Extending customer relationship management. From empowering firms to empowering customers

Purpose – The focus of customer relationship management (CRM) literature has been predominantly on the firm perspective and on IT, not on customer or service orientation and value co-creation. This paper seeks to explore and analyse contemporary CRM frameworks and suggests future research directions. To achieve this, a thorough literature review on CRM is conducted focusing on recent advances within CRM. This provides a good basis for critically analysing the current status of both CRM theory and practice. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews CRM literature published 2003-2011. Based on the literature review, it introduces a conceptual framework of the changing role of customer data in the CRM framework. Findings – Literature has not adequately addressed the role of the emerging service orientation, value co-creation and the opportunities provided by new technology and communication channels. Drawing on a thorough CRM literature review, we argue that a fundamental change in CRM thinking is needed to shift the focus of CRM from empowering firms to empowering customers. Research limitations/implications – The paper is conceptual in nature and presents only a few empirical examples of the changing role of customer data within the CRM framework. The paper calls for more research on the emerging service orientation, value co-creation and the impact of new media on the contemporary CRM framework. Practical implications – Customer data remain, and will remain, a critically important input resource informing a firm’s processes. However, using customer data for the benefit of the customer too, to serve customers better, is clearly an emerging phenomenon. Refining and giving customer data back to customers may represent a future mechanism through which companies deepen and develop their customer relationship management to a whole new level. Originality/value – The study is among the first attempting to critically evaluate the contemporary CRM framework from the perspective of empowering customers.