A mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach to study customer relationship management

A mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach to study customer relationship management (CRM): an application

Joseph Kim-keung Ho

Independent Trainer

Hong Kong, China

Abstract: Mind mapping has recently been employed by the writer to develop a literature review approach, called the mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach. This approach is part of a more encompassing academic project called managerial intellectual learning (MIL) launched by the writer. In this paper, the MMBLR approach is employed to study customer relationship management (CRM). The findings from the MMBLR are useful for those studying CRM. The experience of conducting the MMBLR approach reinforced the writer that the approach is stimulating and effective for literature review. Finally, the study further clarifies conceptually the MMBLR approach.

Keywords: customer relationship management (CRM), literature review, managerial intellectual learning (MIL), mind map, mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach

Please cite the paper as: Ho, J.K.K. 2016. “A mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach to study customer relationship management (CRM): an application” Joseph KK Ho e-resources blog September 3 (url address: http://josephho33.blogspot.hk/2016/09/a-mind-mapping-based-literature-review.html)

Introduction

Mind mapping is a well recognized approach for concept exploration and learning, among other applications (see the Literature on mind mapping Facebook page). In the subjects of managerial intellectual learning (MIL) (re: the Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page) and literature review in Research Methods (re: the Literature on literature review Facebook page), the writer has recently launched an academic venture to develop an approach for literature review, called mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach. This paper examines its application on the topic of customer relationship management (CRM). The CRM topic often comes up in the writer’s teaching and consulting works. Specifically, the aims of the paper are: (1) to contribute to the conceptual development of the MMBLR approach via its application on CRM and (2) to produce literature review findings on CRM that have academic and pedagogical values. The next section introduces the MMBLR approach, followed by its application on CRM.

A mind mapping-based literature (MMBLR) approach with sensitivity towards academic value and interest

The mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) approach consists of two phases: Phase 1 is a thematic analysis on the selected academic readings on the chosen topic under review. It identifies a number of major illustrative ideas and findings (called points) from the academic literature, which are grouped into a set of themes. The thematic analysis findings do not only present the overall intellectual landscape of the topic under review, but also reveal the academic interest of the academic community that produces the academic literature. The academic value of the thematic analysis, to a large extent, depends on the quality of the academic references reviewed. Phase 2 is a mind mapping exercise, also called the mind-mapping-based literature review (MMBLR), which makes use of the thematic analysis findings to produce a mind map. In short, the MMBLR approach is composed of the thematic analysis and the MMBLR. In the next section, the writer presents a thematic analysis (Phase 1) on CRM, which is followed by the MMBLR (Phase 2).

A thematic analysis on customer relationship management (CRM)

By reviewing some academic journal articles on customer relationship management (CRM), the writer identifies a number of ideas and viewpoints that roughly capture the intellectual landscape on CRM. Together, these ideas reveal the knowledge structure on CRM, and, at the same time, indicate the mainstream academic interest of the CRM academic community. The identified CRM points are then grouped into seven themes by the writer, which constitutes a thematic analysis on the literature reviewed. The seven main thematic themes and the associated points are as follows:

Theme 1: Definitions of CRM

Point 1.1.              “….. CRM is a cross-functional strategic approach concerned with creating improved shareholder value through the development of appropriate relationships with key customers and customer segments. It typically involves identifying appropriate business and customer strategies, the acquisition and diffusion of customer knowledge, deciding appropriate segment granularity, managing the co-creation of customer value, developing integrated channel strategies and the intelligent use of data and technology solutions to create superior customer experiences.” (Frow, and Payne, 2009);

Point 1.2.              “….…Marketing academics have viewed CRM as ‘information-enabled relationship marketing’ ….. and ‘a concept that adds value to the meaning of customer orientation’ …, and helps operationalise MO [marketing orientation] ……” (Richard, Thirkell and Huff, 2007);

Point 1.3.               “…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….” (Plouffe, Williams and Leigh, 2004);

