WHO’S ON FIRST? STAKEHOLDER DIFFERENCES IN CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AND THE ELUSIVE NOTION OF “SHARED UNDERSTANDING” Christopher R. Plouffe, Brian C. Williams, and Thomas W. Leigh After first demonstrating that definitions of customer relationship management (CRM) vary widely, we build upon stakeholder and network theories and argue that there two fundamental categories of participants in any CRM initiative: (1) “core” stakeholders (i.e., the firm selling its products or services as well as its customers), and (2) various “noncore” stakeholders (e.g., CRM consultants). We then develop a process-based framework and related propositions capturing the various stakeholders involved in a CRM initiative as well as several important mediating and moderating relationships yet to receive attention in the literature. Next, we highlight the specific frame of reference and inherent biases of each type of CRM stakeholder, with particular emphasis on how each attempts to sell its offerings, services, or wares. At the core of our framework is a little-commented upon mediating construct that we label “Shared Understanding of CRM.” The paper next offers an additional, and perhaps more pragmatic, framework for managers to garner a better understanding of which specific stakeholders are at work in any given CRM initiative, which type of customers might be involved, and which outcome variables or metrics might be salient. The paper’s conclusion offers insights into how the elusive goal of shared understanding of CRM might best be achieved.
(Excerpt: “Who’s on First,” Abbott and Costello. The Naughty Nineties, 1945). Costello: Now look, I’m the head of the sports department. I gotta know the baseball players’ names. Do you know the guys’ names? Abbott: Oh sure. Costello: So you go ahead and tell me some of their names.
Christopher R. Plouffe (Ph.D., University of Western Ontario), Assistant Professor of Marketing, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia,
[email protected]. Brian C. Williams (M.A., Northwestern University), Doctoral Student in Marketing, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia,
[email protected]. Thomas W. Leigh (DBA, Indiana University), Professor of Marketing and Tanner Chair in Sales Management, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia,
[email protected]. The authors gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support of the Coca-Cola Center for Marketing Studies at the University of Georgia. The thinking on the topics in this paper have benefited immeasurably from the helpful comments provided by the participants at the New Horizons II Conference on Personal Selling and Sales Management hosted by Northeastern University in Boston, MA, July 2003. In addition, the insights provided by Bill Cron, Tom Ingram, Eli Jones, and Buddy LaForge, as well as the suggestions of three anonymous reviewers were all instrumental in refining this work and the authors’ thinking. Editor’s Note: As the third author is serving as guest editor for this special issue of JPSSM, the review process for this paper was managed by the JPSSM Editor.—GWM
Abbott: Well, I’ll introduce you to the boys. You know sometimes nowadays they give ballplayers peculiar names. Costello: You mean funny names. Abbott: Nicknames, pet names, like Dizzy Dean—(and) Goofy! ... Costello: Goofy! Abbott: Goofy . . . Now let’s see. We have on the bags–we have “Who’s” on first, “What’s” on second, “I Don’t Know’s” on third. Costello: That’s what I wanna find out. Abbott: I say “Who’s” on first, “What’s” on second, “I Don’t Know’s” on third– ... Costello: All I’m tryin’ to find out is what’s the guy’s name on first base. Abbott: Oh, no—wait a minute, don’t switch ’em around. “What” is on second base. ... Costello: I don’t even know what I’m talkin’ about!
Abbott and Costello’s famous baseball routine is a salient metaphor for the game of customer relationship management (CRM). Costello, taking the posture of a baseball manager trying to better understand his team, gets completely lost in Abbott’s comical—but well-intentioned—dialogue as to which team members occupy which positions, play which roles, and so forth. Their problem, much like those who study, sell, or are working to implement CRM programs, is that they do not share a common understanding of the phenomenon, in Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, vol. XXIV, no. 4 (fall 2004), pp. 325–340. © 2005 PSE National Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. ISSN 0885-3134 / 2005 $9.50 + 0.00.
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particular: (1) who the “stakeholders” who may be involved are; (2) what their interests and motivations are; and, most importantly, (3) what definitions, frames of reference, and metrics each of these constituents values—and why? Today’s CRM market is worth some $10 billion, and is projected to grow to $74 billion by 2007 (Chatham 2002). Yet the success of CRM initiatives has been mixed. AMR Research (Sodano, Keltz, and Johnson 2003) reports that (1) 47 percent of CRM projects experience major adoption problems (although from a purely technical perspective, they were “successful”); (2) just 16 percent of CRM projects have proven, positive return on investments (ROIs); and (3) 12 percent of CRM initiatives never reach implementation (despite major investments). Our thesis is that a lack of “shared understanding” within and across the various stakeholders who surround the CRM phenomenon is a critical—yet elusive—mediating construct that ultimately yields CRM process breakdowns and outcome disappointments. Literally, no one knows “who’s on first?” This paper aims to both clarify thinking and encourage more robust and precise research for CRM researchers, practitioners, and potential adopters alike. We begin with an overview of how CRM is typically defined across stakeholder types. We then ground our CRM framework and thinking by introducing network and stakeholder theories, drawing particular attention to the unique and often conflicting perspectives that each of the many stakeholders involved in this arena typically hold concerning what CRM is conceptually, how it should be implemented, and how its success should be measured. We follow with an introduction of our “Shared Understanding” of CRM framework and related propositions. This framework is used as a departure point to detail the seven stakeholder types typically involved in CRM initiatives, including their specific roles and agendas. We then discuss, albeit in a preliminary manner, how firms might go about negotiating a common understanding of CRM—including a diagnostic framework applicable to any CRM initiative. We conclude by offering a number of highpriority issues for further research and additional inquiry. DEFINITIONAL ISSUES IN CRM AND MULTIPLE STAKEHOLDERS Without a doubt, the CRM stakeholder community has grown to be large and diverse. One online portal devoted to the topic (www.crmguru.com) boasts more than 200,000 registered members, including thousands of CRM consulting, software, and service firms. The number of CRM-related books dramatically increased from just one in 1989 to more than 14,000 in 2000 (Rigby and Reichfeld 2002). More than 500 software companies market products under the rubric of CRM— products, for example, that purport to help companies increase customer loyalty, target profitable customers, and improve
