Electronic customer relationship management: Revisiting the general principles of usability and resistance - an integrative implementation framework

Electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) has become the latest paradigm in the world of customer relationship management. Recent business surveys suggest that up to 50 per cent of such implementations do not yield measurable returns on investment. A secondary analysis of 13 case studies suggests that many of these limited success implementations can be attributed to usability and resistance factors. The objective of this paper is to review the general usability and resistance principles in order to build an integrative framework for analyzing eCRM case studies. The conclusions suggest that if organizations want to get the most from their eCRM implementations they need to revisit the general principles of usability and resistance and apply them thoroughly and consistently. Introduction The goal of electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) systems is to improve customer service, retain valuable customers, and to aid in providing analytical capabilities. Furthermore, it is the infrastructure that enables the delineation of and increases in customer value, and the correct means by which to motivate valuable customers to remain loyal (Dyche, 2001). The rush to implement eCRM systems is on! Organizations want to achieve the enormous bene®ts of high return on investments (ROI,) increases in customer loyalty, etc. (see Table I) from successful implementations (Scullin et al., 2002.) The Meta Group predicts that the eCRM craze will only intensify, with the market growing from $20.4 billion this year to $46 billion by 2003 (Patton, The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister http://www.emeraldinsight.com/1463-7154.htm This researchwas partially supported by the New Jersey Science Commission through a grant to the New Jersey Center for Pervasive Information Technology. BPMJ 9,5