Point 1.4.              “….there is no consensus on what constitutes CRM. …..Some view CRM largely as a technology-focused database management approach to gathering and analyzing information about customers in order to more fully satisfy them …..  Others think of CRM in terms of initiatives such as call centers, loyalty programs, Web sites, or personalized e-mails to implement one-to-one marketing. Broader perspectives tend to see CRM as an overall mix of marketing strategy, organizational structure and processes, and technology …..” (Yim, Anderson and Swaminathan, 2004);

Theme 2: Management thinking underlying CRM

Theme 2.1: Relationship marketing-specific

Point 2.1.              “….. customers find RM [relationship marketing] attractive because of its potential to reduce risk, increase recognition and impart prestige….” (Richard, Thirkell and Huff, 2007);

Point 2.2.              “….….The essence of CRM thinking originates from three concepts in marketing management: (1) customer orientation, (2) relationship marketing, and (3) database marketing…” (Yim, Anderson and Swaminathan, 2004);

Point 2.3.              “….CRM has its foundations in relationship marketing …, and is considered by some authors as simply the practical application of long standing relationship marketing principles which have existed since the dawn of business itself ..…” (Richard, Thirkell and Huff, 2007);

Point 2.4.              “…Although there are alternative perspectives on relationship marketing …, we argue that this multiple stakeholder view of relationship marketing …. clearly distinguishes the concept [of relationship marketing] from CRM, which is principally concerned with the strategic relationship between a company and its customers….” (Frow and Payne, 2009);

Theme 2.2: Non-relationship marketing-specific

Point 2.5.                “…CRM should be a business philosophy that allows companies to enhance their relationships with customers by understanding and anticipating their needs…” (Hochhauser, 2003);

Point 2.6.              “...strategic CRM determines how a firm relates to its customers via channels, messages, products, and services…   The operational perspective on CRM, in turn, deals with automating customer-facing processes such as interactions and general front-office processes including sales, marketing and customer service.” (Saarijärvi, Karjaluoto and Kuusela, 2013);

Point 2.7.               “…... CRM is typically designed as a toolset for guiding sales teams and supporting engineers and other specialists in developing sales prospects, creating appropriate business proposals, dealing with customer objections, and providing post-sales customer support….” (Stein, Smith and Lancioni, 2013);

Point 2.8.              “…..….Originally, both practitioners’ and scholars’ interest in CRM was driven by the paradigmatic change from transaction-based marketing to the management of customer relationships….” (Saarijärvi, Karjaluoto and Kuusela, 2013);

Point 2.9.              “…..…Companies are increasingly shifting attention from selling goods to supporting customers’ value-creating processes, which is related to the current marketing thinking emphasizing intangibility, exchange processes and relationships ….” (Saarijärvi, Karjaluoto and Kuusela, 2013);

Point 2.10.         “…..In order to stay ahead of its competitors, a company must be able to monitor and constantly detect changes in customer needs and quickly adjust business accordingly….” (Jain, 2005);

Point 2.11.         “…..The integrated CRM must therefore pick up patterns of use and recurring product/service/support issues that the customer may overlook or be unable to effectively communicate. This requires “organizational learning,” …” (Stein and Smith, 2009);

Point 2.12.         “….….Companies should begin simply by listening to the social web to get a better sense of where they stand in this world, and building a team of employees who are familiar with how this world works. This will serve as a basis on which to build true social CRM capabilities, including the ability to manage the company’s reputation, increase sales, and monitor the results….” (Acker, Gröne, Yazbek and Akkad, 2010);

Point 2.13.         “….….Recent works on CRM have dealt with customer lifetime duration….” (Jain, 2005);

Point 2.14.         “….….Social CRM, which is based on Web 2.0 should accommodate feature of social networks. Social networks in a healthcare organization can be incorporated in a strategy to win customer hearts and minds through better understanding what customers (patients) want from their services…” (Anshari and Almunawar, 2012)

Point 2.15.          “….CRM in business-to-business marketing has been an accepted operating strategy much longer than in consumer marketing or service marketing…” (Jain, 2005);

Point 2.16.         “….CRM should be a philosophy insisting that only by retaining customers and by increasing customer loyalty can a business maximize its profitability…” (Hochhauser, 2003);

Point 2.17.         “….Strategic CRM is about treating each customer differently, and consequently, maximizing the lifetime value of each customer to the organization….” (Saarijärvi, Karjaluoto and Kuusela, 2013);