customer data mining capabilities (Mercer Management 2001). Indeed, practitioners seeking to implement a CRM strategy face a bewildering cacophony of voices and perspectives, as do academics and other interested parties who wish to conduct research concerning CRM as a corporate capability and tool. Individually, the various stakeholders involved in the broad domain of CRM offer unique and compelling perspectives on the phenomenon. One key problem, however, is that most stakeholders’ CRM definitions are either far too acutely focused to truly represent all that is inherent in the underlying phenomenon or far too vague and lacking in operational specificity to be of any real use. As an example of the acutely focused, Winer (2001) builds his CRM definition around the specific notion of customer data capture for the purposes of enhanced segmentation and targeting by the “seller” firm. At the other end of the spectrum, a common tendency is to define CRM as a vague metaconstruct equivalent to “marketing” or “strategy.” The McKinsey consulting firm, for instance, states that “CRM is fundamentally a strategic approach to managing customer value and experiences.” As highlighted in Table 1, a survey and overview of popular press sources, CRM consultant and analyst reports, and the academic literature reveals that the various definitions of CRM offered to date create a landscape riddled with definitional inconsistency, inherently conflicting stakeholder goals and objectives, and general confusion. As a departure point into the theoretical perspectives that underpin our thinking and CRM framework, we suggest that it is both futile and illogical to attempt to create a single, widely accepted definition of “CRM” because in the end, each firm is unique, as are its customers, markets, business objectives, resources, and perhaps most important, the stakeholders who will be germane to its specific CRM circumstances. NETWORK AND STAKEHOLDER THEORIES Our theoretical perspective is framed in terms of social network and stakeholder theories. Social network analysis involves assessing the structure and patterning of relationships between organizational actors while simultaneously attempting to identify their causes and consequences (Tichy, Tushman, and Fombrun 1979). Social networks can be examined at two levels of abstraction relevant to CRM. At a macro level, the network can be construed as the interorganizational web of companies and stakeholders who interact and partner with each other within and across industries (e.g., Hoffman, Stearns, and Shrader 1990; Holm, Eriksson, and Johanson 1999) in attempting to conceptualize CRM solutions and make them work. At a micro level, social networks can be construed as the discrete relationships between, and among, specific departments, less formal organizational factions, or
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Table 1 Definitions of CRM and Outputs/Measures of Interest Across Various Common CRM Stakeholders Who Software Vendors Business Objects
E.pipthany Kana
PeopleSoft
Pivotal
SAP
SalesLogix
Siebel
How They Define CRM
Output/Measure of Interest
“Mining customer information from all your systems—sales, marketing, customer support, finance—and presenting an integrated view of each and every customer.” “Strategy companies use to transform themselves into customer-centric organizations.” “A business philosophy that focuses on efficiently and effectively understanding, reaching, and interacting with customers to create valuable long-term business relationships.” “Comprehensive, real-time solution that manages all customer interactions—from marketing to sales.” “Maximizing every customer interaction in real-time.” “Business strategy that seeks to optimize profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction by organizing around customer segments, fostering customer satisfying behaviors, and implementing customer-centric processes.” “Automation and management of marketing, sales, and service processes.” “The strategies, processes, and technologies companies use to generate and sustain demand.”
Data accessibility, cross-functional perspectives/opportunities within customer data. Customer intelligence and marketing data analytical ability. Improved customer intelligence and service automation.
“An enterprise-wide strategy designed to increase profitability and revenue and improve customer satisfaction by organizing the customer-facing departments—sales, marketing, and support.” “Integrated approach to identifying, acquiring, and retaining customers.”
Application Service Providers Salesforce.com Sales force automation, customer service and support management, and marketing automation. Upshot “Managing prospect and customer relationships in order to increase sales.” Hardware Vendors IBM
Hewlett-Packard TeraData/NCR Consultants Accenture Bain
Cap Gemini
Jill Dyché
“All processes that organizations use to identify, select, acquire, develop, retain, and better serve customers. CRM focuses on two major areas: Operational CRM (SFA, customer service and support) and Analytical CRM.” “Leveraging data for more profitable and effective interactions with customers.” “Get a single view of your business.” “Technology and business practices for managing customer relationships.” “The process companies use to understand their customer groups and to develop strategies to manage them in the most profitable way.” “A set of bold actions centered around aligning business strategy with operational execution that aim to directly impact the customer experience in a calculated manner to drive top-line results.” “The infrastructure that allows the delineation of and increase in customer value, and the correct means by which to motivate valuable customers to remain loyal—indeed, to buy again.”
Channel alignment, customer loyalty, and profitability. Sales growth and marketing cost reduction.
Customer acquisition growth and efficiency, sales productivity, customer loyalty, and retention. Sales force productivity, sales management efficiency. System deployment costs, revenue growth, and corporate operating expenses. Ease and efficiency of customer data sharing across functions and channels. Sales growth.
Sales productivity, marketing efficiency, customer relations.
Contact center efficiency and effectiveness. Data mining efficiency.
Customer retention and profitability.
EPS and free cash flow.
(continues)
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Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management Table 1 (Continued)
Who McKinsey
Peppers & Rogers
Market Commentators Gartner Group
META Group
Aberdeen Group
The Conference Board Day and Van den Bulte
Peppard
Srivastava, Shervani, and Fahey
How They Define CRM
Output/Measure of Interest
“CRM is fundamentally a strategic approach to managing customer value and experiences.” “‘Tactical CRM’ is the targeted application of customer data to crucial business problems.” “This customer-focused business mode also goes by the names relationship marketing, real-time marketing, customer intimacy, and a variety of other terms. But the idea is the same: establish relationships with customers on an individual basis, and then use the information you gather to treat different customers differently. The exchange between a customer and a company becomes mutually beneficial, as customers give information in return for personalized service that meets their individual needs.”
Customer satisfaction and profitability.
“An enterprise-wide business strategy designed to optimize profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction by organizing the enterprise around customer segments, fostering customer-satisfying behaviors, and linking processes from customers through suppliers.” “Operational CRM—The business processes and technologies that can improve the efficiency and accuracy of day-to-day customer facing operations. Includes sales automation, marketing automation, and service automation. Collaborative CRM—“The components and processes that allow an enterprise to interact and collaborate with their customers.” Includes voice technologies, Web storefronts, e-mail, conferencing, and face-to-face interactions. Analytical CRM—The portion of the CRM ecosystem that provides analysis of customer data and behavior patterns to improve business decisions. Includes the underlying data warehouse architecture, customer profiling/segmentation systems, reporting and analysis.” “Segment of Enterprise Business Applications (EBA) used by leading organizations to acquire and retain long-term, profitable customers. CRM applications, also known as front-office applications, in contrast to back-office applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM), are used by marketing, sales, and support personnel and by executive management to understand and manage critical customer relationships.” “The business process an organization performs to identify, select, acquire, develop, retain, and better serve customers.” “A cross-functional process for achieving a continuous dialogue with customers, across all of their contact and access points, with personalized treatment of the most valuable customers, to increase customer retention and the effectiveness of marketing initiatives.” “An approach to marketing that uses continuously refined information about current and potential customers to anticipate and respond to their needs.” “The process that identifies customers, creates customer knowledge, builds customer relationships, and shapes customer’s perceptions of the organization and its products (solutions).”
