Increasing Customer Intimacy through Customer Relationship Management

Customer intimacy is a relationship between a company and its customer, where the company collects information to better understand and serve the customer. Many online companies want to establish this relationship, and if successfully formed, it is expected that customer loyalty will increase, resulting in increased revenue for the company. However, the desire of the company to collect intimate information is resisted by customers that have little trust, concern for privacy, no justification for provision of personal information, and substitutes. Companies must entice customers to provide increasingly intimate information, but are met with increasing reluctance by the customer. This suggests that there is a Continuum of Customer Intimacy. Additionally, the willingness of the customer to provide increasingly intimate information is affected by a number of factors. Finally, there is discussion of how customer relationship management (CRM) tools may be used to affect the willingness of the customer to share information.