Point 2.18.         “….the practice of CRM can be concisely defined as using the appropriate level of technology to help manage relationships with customers to the mutual benefit of stakeholders….” (Richard, Thirkell and Huff, 2007);

Point 2.19.         “…….CRM is characterized by long term alliances between each buyer and seller that are mutually beneficial if sustained…” (Jain, 2005);

Point 2.20.         “……Database marketing helps in maintaining relations with each customer individually…” (Jain, 2005);

Point 2.21.          “…By better customizing product and service offerings for individual customers…., customer retention ….. and profitability …. can be increased…” (Yim, Anderson and Swaminathan, 2004);

Point 2.22.         “….…to enhance customer profitability, information about customers should be gathered through interactions or touch points across all functions or areas of the firm …. so that a 360-degree customer view is established, maintained, and continually updated ….” (Yim, Anderson and Swaminathan, 2004);

Point 2.23.         “….CRM is a process, and …. can be understood either in terms of distinct phases of the relationships or in terms of the strategic steps that need to be undertaken to achieve relationship objectives ….”  (Iyer and Bejou, 2004);

Point 2.24.         “….Many salespeople are leveraging the use of CRM …. in enhancing their relationships with customers to improve sales forecasting, lead management, bid and quote management, and personalization …….” (Yim, Anderson and Swaminathan, 2004);

Point 2.25.         “….CRM should be technology-enabled, and it requires a multi-level and often enterprise-wide view of customers—thereby demanding a strong customer data integration and management business practice….” (Hochhauser, 2003);

Point 2.26.         “….Customer lifetime value or customer equity has emerged as the core of CRM.….. The lifetime value concept is based on the premise that acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining old customers…” (Jain, 2005);

Point 2.27.         “….Customer management is concerned with tactical aspects of CRM implementation that relate to the management of customer interactions, including the use of tools such as campaign management, sales force automation, web-enabled personalization and call centre management….” (Frow and Payne, 2009);

Point 2.28.         “….PROFILING THE CUSTOMER—THE FIFTH P… The fifth P involves: 1. Capturing the right customer information … 2. Managing the quality customer data …3. Integrating channels to build relationships….4. Understanding customer value….5. Designing a revenue and customer-focused CRM strategy…6. Using privacy to enhance profitability: understanding….” (Jain, 2005);

Point 2.29.         “…The key to a successful social CRM effort lies in extending traditional CRM strategies and processes to a company’s entire extended social network—a dynamic, constantly evolving organism that encompasses its customers and suppliers….” (Acker, Gröne, Yazbek and Akkad, 2010);

Theme 3: Association with other management disciplines

Theme 3.1: Knowledge management-specific

Point 3.1.1.       “…..Firms are increasingly leveraging information technology enabled knowledge management (KM) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to attain a sustainable competitive advantage…” (Daghfous, Ahmad and Angell, 2013);

Point 3.1.2.       “…..KCRM [knowledge-enabled customer relationship management]  is a process that seeks to manage customer knowledge in order to create a “value-creating lock-ins” and direct knowledge to enhance relationships and ensure process effectiveness….” (Daghfous, Ahmad and Angell, 2013);

Point 3.1.3.       “….There are four main approaches related to KCRM, the dialogues of customers’ knowledge development, the communities of customer knowledge, the facilitation of capturing knowledge relevant data, and the organization leaders’ commitment to customer knowledge…” (Daghfous, Ahmad and Angell, 2013);

Point 3.1.4.       “…KCRM [knowledge-enabled customer relationship management] helps decrease customer support costs while increasing customer satisfaction by facilitating new and best practices to customers….” (Daghfous, Ahmad and Angell, 2013);

Theme 3.2: Non-knowledge management-specific

Point 3.2.1.       “…..…CRM may also contribute to quality management at a higher level. Quality is considered as the ability to meet the stated and implied requirements of customers rather than elegance….. CRM may enable a business to understand better the stated and, especially, the implied requirements of its customers….” (Lin and Su, 2003);