Increased customer understanding, more effective customer interactions, organizational process integration.
Customer lifetime value.
Front- and back-office system and process integration, customer satisfaction and retention, revenue growth, operational efficiency, and competitive speed.
Development, maintenance, and leveraging of consistent and accurate customer information.
Customer satisfaction, new customer acquisition, administrative expenses.
Customer acquisition, retention, and lifetime value. Resource-based view, alternative financial measurement model.
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specific individuals within any one firm (e.g., the role of sales or marketing with functions such as finance, operations, and accounting; see Hutt and Speh 1984; Moorman and Rust 1999). In studying networks, Fombrun (1982, pp. 281–283) suggests three alternative strategies: (1) “nodal,” where the focus is on understanding the component nodes of the network from the perspective of a single node occupant; (2) “dyadic,” where nodal pairs, and the relationships between them, are examined, and (3) “triadic,” where the level of analysis stresses understanding the relationships among three (or more) linked nodes in the network. With this, we propose that CRM research is probably best served by taking a triadic approach given the fact that CRM initiatives are seldom, if ever, implemented in isolation (i.e., they are typically a combination of at least (1) a “seller” and (2) a “buyer” and, more often than not, involve multiple internal and external stakeholders during the CRM adoption process). From our perspective, stakeholder theory in many respects complements network theory by investigating how specific organizational tasks and objectives are actually accomplished. Stakeholder theory proposes that specific individuals, as stakeholders invested in an organization, attempt to navigate their social network so as to best satisfy and accomplish the specific objectives that their role positions in the network, particular frames of reference, or personal agendas might dictate (cf. Freeman 1984; Mitchell, Agle, and Wood 1997; Rowley 1997). Given this, three core streams of stakeholder theory have emerged; these are best summarized by Frooman: (1) a stream devoted to identifying stakeholder attributes, to answer the question “Who are they?” (2) a stream focused on stakeholder ends, or interests, to answer the question “What do they want?” and (3), a stream directed toward stakeholder influence strategies, to answer the question “How are they going to get it?” (1999, p. 193)
Stakeholder theory is thus an appropriate lens through which to further our understanding of CRM precisely because of its explicit focus on the many “constituents” who populate the CRM domain—such as individual companies and the functional groups and factions within them; channel customers in the value chain as well as end user customers; and consultants, academics, and software, hardware, and systems integration firms. Stakeholder theory leads us to such natural questions pertaining to the role and practice of CRM—questions that we address in this paper, such as (1) “Who are they?”—the answer being the seven distinct stakeholders we subsequently introduce and characterize after the delineation of our CRM framework; (2) “What does each want?”—varying things, depending upon the specific stakeholder’s particular role, frame of reference, goals, and interests; and (3) “How are they going to get it?”—or what
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are the means by which each group typically markets (or “sells”) its objectives related to CRM? With these theoretical perspectives providing the foundation and impetus, we now transition to an overview of our CRM framework. TOWARD A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF CRM: A FRAMEWORK AND PROPOSITIONAL INVENTORY Clearly, the stakeholders involved in designing and implementing a CRM program vary considerably in their default perspectives on CRM as a strategy and business model, as well as in their own agendas with respect to the design and sale of their specific component of a CRM program. Given this, we posit that a useful departure point in the development of our CRM framework emerges from Day (1994), who positions CRM as a potentially significant and distinctive organizational capability. As such, he suggests that CRM requires a set of beliefs that put the customer’s interest first, a deep “shared understanding” of those customer needs, and an organizational change process that generates broad acceptance of the CRM strategy, processes, and implementation details. With this in mind, we present a framework for developing a shared understanding of CRM (Figure 1). As we see it, a core issue facing the firm—and, hence, the focal point of our framework—revolves around how to develop and promulgate a shared understanding of what CRM should be given disparate stakeholder groups with their divergent, possibly incompatible, perspectives. At its core, our perspective is predicated upon two supporting themes: (1) that the relative presence (or absence) of a shared understanding of a firm’s CRM strategy is a key mediating variable that affects the degree to which CRM objectives are achieved, and (2) that the development of a shared understanding of CRM involves dialogue and negotiation within and across the wide variety of associated stakeholders. Looking specifically to Figure 1, we set this framework up in the tradition of process-based perspectives (cf. Mackenzie 2000). Along the bottom of the framework, we overlay a threepart timeline, which suggests that in the simplest possible terms, there are three critical and common milestones with respect to all firms’ CRM initiatives: (1) “program conceptualization and planning,” (2) “initiation and launch,” and (3) “achieved CRM outcomes.” The timeline is best thought of as a complement to the specific processes articulated in the top portion of the framework, and in particular, helps with the delineation of specific propositions. Working through the upper portion of the framework from left to right, the first cluster is “CRM stakeholders.” The branches off this cluster offer additional specificity by categorizing CRM actors into what we label the “core” and “noncore”
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Figure 1 Toward a Shared Understanding of CRM: A Framework and Propositional Inventory
stakeholder varieties. The two core stakeholders are the “seller” firm, which, through its CRM program, is typically attempting to foster an enhanced relationship of some form with its “buyers” (or customers). We classify all other stakeholders who may be involved in a specific firm’s CRM program as “noncore” stakeholders. That is not to say that they are unimportant; rather, it suggests that these stakeholders influence how CRM is conceived only at a more disaggregate level. In the next major section of the paper, we detail the five (for the most part, mutually exclusive) types of noncore stakeholders, their frames of reference, and how they market and sell their products and services. Our purpose here is to articulate a series of propositions that capture how each of these broad stakeholder types approaches the CRM phenomenon: P1a: The firm adopting the CRM program or initiative (or the “seller”), because it is one-half of the buyer–seller dyad and is inherently involved in all customer-level transactions, is a core CRM stakeholder. An important caveat with respect to P1a and the “seller” concerns the fact that there will almost always be various subfactions or constituencies within specific companies (e.g., sales, marketing, accounting, etc.), which may have divergent per-
