Offline and Online Channels for Customer Relationship Management: An Investigation in the Inter-Organizational Context

This research examines the deployment of online and offline channels as means of interacting with customers to improve corporate customer retention in terms of contract renewal. Our study was held in collaboration with a leading business-to-business (B2B) corporation in Mainland China, which acts as an intermediary to connect local manufacturers to overseas corporate buyers. Three years of empirical data on the firm’s CRM has just been collected. Applying survival analysis, we conducted a pilot examination of the dataset, which unveiled the factors influencing the contract renewal of the local manufacturers. The results show that the frequency of utilizing the online FtF (FacetoFace) channel has a positive relationship with the probability of contract renewal. However, in contrast to what is commonly held, we identify negative relationship between the frequency of utilizing offline sales visits or online indirect inquiries and contract renewal probability.