Point 3.2.2.       “….….CRM may also contribute to business excellence. CRM enables a business to keep in tune with the requirements of customers and enhance customer relations and satisfaction. ….. being close to customers and listening to them are important for a business when it would like to manage change and pursue excellence…” (Lin and Su, 2003);

 Theme 4: CRM products and technologies

Point 4.1.              “…..…Most CRM systems have a storage utility, or “data library,” for maintaining customer information for an extended time period. However, most libraries are seen as archives with little more purpose than providing sales teams with historical information for future proposal development or giving managers the necessary back-up information in the event of contract disputes….” (Stein, Smith and Lancioni, 2013);

Point 4.2.              “…..CRM technology use (functionality) is only one potential indicator of CRM adoption. Others include user acceptance, and the extent of CRM integration with existing legacy systems….” (Richard, Thirkell and Huff, 2007);

Point 4.3.              “…..few firms consistently and effectively apply their CRM data to create value for decision-making at the executive level of the organization. Rather, CRM data is structured and developed to provide tactical guidance for managing individual customers and individual sales opportunities…” (Stein, Smith and Lancioni, 2013);

Point 4.4.              “….CRM technology allows for a wider reach of the “relationship marketing” approach by utilizing IT to take over the labour-intensive aspects of developing meaningful relationships, thereby making it feasible across a wide range of different customers….” (Newby, Nguyen and Waring, 2014);

Point 4.5.              “….Many organizations struggle with the strategic application of customer databases, particularly in business-to-business (B2B) settings….” (Stein, Smith and Lancioni, 2013);

Point 4.6.              “…….the new media environment has empowered customers and created a new segment called “social customers”. This group trusts their peer group more than anyone else and wants to actively use companies and brands as problem solvers according to the requirements of their personal agendas. …….. organizations have to rethink how they interact with this new social customer segment…….” (Saarijärvi, Karjaluoto and Kuusela, 2013);

Point 4.7.              “……….More recently, such shared on-demand Internet services as NetSuite, RightNow Technologies, Salesforce.com and CRM OnDemand have given smaller firms an opportunity to develop CRM capabilities at significantly lower capital outlays …..” (Stein and Smith, 2009);

Point 4.8.              “……….The purpose of the new communications channels such as blogs, discussion forums, and social networks in the new CRM framework is simply to engage customers in a regular dialogue….” (Saarijärvi, Karjaluoto and Kuusela, 2013);

Point 4.9.              “…..…To successfully exploit the potential of SM [social media], companies need to design experiences that deliver tangible value in return for customers’ time, attention, endorsement and loyalty…” (Nadeem, 2012);

Theme 5: Environmental drivers of CRM

Point 5.1.              “….in today’s business environment “all businesses will be embracing customer strategies sooner or later, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success”. This is mainly due to two factors: customers want to be treated individually and as a strategy it is a more efficient way of doing business….” (Saarijärvi, Karjaluoto and Kuusela, 2013);

Point 5.2.              “…….In modern times CRM became popular in the 1990s as competition intensified and customer demands increased…” (Jain, 2005);

Point 5.3.              “…..The large number of CRM implementations over the past decade can be seen “as a contemporary response to the emerging climate of customer churn, waning brand loyalty and lower profitability”…” (Stein and Smith, 2009);

Point 5.4.              “….in the process of exploiting the opportunities already afforded by CRM’s momentum, certain organizational players, at the same time, acted to help sustain this momentum….” (Wang and Swanson, 2008);

Point 5.5.              “….While conceived in the 1980s, CRM has only attained marketing prominence in the late 1990s, primarily due to information technology (IT) advances and the proliferation of the Internet…” (Richard, Thirkell and Huff, 2007);

Theme 6: Project justifications and impacts of CRM

Theme 6.1: Project justifications-specific

Point 6.1.1.       “…..There are a number of criteria that firms could use to evaluate the success of a CRM initiative. These range from project-focused criteria ……to internally oriented metrics ….. to externally oriented metrics …..” (Bohling et al.,  2006);

Point 6.1.2.       “…CRM offers a different strategy for measuring business success, one focused squarely on customers and how customer-defined metrics carry over to the business bottom line…” (Hochhauser, 2003);