spectives on what CRM is, or should be. We offer additional detail on the intraorganizational dynamics and interplay of the various functional areas and subgroups within the “seller”/ CRM adopting firm in a subsequent section of the paper. P1b: All individual(s) and/or organization(s) with whom the CRM adopting firm (or “seller”) either wishes to or actually does business transactions with are core stakeholders in the CRM domain because they occupy the other half of the buyer–seller dyad. P2: All other actors involved in a firm’s CRM program or initiative are noncore stakeholders because they are ultimately absent from the buyer–seller dyad and consumption transactions. At the heart of Figure 1 and our CRM framework, is the critical mediating construct we label “Shared Understanding of CRM.” Considerable past research supports the importance of this notion of a shared understanding across multiple stakeholders as being integral to the firm’s success, although the seminal research in this area was not originally construed as “CRM” research per se. For example, in terms of intraorganizational teams and work group dynamics, research has suggested that groups who share a common “view”
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of their work situation are significantly more effective than those that do not (e.g., Cannon-Bowers, Salas, and Converse 1993; Mathieu et al. 2000; Weick and Roberts 1993). Moving up a level of analysis to the organization unit, Dougherty (1992) reports that the lack of a common understanding of key strategic issues between individuals or groups from different functional areas impedes the firm’s collaboration and innovation capabilities. In the sales arena, Strahle, Spiro, and Acito (1996) highlights the common disconnect between the strategic objectives of marketing and the in-field actions of the sales force, often yielding negative customer-level consequences. And Day (1994) notes the importance of articulating and sharing a common view of the customer in order to generate coordinated efforts within the firm to satisfy customers profitably. In our view, what should transpire in a purely conceived and perfectly efficient CRM process would be for a clear, powerful, and shared cognition to emerge among all the stakeholders as to what a specific “seller” firm’s CRM initiative should ultimately accomplish. Moreover, we contend that this shared understanding must be couched in concrete terms that relate to customers, customer prospects, market opportunities, and so forth. If this were to happen, realized firm-level CRM outcomes would no doubt be beneficial almost regardless of which specific measurement perspective one might take. While we comment much further on all of the different metrics and outcomes typically associated with CRM initiatives in an ensuing portion of the paper, for the time being, we suggest that: P3: The degree of “Shared Understanding” across all of the stakeholders who are involved in a firm’s CRM program will mediate the extent to which valued CRM outcomes are, or are not, achieved. However, although we emphasize the importance of a shared understanding of CRM among the stakeholders involved in a particular CRM initiative, other factors—seldom discussed in the CRM discourse—will also moderate the extent to which CRM objectives are achieved. As a first example of this, consultants (e.g., Mercer Management 2001; Sodano, Keltz, and Johnson 2003) have indicated that the seller firm itself is often to blame for weak or inconclusive CRM outcomes because it lacked a clear focus as to what its business priorities are (e.g., which opportunities to pursue, which customer market(s), which segment(s), and so forth) or because there was confusion, indecisiveness, or conflicting priorities across various intraorganizational stakeholders. Hence, in Figure 1, we offer a moderating cluster labeled “ToMarket Strategy” and suggest that: P4: Both the consistency and prudence of the seller firm’s business and marketing objectives—or its “To-Market Strategy”—will moderate the extent to which a “Shared Un-
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derstanding of CRM” is ultimately achievable in the CRM conceptualization and program initiation stages across both core and noncore stakeholders types. Beyond the seller’s “To-Market Strategy,” an additional and complicated moderating force is that which we label “Sociopolitical Dynamics.” Here, we contend that power struggles, hidden agendas, and conflicting priorities (both within subunits of the seller firm and between it and other noncore, external stakeholders) can serve to undermine the emergence of a shared understanding with respect to CRM (as per French and Raven 1959; Weick 1979). These power struggles and pursuit of individual stakeholder agendas can moderate the resilience and lucidity of the shared understanding concept— both relatively early in the CRM process (i.e., in the CRM strategy-forming and planning phases, as indicated by the moderating arrow pointed to the left off the “Sociopolitical Dynamic” cluster in Figure 1) as well as in its later stages (i.e., CRM initiation and launch, as per the right-hand facing moderating arrow). While the next section of the paper provides more specificity as to the types of hidden agendas, biases, and myopic frames of reference the various CRM stakeholders might possess in terms of the “Sociopolitical Typology” moderator, in general terms, we suggest that: P5a: Specific stakeholder agendas, both within discrete factions of the “seller” firm and/or across other external noncore stakeholders types, can moderate the extent to which a “Shared Understanding” is ultimately achievable in the CRM conceptualization and planning stages. P5b: Specific stakeholder agendas, both within discrete factions of the “seller” firm and/or across other external noncore stakeholders types, can moderate the extent to which a “Shared Understanding” does, or does not, ultimately afford the seller firm increases or gains in valued CRM outcomes and metrics. SEVEN CRM STAKEHOLDERS, SEVEN DIFFERENT CRM PERSPECTIVES If our conjecture associated with Figure 1 is correct, this begs for a deeper inspection of the various stakeholders associated with CRM. Our intention here is to transition beyond the more theoretical discussion and implications associated with Figure 1 to the more pragmatic. We detail the defining characteristics of each of the stakeholders potentially involved in a particular firm’s CRM program, including their inherent biases, typical guiding motivations, and perhaps most important, from a personal selling and sales management perspective, how each will usually try to market and “sell” its offerings. We believe this adds additional richness to our perspective of the CRM process (Figure 1), and why “Shared Understanding” is ultimately so elusive in practice.
