This paper presents the evolution of eCRM, describes several current trends, and looks at the future of eCRM.