CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT IN LOGISTICS FIRMS

Abstract

It is due to the blessings of the last decade as well as the sincere efforts of the business fraternity that the Asian economy is flourishing with a market orientation, which is a shift from a sales orientation.  The availability of a large number of alternative products and services, substitute products, and integrated services, has compelled corporate players to be competent so as to perform in a highly competitive environment.  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a mix of people, processes and technology which focuses on understanding the customer.  It is an integrated approach to manage relationships by focusing on customer retention and relationship enhancement.  Organizations that effectively apply Customer Relationship Management will garner the rewards in customer reliability as well as productivity.  Nevertheless, a successful mechanism appears to be vague to many enterprises because they do not recognize CRM’s potential in the current state of affairs.  This study adopts a relational perspective with which to plan an executive strategy for CRM based on a ‘Gaps’ model of organizations.  The gaps are variety of failures which hinder CRM and have to be identified and overcome.  The research data came from semi-structured interviews by logistics managers with customer companies in Bhutan and India.