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Core CRM Stakeholder: The Seller Firm Seller firms are generally seeking to enhance their knowledge of both existing and potential customers, ultimately aiming to translate this knowledge into valued outputs such as higher sales, improved market share, increased customer satisfaction, lower operating costs, and higher profitability (Sheth, Sisodia, and Sharma 2000). Whereas most seller firms share this basic frame of reference, individual sellers interpret the CRM concept differently, defining it to mean everything from a targeted marketing campaign or sales force productivity tool to an enterprise-wide change management initiative. For example, industrial manufacturer Ingersoll-Rand’s CRM program includes implementation of software applications to manage order configuration, forecasting, and the sharing of sales leads across the company’s 30 operating units (Siebel Systems 2003). In contrast, the New York Times Company’s CRM effort did not include any form of technology component—at least initially. Instead, the publisher invested in a multiyear market research and customer segmentation strategy that ultimately led to the decision to restructure its local newspaper distribution system, adding the capability to customize local content (Rigby and Reichfeld 2002). For other seller firms, the objective(s) sought through a CRM initiative might be quite different—for example, the seller might be attempting to alleviate endemic organizational and strategic ills (e.g., improve upon accounts receivable collection, or streamline order fulfillment) or seize upon new market or segment opportunities. Additional insights can also be garnered by considering the seller firm’s CRM program from the perspective of its various intraorganizational silos and functional areas. Again leveraging network and stakeholder theories, all organizations are ultimately a composite of “loosely-coupled” functional areas and micro-level stakeholders (cf. Lewin, Long, and Carroll 1999)—including executive leadership (i.e., the chief executive officer/board), corporate support functions (e.g., finance, management information systems [MIS], production, etc.), as well as “customer-facing” employees (Day 1994) such as salespeople, customer service personnel, and technical/repair staff. Each of these intraorganizational stakeholders may be trying to accomplish radically different things with respect to CRM (Shapiro 1988). For illustration, consider the likely views of sales, marketing, finance, and logistics/fulfillment— four of the functional areas most commonly touched by CRM within the selling firm (Mercer Management 2001). The sales function typically expects CRM implementations to yield accurate revenue forecasting, enhanced prospect quality, and seamless access to customer data. Meanwhile, the marketing function may seek different objectives, such as the capability to evaluate the success of a promotions program or the ability to monitor the landscape for new product/service ideas. Fi-
nance might view a CRM program as a tool to understand the profitability of customer segments or increase the speed of receivables collection. Finally, the logistics/fulfillment function might view a CRM program as a panacea to remedy internal order preparation or shipment delay quandaries. In the end, each of the internal stakeholders involved inside the seller firm often attempts to “sell” their own agenda as what the firm should be pursuing with respect to CRM. And while many of the specific initiatives mentioned above are worthy of pursuing, the fact that the individual stakeholder silos often pursue their own agendas without any due consideration for the notion of “shared understanding” (or the holistic benefit of the firm at large) results in a muddled CRM program and lackluster outcomes. Core CRM Stakeholder: The Buyer/“Customer” One study ironically found that 52 percent of CRM projects were controlled by the MIS function, an internal group with arguably the least visibility into customer needs and market issues (Anonymous 2003). It is little wonder, then, that from the buyer or “customer’s” perspective, CRM programs are often viewed with equal measures of suspicion and confusion. Simply put, as a core stakeholder and one-half of the buyer–seller dyad (Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987), the “buyer”/ customer operates from an entirely different frame of reference than does the CRM seller firm. Buyers are core stakeholders because the seller’s adoption of a CRM model will affect the nature and processes involved in their interaction with the seller, including the relative emphasis placed on such priorities as assortment and availability, service quality, and pricing. As one example in a business-toconsumer (B2C) context, individual consumers may not regard providing personal profiling information or agreeing to online usage monitoring as building a “relationship” with the company that supplies the good or service in question. Although seldom acknowledged, the consumer’s primary interest may simply lie in the direct economic or convenience benefits conferred on them through exchange with the selling firm (Nunes and Cespedes 2003). For instance, a customer’s incentive for joining a grocery store frequent shopper program might simply be pricing concessions on the part of the seller. Customers may not care how their customer-level data is subsequently utilized by the selling grocer or other constituents (e.g., packaged goods manufacturers) further upstream in the value chain—or whether the grocery store has or has not benefited from their CRM program. Similarly, those consumers who agree to allow click stream data tracking by the Internet sites they visit may be interested in nothing more than the personalization benefits they receive. Business-to-business (B2B) customers may indeed be interested in building long-term relationships with their sup-
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pliers (Day and Montgomery 1999; Jap 1999), but like consumers in B2C settings, their motivation is typically driven by the specific value they garner in return. As sales configuration approaches and product/service complexity increases (Rackham and DeVincentis 1999), B2B customers are most often concerned with ensuring that they continue to receive an informed, customized, and consistent experience—as well as marketing mix (e.g., pricing)—across all channels. In the end, the specific characteristics or goals of their seller firm’s CRM structures, technologies, and processes may be of littleto-no interest. From a sales management perspective, the implications of the preceding are poignant—namely, that firms attempting to sell CRM products (e.g., software) and services (e.g., consulting) to prospective “seller” firms should simultaneously frame their sales campaigns around how the seller firm stands to benefit as well as on how the seller firm’s buyer and customer value propositions and consumption experiences will be enhanced. Noncore CRM Stakeholder 1: CRM Software Vendors CRM software companies include those offering “integrated” suites of CRM-related applications to large firms (e.g., the Fortune 500) and those who offer “best of breed” CRM applications. The key players in the suites space are Oracle, Siebel, SAP, and PeopleSoft. Niche firms specializing in discrete CRM applications include such firms as Amdocs (billing) and Kana (business intelligence and data mining). A recent trend involves the middle market, where software companies, such as Microsoft and Pivotal, specifically target medium-sized enterprises. There are even modestly priced, yet highly functional, software products such as Symantec’s Act! and Saleslogix that target single users and smaller firms with sales force– focused applications. As highlighted earlier (see Table 1), self-reported CRM value propositions and suggested measurement metrics vary widely. Software firms are apt to sell CRM offerings in terms of specific technologies and underlying product features. In general, they stress that the seller firm’s “market success” will typically be driven by the sophisticated customer data management tools and capabilities inherent in their software. And from a sales management perspective, the heavy reliance of CRM software firms on the application-licensing and pricing model (i.e., charging the CRM adopting seller firm on a “per user,” or “seat” basis) has led software vendors to define their stakeholder agenda in terms of deployment of their software to as many employees/users as possible across the seller’s enterprise. Although CRM software firms tout such outcomes as sales growth and increased customer retention, their specific performance claims often reflect operational concerns such as cost reduction, application implementation time, and
