Customer relationship management in the United Kingdom e-commerce
Anna-Leena Hintsala · Theseus (Ammattikorkeakoulujen) · 2011
Companies seeking internationalisation are nowadays engaging themselves increasingly on e-commerce. E-commerce requires marketing, technical competencies and understanding the target area's practices, and a major effort in building customer relationships. Customers can be seen as the irreplaceable asset of any company, which is why a great attention to CRM should be paid to. This thesis is commissioned by InnoLighthouse, which is a joint scheme of organizations based in Oulu region with an aim to enhance R&D&I on national and international level. The objective of this thesis was to discover how customer relationship is managed on the internet focusing on the e-retailing companies based in the United Kingdom. The theoretical framework was conducted around the global e-commerce issues and concepts of customer relationship management and marketing to give an idea of issues entrepreneurs face when planning to take part on international e-commerce. Legal and ethical issues were also discussed to explain important and relevant juridical factors when businesses on internet are concerned. Qualitative empirical part included researches in three forms: conducting interviews with case companies by means of questionnaires, discovering e-commerce regulations in the UK through desktop research, and observing sites to draw up conclusions about the common CRM methods in the UK marketplace. The results achieved explain that the problems faced by companies engaged in e-commerce are mainly cultural and legal. Cultural aspects are those concerning site adaptation and communication, which need to suit local requirements. By translating the site to English is not enough to attract customers as customer relationship building requires effective interaction on many levels. It was also discovered that CRM functions generally used are those which are mandatory by the law, and usually necessary for transaction to actually happen. Both in Finland and the UK the laws of countries follow the Directives of the EU, which is an advantage for Finnish businesses; practices in e-business are fairly similar making entering the market easier.