Point 6.1.3.       “…..The desire for improvement in relationship performance is a driver of CRM implementation in business …., yet there are only a few recent CRM specific quantitative studies that indicate that CRM implementation actually improves business or relationship performance …..” (Richard, Thirkell and Huff, 2007);

Theme 6.2: CRM impacts-specific

Point 6.2.1.       “….…..CRM enables customers to fulfil their goal of acquiring a product or service at a reasonable price expending reasonable effort …” (Jain, 2005);

Point 6.2.2.       “…….During the 1990s, CRM expenses were the biggest component of IT spending by US companies, but the customer was no better off than in the past…” (Jain, 2005);

Point 6.2.3.       “……CRM was the third most significant revolution in the organization of business after the invention of the factory in 1718 and the introduction of the assembly line into the factory production process in 1913….” (Frow and Payne, 2009);

Point 6.2.4.       “…. the benefits of CRM in SMEs has shown that effective adoption is hard to achieve and that expected benefits in over half of the cases are not realized…” (Newby, Nguyen and Waring, 2014);

Point 6.2.5.        “…While businesses have rushed to adopt CRM, spending millions on technology and its adoption, recent research suggests that the promised profitability increases are yet to be obtained….” (Iyer and Bejou, 2004);

Point 6.2.6.       “….In recent years many banks have adopted CRM in an effort to become more customer focused as a means of facing the increasing competition. ….. Many of them highlighted that they experienced success through the application of CRM methods…” (Salim and Keramati, 2013);

Theme 7: CRM implementation issues

Theme 7.1: CRM implementation approaches-related

Point 7.1.1.       “…..four questions companies should ask when developing a CRM program, namely: is it strategic, where does it hurt, do we need perfect data, and where do we go from here?...” (Smith, 2010);

Point 7.1.2.       “….the CRM strategy formulation and implementation process was broken down into 15 possible components that could be followed or applied by businesses. These included CRM strategy development, business case and return on investment (ROI), change management, internal stakeholder assessment, senior executive buy-in, capabilities and risk assessment, and metric development, to name a few…” (Bohling et al.,  2006);

Point 7.1.3.       “…two broad classifications for how a firm’s initial CRM endeavor is championed. In a bottom-up approach, the CRM initiative is championed within a single group or division of the company. In contrast, a top-down approach refers to a situation when the CRM initiative  manifests through strong support and sponsorship from senior executives and top management….” (Bohling et al.,  2006);

Point 7.1.4.       “….four key areas necessary for successful CRM implementation: (1) strategy, (2) people, (3) processes, and (4) technology ..... it is only when all four work in unison that a superior customer-relationship capability is developed ….” (Yim, Anderson and Swaminathan, 2004);

Point 7.1.5.       “….managers are often unclear as to what approach should be taken towards CRM. They lack knowledge and expertise and may make decisions based on vendor promises of strategic advantage for the company…” (Newby, Nguyen and Waring, 2014);

Theme 7.2: Other CRM implementation issues

Point 7.2.1.        “….some customers do not seek or wish for deep relationships and, for them, the costs associated with building and continuing a relationship can exceed the perceived benefits….” (Frow and Payne, 2009);

Point 7.2.2.        “…….By collecting past customer transaction information, demographics, psychographics, media and channel preferences marketers hope to create personalised product and service offers that capture customer share, build customer loyalty and enhance profit over time …. Yet the relationship between IT and marketing can be strained due to such factors as organisational cultural disparity and misaligned perceptions of system usability....” (Richard, Thirkell and Huff, 2007);

Point 7.2.3.       “…CRM failure broadly stems from the fact that most firms were still product focused, not customer focused…” (Frow and Payne, 2009);

Point 7.2.4.       “…In fact CRM has faced serious difficulties and implementation failures including the inability to deliver profitable growth, and in some cases even damaging existing customer relationships…” (Richard, Thirkell and Huff, 2007);

Point 7.2.5.        “…..Because most CRM efforts are about "enterprisewide" applications, senior management sponsorship is as crucial as having defined goals and metrics…” (Hochhauser, 2003);

Point 7.2.6.       “….A customer-focused structure, culture, policy, and reward system should permeate any organization that strives to implement CRM successfully…” (Yim, Anderson and Swaminathan, 2004);