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overall ease of use. In recent years, the relentless and sometimes heavy-handed sales campaigns of software firms have often resulted in the sale of unneeded and unused CRM user licenses (with Oracle being a prime, well-publicized example of this; see Mount 2002). This trend has, in effect, created the foundation for an alternative: the CRM “application service provider.” Noncore CRM Stakeholder 2: CRM Application Service Providers A related, yet distinct, CRM software constituent is the application services provider (ASP), with key players in this space being Salesforce.Com, SalesNet, and Upshot. These firms provide hosted Web portals that allow CRM buyers the option to outsource the operation and maintenance of their CRM technology via a subscription contract arrangement. Given the limitations to product customization inherent in the ASP model, these firms tend to frame CRM narrowly. In their sales campaigns, ASPs focus on the salesperson–customer interaction, and often use the terms sales force automation interchangeably with customer relationship management. From an agenda standpoint, ASPs have a vested interest in framing CRM in terms of cost savings and risk mitigation from the seller firm’s perspective—particularly as this relates to potentially picking the “wrong” hardware/software platform (or buying “too much” technology); outgrowing traditional CRM software too early (plus the cost of upgrades); or devoting too much time and attention to user-level training, and so forth. Noncore CRM Stakeholder 3: Computer Hardware Vendors Hardware companies such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems are significant CRM stakeholders. Much like software vendors, computer hardware firms frame their sales efforts in the CRM space as a technology-centric phenomenon, directing the seller’s attention to the speed, efficiency, and accessibility of their customer data management “solutions.” Given their historical technology-rooted orientation, hardware companies tend to direct their sales focus away from the seller firm’s underlying business objectives or market-facing issues. Instead, the sales campaign is usually inwardly directed, pushing for an examination or “mining” of the seller firm’s existing information repositories and data warehouses. Furthermore, hardware firms are often criticized for their lack of objectivity because their focus is usually on securing a substantial “investment” in needed hardware from the CRM adopting firm. Perhaps not surprisingly given the huge dollar expenditures at stake, hardware sellers tend to emphasize such CRM outcome metrics as dollars per “megaflop” of computational power, overall system reliability (e.g., available “uptime”),
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and scalability (the degree to which the hardware system can be “grown” in the future without full replacement). Noncore CRM Stakeholder 4: Consultants The fourth noncore CRM stakeholder group constitutes the varying types of consultants who may be contracted to assist the seller firm. One study reported that 38 percent of firms often, or always, seek outside consulting assistance when implementing CRM programs (Accenture 2002). Although they are a noncore constituent and are absent from all resultant buyer–seller interactions, the consultant stakeholder group is very important in the CRM arena (Anonymous 2004; Sinha 2002). CRM consultants offer services at two levels: (1) strategic thinking and planning concerning what the CRM program or initiative should involve, and (2) more tactical, implementation-level advice and expertise. A general trait that frames the selling of CRM consulting services is to view CRM as a discrete, bounded “project” undertaken on behalf of the seller firm—this versus a longer-term, more sustained, and enterprise-wide business initiative. In terms of their account penetration and selling strategy, elite consultants such as McKinsey and Bain typically have access to the seller firm’s senior executive suite (i.e., decisionmaking unit), and, accordingly, have a high degree of visibility into their client’s strategic business issues. As big thinkers, these “strategy” consultants tend to be most concerned with CRM’s enterprise-level effect on the seller firm. Hence, strategy consultants often incorporate as many elements of the seller’s business model as possible into the CRM initiative. To some degree, this may be partly due to leveraging their time spent with the “client,” and hence their billings. Strategy consultants often turn to implementation consultants to translate their CRM strategy into actionable terms. CRM “implementation consultants,” such as Accenture, EDS, and Cap Gemini, may have an entirely different agenda driving their CRM role with a particular seller firm. One pervasive and dubious example concerns these consultants acting as one-stop-shop CRM solutions providers. They often “resell” the products or services of other stakeholders (e.g., hardware products, software platforms, etc.). Because of this, they have quietly begun to come under fire due to questions surrounding whose interests they are most interested in serving (1) the seller firm’s or (2) their reseller partners (e.g., hardware firms). In some instances, these implementation consultants are owned by other stakeholders (e.g., the information technology [IT] consulting practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers was recently bought by IBM). Therefore, for a variety of reasons, the consultant noncore stakeholder group presents a particular management challenge for the seller firm in terms of assessing their true motivations and the prudence of their recommendations.
Noncore CRM Stakeholder 5: CRM Market Commentators Finally, the CRM discourse includes academics, industry analysts, and journalists. The common motivation among these stakeholders is the desire to have their perspectives and opinions on CRM “aired.” The preferred outlets for these stakeholders varies (e.g., academics might favor a refereed journal article, whereas a technology analyst might prefer a nationally syndicated exposure on business TV). The academic community, mirroring the general definitional disparity apparent in the CRM industry, has described CRM quite differently, including in parallel terms with sales force automation (Speier and Venkatesh 2002), customer retention, and firm-level market share (Verhoef 2003), and in broad surveys of the marketing landscape and important trends facing the field (e.g., Achrol and Kotler 1999). Although CRM market commentators probably do less damage in terms of directly clouding the seller firm’s perspective of its CRM program, their presence in the CRM arena and their divergent perspectives do further muddle the overall situation. TOWARD A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF CRM—A TEMPLATE FOR ACTION The method by which firms achieve a shared CRM understanding involves making important choices, gaining a level of consensus about those choices, and assessing the success or failure of the choices through clear and well-articulated metrics. It is our perspective that these choices are unique to the particular “seller” firm adopting CRM and must be contextualized to address that firm’s specific external market situation, desired customer dynamics, intraorganizational capabilities and priorities, and the breadth and range of stakeholders involved. Given the contingent nature of a specific firm’s customer strategy, it is not our purpose to be normative and prescribe a specific path to follow in order to achieve a unified, collective CRM view. However, we believe that outlining a broad approach, even if preliminary, is worthwhile. The key problem is that the differing stakeholder perspectives surrounding CRM will likely yield vigorous debate regarding “the optimal” CRM deployment plan for the seller firm (see Presian 2003; Ryals and Knox 2001; Yu 2001). Negotiation between stakeholders will be required, and this negotiation process may result in entirely new organizational roles and architectures (e.g., Achrol 1991; Hoffman, Stearns, and Shrader 1990). Regardless of how difficult this dialogue of negotiation becomes, clarity and agreement on respective CRM roles and responsibilities must be achieved at this stage. Indeed, Day and Van den Bulte (2002) found that organizational configuration—the structures, incentives, and accountabilities directed toward building customer relationships—was
