<p>Managing customer relations had become a necessity for companies who want to succeed in today’s customer oriented market. New systems are developed that allow firms to manage and govern their relationships to the customers. These applications are called Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems and have become one of the most widely adopted business solution in the private sector. In the mean time, mobile internet and mobile marketing have become two of the most popular subjects mentioned in business literature today.</p><p>A new system that combines CRM and mobile technologies has recently been developed: mobile CRM (mCRM). This type of system will allow companies to enhance their way of working with customer relations and enables new ways of offering value to customers. The market size of mCRM systems has grown from a $120 million industry in 2001 to a $1, 7 billion industries in 2005. The combination of the growing trend of customer focus, mobile technologies and mCRM systems will most likely lead to more companies investing in mCRM solutions. Still an interesting question of the reasons behind mCRM adoption remains unanswered. The main focus of this thesis is to find out why companies chose to adopt or not adopt mCRM systems.</p><p>Theories about CRM, mCRM and the spreading of technology (The Technology Acceptance Model) have been gathered and examined in order to support the research. After a gained insight of the subject matter, a methodology is discussed explaining research approach. A qualitative approach is used and interviews are conducted in order to find barriers and facilitators to mCRM adoption. Four companies from different industry sectors where interviewed, answering to questions concerning their level of IT adoption, CRM strategy and perception of mCRM.</p><p>The research resulted in several reasons for mCRM acceptance and rejection. The primary reason for investing mCRM, or considering investing in mCRM, was found to be the need to reach customers and sales force anytime and anywhere. Also, current IT adoption and IT dependency, as well as industry sector, are found to influence attitude towards mCRM. Factors that are found not to affect mCRM adoption are size of the firm and external pressure from the market. The overall perception of mCRM is positive among the respondents and all believe that the mobility aspect of CRM will become increasingly popular.</p>

Managing customer relations had become a necessity for companies who want to succeed in today’s customer oriented market. New systems are developed that allow firms to manage and govern their relationships to the customers. These applications are called Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems and have become one of the most widely adopted business solution in the private sector. In the mean time, mobile internet and mobile marketing have become two of the most popular subjects mentioned in business literature today. A new system that combines CRM and mobile technologies has recently been developed: mobile CRM (mCRM). This type of system will allow companies to enhance their way of working with customer relations and enables new ways of offering value to customers. The market size of mCRM systems has grown from a $120 million industry in 2001 to a $1, 7 billion industries in 2005. The combination of the growing trend of customer focus, mobile technologies and mCRM systems will most likely lead to more companies investing in mCRM solutions. Still an interesting question of the reasons behind mCRM adoption remains unanswered. The main focus of this thesis is to find out why companies chose to adopt or not adopt mCRM systems. Theories about CRM, mCRM and the spreading of technology (The Technology Acceptance Model) have been gathered and examined in order to support the research. After a gained insight of the subject matter, a methodology is discussed explaining research approach. A qualitative approach is used and interviews are conducted in order to find barriers and facilitators to mCRM adoption. Four companies from different industry sectors where interviewed, answering to questions concerning their level of IT adoption, CRM strategy and perception of mCRM. The research resulted in several reasons for mCRM acceptance and rejection. The primary reason for investing mCRM, or considering investing in mCRM, was found to be the need to reach customers and sales force anytime and anywhere. Also, current IT adoption and IT dependency, as well as industry sector, are found to influence attitude towards mCRM. Factors that are found not to affect mCRM adoption are size of the firm and external pressure from the market. The overall perception of mCRM is positive among the respondents and all believe that the mobility aspect of CRM will become increasingly popular.

Abstract This study examines communication through the mobile medium in customer relationship management (hereafter mCRM). Although the academic research on mCRM is gradually evolving, there is still a lack of empirical research on this topical issue. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to begin to fill this gap by enhancing the theoretical and practical understanding of mCRM. The empirical part of the study is conducted as a qualitative case study. Seven Finnish companies utilizing the mobile medium as a communication channel in CRM were selected for the empirical analysis. Interviews, observations and personal experiences gained within those companies form the main sources of data. The main theoretical contributions of the present study to existing academic literature are as follows. First, the study proposes the conceptualization of the focal phenomenon of the study, mCRM, and further elicits the salient characteristics of it. Second, following the conceptualization, the study focuses on communication as the core of the interaction between the company and the customer via the mobile medium. Accordingly, the study sheds light on the key elements of the communication process within mCRM and its various phases. Third, the study founds a theoretical framework for mCRM; identifying the customer relationship management, mobile commerce and communication literature streams that define mCRM theoretically. Fourth, the study elaborates on the specific role of the mobile medium as a channel within CRM and highlights the ways in which it differs from all other channels within the multichannel CRM environment. Although mCRM communication has an inherent potential to benefit both company and customer, it has been utilized quite cautiously to date. This is rather surprising given that, compared to other channels, the mobile medium has an exceptional ability to reach people. In addition, greater utilization of the mobile medium could save time and money. This is because many face-to-face encounters could easily be replaced by communication through the mobile medium. The study offers guidelines on aspects ranging from the initiation of mCRM to actual communication through mCRM. Hopefully, the findings of this study will encourage managers, regardless of industry, to consider whether their company could provide added-value of any kind through the use of the mobile medium to benefit their customer relationships.

Mobile technology has evolved drastically over the years, and so has the customer’s perception of and expectations on mobile services. Mobile phones have become the essential part of customer’s life style and they expect consumer services to be available on mobile phone. In this saturated market, providing better customer experience through the channel preferred by customers is as important as selling the actual product or services. In the quest to retain existing customers as well as attracting new, companies are developing innovative mobile customer relationship management (mCRM) strategies to strike a balance between its investments and fulfilling of customers need to generate maximum profit. However, not all mCRM strategies succeed leaving customers dissatisfied and switching to competitors providing better mobile services. The purpose of this study is to understand the dynamics between the customer acceptance, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the context of mCRM services. Thus, answering the following research questions: a) What are the factors behind customer acceptance? b) Do mCRM services have any effect on customer loyalty? Qualitative research method were utilized to closely study two different mCRM strategies from different industries with costumer in focus. Data for the study was gathered from a costumer survey as well as from interviews with informants within the company. In addition, external data from public domain was used to validate the findings of the study. Furthermore, a research model was developed by identifying the constructs adopted from literature study of technology acceptance model (TAM3) and customer loyalty. The research model was the basis for developing the customer feedback survey. In addition, the constructs helped in identifying the impact on customer acceptance and customer loyalty for the respective mCRM strategy. This study confirms previous findings and contributes to our understanding of technology acceptance as well as customer loyalty. The study reveals that mCRM services are mostly useful to urban customers with busy and on-the-go lifestyle. Furthermore, the study shows that through well practice use behavior customer develops a habit based on the prior evaluation of perceived usefulness and perceived value. In addition, the study indicates that customers build up a new trust towards the mCRM services through the usage of the service. Finally, the results of the study indicate that the mCRM services have an impact on company’s net customer loyalty.