Point 7.2.7.       “….Despite the benefits of CRM, a disproportionately high number of implementations end in scaled-back expectations or failure. …. Too many companies don't work from a cohesive strategic plan that demonstrates how CRM supports the company's overall business goals and objectives…” (Hochhauser, 2003);

Point 7.2.8.        “…… 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…” (Plouffe, Williams and Leigh, 2004);

Point 7.2.9.       “….no CRM program can succeed without a team of dedicated workers especially those who come into direct contact with the customer …” (Jain, 2005);

The seven CRM themes and their associated points together portray the intellectual landscape of CRM in the academic literature (see also the Literature on customer relationship management Facebook page). They are not intended to be detailed study notes; rather, they highlight the main CRM ideas as well as the academic interest of the CRM academic community. The referencing on the points listed here points to more study materials for those who are interested in doing more study on the CRM literature. From experience, this kind of thematic analysis is able to cover not more than 30 academic articles. It is also important to select academic articles that cover different themes and issues, e.g., on CRM; otherwise, the resultant thematic analysis would remain narrow in theme coverage. With the findings from the thematic analysis, the paper is now able to carry out the next task on the mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR).

A mind map on customer relationship management (CRM)

The mind mapping-based literature review (MMBLR) is a complementary literature review endeavor that employs the findings from the thematic analysis on academic literature as the sole input to construct a mind map. The mind mapping exercise further clarifies and makes graphically visible as a mind map the knowledge structure on the topic under review. In our case, the topic is CRM. The mind mapping-based literature review can be employed to make additional conceptual exploration on the topic under review by studying more academic readings.  From the experience of the writer on MMBLR, such additional conceptual exploration is feasible, provided that the mind map initially produced is reconfigured in a more fundamental way because the initially constructed mind map is already crammed with themes and ideas. Thus, what is shown here as Figure 1 is an initially drawn mind map based on the first attempt of thematic analysis as reported in the previous section. The mind map is shown as follows:

Referring to the mind map (re: Figure 1), the prime topic of study is located at the centre as a blob with the label of “Customer relationship management”.  Seven main branches are attached to it, which correspond to the seven themes identified from the thematic analysis. Four of the main branches fork into sub-branches; they are (1) “Management thinking under CRM” [main branch] has two sub-branches, i.e., “Relationship marketing-specific” [sub-branch 1] and “Non-relationship marketing-specific” [sub-branch 2]; (2) “Association with other management disciplines” [main branch] has two sub-branches, i.e., “Knowledge management-specific” [sub-branch 1] and “Non-knowledge management-specific” [sub-branch 2]; (3) “Project justifications and impacts of CRM” [main branch’ has two sub-branches, i.e., “Project justifications-specific” [sub-branch 1] and “CRM impacts-specific” [sub-branch 2]; and, finally, “CRM implementation issues” [main branch] possesses two sub-branches, namely, “CRM implementation approaches-related” [sub-branch 1] and “Other CRM implementation issues” [sub-branch 2]. The attachments to the main branches or the sub-branches are essentially the various points identified from the thematic analysis. These attachments make up of links and end with key phrases representing CRM points. The process of constructing the mind map helps the writer to consolidate and memorize knowledge gained from the literature review. The resultant mind map (re: Figure 1) is also useful for presenting CRM ideas to others. All in all, the MMBLR is a complementary literature review exercise with the thematic analysis. Together, the thematic analysis and the MMBLR make up the overall MMBLR approach.

Concluding remarks

The experience of the application of the MMBLR approach on CRM by the writer reinforced his view that the approach is a stimulating and effective way to conduct literature review. Moreover, via the intellectual endeavor, the MMBLR approach has been further clarified. The MMBLR findings should be of use to those who are studying CRM and Research Methods; thus, these findings offer academic and pedagogical values to them. Finally, this study on the MMBLR approach makes up a vital topic in the managerial intellectual learning (MIL) subject. Exactly how the MMBLR approach should be treated in MIL should be investigated in future MIL study.

Bibliography

1.      Acker, O., F. Gröne, R. Yazbek and F. Akkad. 2010. “Social CRM: How Companies Can Link into the Social Web of Consumers” Perspective, Booz& Co.