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the single most important component of a firm’s customer relating capability. The many complexities associated with a successful CRM strategy warrant an iterative process to achieving a shared understanding that we characterize as a cascading set of dialogues. In this approach, a seller firm’s CRM strategy is, in a sense, negotiated via an active conversation incorporating all salient stakeholders. Shared understanding becomes a “living” document that is the product of these dialogues. It is a template for action that is socially negotiated, though not written in stone. It guides in the sense of framing the firm’s implementation process and future dialogues that occur along the way as internal and external conditions change. Given the diverse interests and perspectives of the many stakeholders highlighted previously, complete consensus on every detail among all parties is not likely to occur. Yet the fact that these differing views are made transparent and debated is expected to have a positive influence on a seller firm’s CRM program and achieved outcomes. At a minimum, agreement should be reached by all stakeholders on a fundamental set of CRM elements in order for a shared understanding to be achieved. Whereas the preceding has theoretical appeal, it does beg the question, “so how do we get there?” Figure 2 is offered to help bridge this gap, and should be thought of as a complement to Figure 1. While its level of detail is greater, its primary purpose is not to guide research or thinking within the CRM area (as per Figure 1). Rather, the intention of Figure 2 is to assist the seller firm on a more pragmatically oriented level in either making sense of its own preexisting CRM program—or designing one intelligently from the ground up. There are three primary regions of Figure 2. On the far left, all stakeholders save the buyer/“customer” are presented. In the middle of the framework, we see various strategies that the seller firm might employ to go “To-Market” (as per the previously articulated Figure 1). Finally, on the far right of Figure 2, we offer a fairly exhaustive taxonomy of commonly utilized CRM metrics and outcome measures. Use of a framework such as Figure 2 should provide a systematic and consistent tool to help guide all stakeholders through the dialogue necessary to reach a firm-specific shared CRM understanding. Working through Figure 2 from the left, the first step toward developing a shared understanding involves acknowledging the multiplicity of intraorganizational and external CRM stakeholders, their particular frames of reference, and their inherent biases and potential hidden agendas. As noted previously, there may be a multitude of stakeholders within the functional silos inside the seller firm’s own organization. Likewise, a large number of external, “noncore” stakeholders may also play a significant role in the implementation of the firm’s CRM strategy. On one hand, consideration must be given to ensure that these noncore CRM stakeholders are appropriately incorporated into the seller firm’s CRM dia-
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logue (as exhibited by the double-headed arrow between the seller firm and the five external, noncore stakeholders in Figure 2). On the other hand, the potentially biased sales campaigns and points of view of the noncore external stakeholders must be weighed against what is ultimately in the best interests of the CRM program of the seller firm. The second step toward a shared CRM understanding involves a dialogue about how the firm interfaces with its chosen market segments, customers, and its broader value chain (Day 1990). The range of “To-Market” possibilities for the selling firm are, in some respects, unlimited and may incorporate strategies directed toward consumer markets, B2B markets, or channel partner/intermediary markets. Formal and informal dialogue with potential and current customers will serve as an important guide in making these “To-Market” decisions. At the highest level, we delineate four major types of exchange (as an expansion of Rackham and DeVincentis 1999). Transparent agreement among the seller firm’s CRM stakeholders regarding this aspect of the process is critical, as the choices that are made will fundamentally require different CRM processes, roles, technologies, and metrics. One market-facing option around which to frame a CRM strategy are discrete transactions. These are exemplified by anonymous and automated processes and require a CRM strategy focused principally by “market sensing”—explicit acquisition of information vis-à-vis the sales transaction or other customer touch points. Wal-Mart’s almost immediate change in assortment strategy due to the September 11, 2001, terrorists attacks (i.e., more flags, bottled water, guns and ammunition, televisions, etc.) was facilitated by its unparalleled capabilities in inventory management and fulfillment and is an excellent example of discrete transaction CRM exchange. In contrast, solution transactions involve the seller seeking to address the buyer’s need(s) with a more comprehensive, customized solution rather than a discrete “off-the-shelf” product or service. CRM in solution exchanges typically expands the market sensing required on the part of the seller to include more intense, customer-specific knowledge gathering capabilities (such as the ability to collect buyer information to use in tailoring the product/service in question). The foundation of this approach is an efficient and timely sharing of market and customer intelligence across the seller’s internal functions. Many financial institutions and credit granting agencies, such as BankOne and Capital One, are exemplars of this type of CRM orientation. In a relationship partnering strategy, the customer experience is predicated upon the trust and responsiveness of the market-facing employees within the seller firm. Here, the salesperson serves as a relationship manager with customers (cf. Weitz and Bradford 1999); their objective is to build unique customer relationships based on longer-term attributes such as strategic fit and bundled needs satisfaction. The focus of
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Figure 2 Elements of the CRM Stakeholder Dialogue
CRM in this realm is on active and ongoing customer learning and linking. Here, the salesperson and all others who serve the customer from inside the seller firm engage in an ongoing dialogue that is singularly focused on solving current customer problems or exploiting emerging opportunities. In this context, technologies such as groupware may play a key role in facilitating close and deep communication and in better leveraging tacit, account-specific knowledge. Finally, collaborative partnering represents strategic collaboration between sellers where the targeting of end user consumers is not the primary objective (hence, the exclusion of this exchange modality covering the “consumer markets” area of Figure 2). Customer linking here is essentially a process of knowledge discovery and creation that goes beyond mere dialogue or conversation; mutual trust and transparency become the defining characteristics. CRM in these environments provides the foundation for true collaboration, coknowledge creation, and opportunity exploitation. Proctor & Gamble’s relationship with Wal-Mart exemplifies CRM collaborative partner exchange. Working in a nonadversarial mode, the partners collaborate in new market expansions, market research, and product variations and marketing mix decisions (e.g., in-store marketing).
The third stage in the dialogue cascade involves consideration of the many possible—and potentially appropriate— outcome measures to utilize to evaluate a CRM program. And, as elsewhere, the various stakeholders will all have their own perspectives as to which metric(s) are best. In the academic literature, the study of “performance” and related outcome metrics is common (e.g., sales performance; see Rich et al. 1999). However, as academics are all too keenly aware, the operationalization and means by which performance and other valued outcomes are defined and subsequently measured is a critical methodological issue. Practitioners, though, sometimes incorporate widely divergent and improperly conceived outcome metrics into their business processes. We contend that this consideration alone results in much of the confusion and lack of shared understanding in the CRM arena—and, of course, much of the failure as well. One recent study found that 70 percent of companies failed to set any specific metrics to measure the success or failure of their CRM investments (BearingPoint 2003). Another found that 85 percent of companies purchased the wrong CRM software product because they failed to define their business objectives or an execution path prior to investment (Nelson and Kirkby 2001).
