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Chapter 9  Customer relationship management

Maintaining online customer relationships is difficult. Laurie Windham (2001) says:

That’s what’s so scary about customer retention in the online space. We’ve created this 

empowered, impatient customer who has a short attention span, a lot of choices, and a 

low barrier to switching.

To create  long-  term online customer relationships that build on acquisition, to retain and 

extend, we need to analyse the drivers of satisfaction amongst these e-customers, since satis-

faction drives loyalty and loyalty drives profitability. The relationship is shown in Figure 9.16. 

The objective of marketers is to drive customers up the curve towards the zone of affection. 

However, it is worth remembering that the majority are not in that zone and to achieve 

retention marketers must understand why customers defect or are indifferent.

It follows from Figure 9.16 that we need to understand different factors that affect loyalty. 

The type of approach that can be taken is highlighted by Reichheld and Schefter (2000). They 

reported that Dell Computer has created a customer experience council that has researched 

key loyalty drivers, identified measures to track these and put in place an action plan to 

improve loyalty (Table 9.4).

Since quality of service is so crucial in determining satisfaction and loyalty, see the ‘Focus 

on Excelling in e-commerce service quality’ section later in this chapter.

Now let us consider key digital marketing tools that help retain customers. Repeat visits can 

be generated by a variety of means and brainstorming sessions can help generate these. Often 

it may simply be the expedient of regularly updated market and product or technical infor-

mation that helps customers perform their day-to-day work. Such information can be deliv-

ered through extranets such as Dell Premier or through personalisation services such as that 

described for RS Components. Information to help people perform their work is the proposi-

tion of the vertical portals such as  industry-  specific sites. Online communities are popular for 

both consumer and business markets since users can discuss topical issues or ask for answers 

to their queries. For example, the UK Net Marketing Group at 

www.chinwag.com

 discusses 

Figure 9.16

Schematic of the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty

Source: Adapted and reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review from graph on  

p. 167 from ‘Putting the  service‑  profit chain to work,’ by Heskett, J., Jones, T., Loveman, G., 

Sasser, W. and Schlesinger, E., in Harvard Business Review,   March–  April 1994.  Copyright  © 

1994 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, all rights reserved.

0

0

100

Loyalty

Satisfaction

5

Zone of defection