Managing Customer Relationships in the Era of Digitalization
Type
habilitation project
Start Date
March 2012
End Date
June 2017
Keywords
customer relationship management
customer orientation
“high tech high touch”
multi-channel management
strategy implementation
performance implications
Description
Digitalization has led to drastic changes in the marketing landscape. Nowadays, almost every company employs digital touchpoints, and two-thirds of companies are actively using social media. In addition, the majority of customers consult the Internet before purchasing in brick-and-mortar stores, and numerous studies suggest that the importance of digitalization for customer relationships will increase over the next years.
The rapid increase of information accessible for customers and organizations from digitalization has come along with new challenges. The multiplicity of touchpoints and channels leads to unpredictable customer behavior and may even destroy the overall customer experience. At the same time, digitalization offers great and so far mostly untapped chances for sustainable competitive advantage. Particular important in this context is the concept of “high tech high touch”, describing the ongoing importance of strong personal relationships in digital times. Accordingly, the question of how to successfully manage customer relationships in the era of digitalization has become a top research priority for marketing academics, and thus will be tackled in this cumulative habilitation with seven papers in three subareas.
The first set of papers investigates the implementation of an important strategic orientation in times of digitalization—customer orientation—among employees and work teams, thereby considering consensus on customer orientation as well as the interplay between employee and firm customer orientation. The second set of papers analyses how companies can successfully manage customer relationships when faced with new opportunities and challenges arising from digitalization. Topics of these papers include online-offline channel integration and customer steering across multiple channels. The third set of papers explores the performance implications of customer relationships. In particular, effects from company actions on customer outcomes and performance outcomes as well as effects from customer actions on company outcomes will be examined.
The rapid increase of information accessible for customers and organizations from digitalization has come along with new challenges. The multiplicity of touchpoints and channels leads to unpredictable customer behavior and may even destroy the overall customer experience. At the same time, digitalization offers great and so far mostly untapped chances for sustainable competitive advantage. Particular important in this context is the concept of “high tech high touch”, describing the ongoing importance of strong personal relationships in digital times. Accordingly, the question of how to successfully manage customer relationships in the era of digitalization has become a top research priority for marketing academics, and thus will be tackled in this cumulative habilitation with seven papers in three subareas.
The first set of papers investigates the implementation of an important strategic orientation in times of digitalization—customer orientation—among employees and work teams, thereby considering consensus on customer orientation as well as the interplay between employee and firm customer orientation. The second set of papers analyses how companies can successfully manage customer relationships when faced with new opportunities and challenges arising from digitalization. Topics of these papers include online-offline channel integration and customer steering across multiple channels. The third set of papers explores the performance implications of customer relationships. In particular, effects from company actions on customer outcomes and performance outcomes as well as effects from customer actions on company outcomes will be examined.
Range
HSG Internal
Range (De)
HSG Intern
Eprints ID
247481