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As referenced in our discussion of the many stakeholders of CRM, any definition of “success” is largely dependent on the perspective of the articulating stakeholder. For instance, hardware and software vendors are likely to define CRM success using output measures such as implementation time, variance of project spending over/under budget, and ROI. Meanwhile, internal stakeholders within the firm adopting CRM may have completely different sets of ideas surrounding valued outcome metrics, such as increased sales growth (e.g., marketing), enhanced customer retention (e.g., sales), or reducing the cost of goods sold (e.g., finance). Adding support to this line of thinking, a survey of chief financial officers and chief information officers found significant differences in how the two types of executives perceived success as it related to the same CRM project (Cook 2003). IT executives focused on time, cost, and classic project-management metrics, whereas financial executives were more concerned about whether or not the CRM investment helped the company move closer toward its strategic objectives. Use of the term ROI is prevalent in the CRM practitioner literature. However, as with the CRM acronym itself, the abstraction and vagueness of ROI offers ample opportunity for confusion and frustration. ROI can be defined to include any number of investments associated with a company’s CRM activity, including the cost of software, hardware, outside consultants, internal resources, or the opportunity cost associated with forgone projects and initiatives. In this regard, the ROI cluster of CRM output metrics represents only one, and we would argue perhaps the least meaningful, means of measuring the seller firm’s CRM success or failure. Firm-level financial performance metrics offer a more helpful lens through which to view the value of CRM. Key financial indicators may include overall revenue growth, sales increases in targeted market segments, profitability improvements achieved from CRM automation and collaboration benefits, and enhancements in customer lifetime value. Along these lines, Srivastava, Shervani, and Fahey (1999) offered a compelling perspective on how marketing, and more specifically, CRM, can influence shareholder value by accelerating future cash flows while simultaneously reducing their vulnerability to market forces and overall volatility. While “customer-directed” outcomes such as increased satisfaction, retention, and profitability lie at the heart of CRM’s original appeal, the jury is out on whether or not CRM actually fulfills this promise. Whereas Reichheld (1996) demonstrated a positive correlation between customer loyalty and profitability (highlighting the significantly lower sales and marketing costs associated with retaining customers), Reinartz and Kumar found the opposite (2000; 2002). Other customercentric CRM output metrics revolve around the potential for SG&A expense cost savings achieved by cross-selling (or bundling) related products or services, or up-selling customers to
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more expensive offerings. The number of customers acquired—either buyers who are entirely new to a market (organic customers) or customers stolen from competitors (conquest sales)—are also sometimes used to evaluate CRM success at the customer level. Finally, there are a number of potential strategic outcome targets for CRM, some of which, although perhaps less tangible than other metrics, might nevertheless be important to a firm’s long-term viability and competitive positioning. For instance, companies have the potential for increased speedto-market by leveraging their access to emerging customer or market trends. By creating both tangible (e.g., joint technology investments, knowledge-sharing mechanisms) and abstract (e.g., relational, emotional) ties between seller, customer, or partner, CRM can—in theory—create significant barriers to entry for competitors. CRM can also garner insights into how supply chain and inventory-related considerations can be refined, again conferring potential benefits such as reducing the cost of sales or increasing the speed and ease of end user or channel fulfillment. We should note that the long-term nature of CRM initiatives requires that firms consider appropriate time horizons for their outputs and metrics of choice. In addition, it is critical to underscore that, depending upon the specific firm and business context under consideration, any of the CRM metrics highlighted above may be both legitimate and desirable. However, our chief purpose in espousing the four clusters of metrics and outcome variables was to make a simple, but important, point: in the absence of articulating clear, commonly understood (or shared) CRM metrics and outcomes at the frontend of a CRM program, ultimately and by definition, “success” becomes an elusive, if not inherently unachievable, goal. Finally, a final series of dialogues must occur to ensure that a firm’s shared CRM understanding is indeed shared— that is, that it is clearly and compellingly articulated and accepted by all stakeholders. As with many important enterprise-wide endeavors, this phase of consensus building aims to achieve both cognitive understanding and emotional commitment by all parties. Although these final discussions do not detail every finite component of the CRM strategy, nor do they provide answers to all possible questions that may arise during the implementation process, the articulation can nevertheless serve as a helpful reference tool for all involved stakeholders as the CRM initiative unfolds. These final “sign off ” discussions also lay a sound foundation for the future dialogue that will likely be needed as the seller firm’s conditions change. CONCLUSION The principle objective of this paper has been to highlight the fact that despite a growing academic and practitioner lit-
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erature base and significant corporate investments, a discomforting disparity exists in how the many core and noncore stakeholders conceptualize the CRM construct. It is our view that this environment of multiple, oftentimes fundamentally opposing, stakeholder perspectives contributes to the lack of shared understanding of CRM. We propose that the absence of a shared view is a critical mediator to the success of a firm’s CRM strategy. Although we note that the lack of a clear and well-accepted definition of what CRM “is” is one of the key issues hampering the progression of work and thinking in this important new arena, we resist the temptation to attempt to fill this definitional void. Instead, we strongly suggest that CRM is always best defined via an open, iterative negotiation process involving all core and noncore stakeholders. Emerging from this dialogue will be a unique, operationalizable, and firm-specific shared CRM understanding. This paper raises many interesting and important areas for additional research and inquiry. A critical concern involves expanding our conceptualization of a “shared understanding,” and in particular, delineating the range of its possible forms. Although this paper summarizes a number of key relationships inherent in a shared view (Figure 1) and offers a template to assess—or cogently design—an articulated strategy rich in shared understanding (Figure 2), the highly contingent nature of CRM suggests that its specific operationalization will vary quite widely. In addition, while we frame the process for developing a shared understanding as a cascading set of dialogues among CRM stakeholders, further effort is needed to understand the significant barriers to achieving both cognitive alignment and emotional commitment within the subunits of the seller firm as well as across all salient external CRM stakeholders. Also, we have attempted to acknowledge that any given seller firm’s CRM strategy—and the shared understanding it strives to achieve with its stakeholders—should, of course, naturally adapt in response to shifting resources, market opportunities, or environmental conditions. Additional research should be directed toward explicating how firms can best balance the need for a stable customer view among all stakeholders without compromising the ever-important need for both market flexibility and strategic agility. Finally, our perspective requires empirical testing in order to better understand what an improvement in shared understanding across CRM stakeholders might imply in terms of output metrics and elements (e.g., customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, sales performance/ revenue generation, etc.). The conceptual, methodological, and operational challenges associated with tackling the research agenda we have highlighted in this paper are far from trivial. However, in our view, the pursuit of answers to these seldom articulated—but ever-present issues—pertaining to CRM remain the lowest
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