2.      Anshari, M. and M.N. Almunawar. 2012. “Framework of Social Customer Relationship Management in E-Health Services” Journal of e-Health Management Vol. 2012, IBIMA Publishing: Article ID 766268: 15 pages.

3.      Bohling, T. D. Bowman, S. LaValle, V. Mittal, D. Narayandas, G. Ramani and R. Varadarajan. 2006. “CRM Implementation: Effectiveness Issues and Insights” Journal of Service Research 9(2), Sage: 184-194.

4.      Daghfous, A., N. Ahmad and L.C. Angell. 2013. "The KCRM knowledge audit: model and case illustration" VINE 43(2): 185 – 209.

5.      Frow, P. and A. Payne. 2009. “Customer Relationship Management: A Strategic Perspective” jbm 3, Gabker Verlag: 7-27.

6.      Hochhauser, R. 2003."The ROI of CRM: Marketing as an Investment" Handbook of Business Strategy 4(1): 371 – 377.

7.      Iyer, G.R. and D. Bejou. 2004. “Customer Relationship Management in Electronic Markets” Journal of Relationship Marketing 2(3-4): 1-13.

8.      Jain, S.C. 2005. “CRM shifts the paradigm” Journal of Strategic Marketing 13(4): 275-291.

9.      Lin, Y.C. and H.Y. Su. 2003. “Strategic analysis of customer relationship management - a field study on hotel enterprises” Total Quality Management & Business Excellence 14(6):  715-731.

10. Literature on customer relationship management, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-customer-relationship-management-277431112643115/).

11. Literature on literature review Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.literaturereview/).

12. Literature on mind mapping Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.mind.mapping/).

13. Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/managerial.intellectual.learning/).

14. Nadeem, M. 2012. “Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM): How Connecting Social Analytics to Business Analytics Enhances Customer Care and Loyalty?” International Journal of Business and Social Science 3(21) November: 88-102.

15. Newby, M., T.H. Nguyen, and T.S. Waring. 2014. "Understanding customer relationship management technology adoption in small and medium-sized enterprises" Journal of Enterprise Information Management 27(5): 541 – 560.

16. Plouffe, C.R., B.C. Williams and T.W. Leigh. 2004. “Who’s on First? Stakeholder Differences in Customer Relationship Management and the Elusive Notion of “Shared Understanding” Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management 24(4): 323-338.

17. Richard, J.E., P.C. Thirkell and S.L. Huff. 2007. “The strategic value of CRM: a technology adoption perspective” Journal of Strategic Marketing 15(5): 421-439.

18. Saarijärvi, H., H. Karjaluoto and H. Kuusela. 2013. “Extending customer relationship management: from empowering firms to empowering customers” Journal of Systems and Information Technology 15(2), Emerald: 140-158.

19. Salim, F.S. and A. Keramati. 2013. “How to Make Iranian Banks Customer Oriented with Use of Customer Relationship Management Concepts? Methodology and Comprehensive Architecture: An Action Research Study” Systemic Practice and Action Research 27: 377-395.

20. Smith, A.D. 2010. “Strategic Leveraging Total Quality and CRM Initiatives: Case Study of Service-Orientated Firms” Services Marketing Quarterly 32(1): 1-16.

21. Stein, A. and M. Smith. 2009. “CRM systems and organizational learning: An exploration of the relationship between CRM effectiveness and the customer information orientation of the firm in industrial markets” Industrial Marketing Management 38, Elsevier: 198-206.

22. Stein, A.D., M.F. Smith and R.A. Lancioni. 2013. “The development and diffusion of customer relationship management (CRM) intelligence in business-to-business environments” Industrial Marketing Management 42, Elsevier: 855-861.

23. Wang, P. and E.B. Swanson. 2008. “Customer relationship management as advertised: Exploiting and sustaining technological momentum” Information Technology & People 21(4), Emerald: 323-349.

24. Yim, F.H.K., R.E. Anderson and S. Swaminathan. 2004 “Customer Relationship management technology adoption in small and medium-sized enterprises" Journal of Enterprise Information Management 27(5): 541 – 560.