THE IMPACT OF TRUST AND INTERACTIVITY ON

INTENSIFYING CUSTOMER LOYALTY FOR CRM

Alireza Faed, Afsaneh Ashouri and Chen Wu

Digital Ecosystem and Business Intelligence Institute, Curtin University of Technology, Enterprise Unit 4

De Laeter Way, Technology Park, Bentley, WA, 6102, Perth, Australia

Keywords: Customer relationship management, Loyalty. Trust, Interactivity, Brand credibility, Value proposition.

Abstract: Customer relationship management (CRM)is one of the most significant tools that a company can utilize in

order to better acquire customers, keep them for a long term and always provide them with premium values.

In addition, CRM is beneficial for labour saving purposes through efficiencies especially when

consolidating with some Internet-enabled applications. Companies employ CRM in an attempt to increase

their profitability and simultaneously enhance their customer interactions and loyalty. Nevertheless, in order

to avoid a negative response to the relationship with the customers, companies must incorporate two

important aspects of CRM to enhance customer loyalty and improve the effective usage level of CRM are

trust and interactivity. In order for CRM to be productive and responsive it is important that issues such as

trust and interactivity are appropriately analysed and addressed. Companies must increase their efforts to

support a customer’s loyalty by creating and promoting various values including interactivity and so on. In

this paper, we propose a conceptual framework to support Internet-CRM in order to optimize CRM system

and strategies by increasing the levels of value proposition, brand credibility, interactivity and trust. We also

provide a case study based on this proposed conceptual framework.

1 INTRODUCTION

CRM is an art of acquiring customers to have a long

lasting relationship with them. Companies must take

the initiative to actualize and implement CRM.

CRM is a mixture of people, processes, and

technology in order to understand and obtain

customers for the company. CRM focuses on

customer retention and build up the relationship. To

get the advantage from implementation of CRM,

companies must have an efficient CRM programs to

get the loyalty of the customers (Chen and Popovich,

2003). In order to compete with the competitors and

move alongside of the competition in today’s

market, business need to have more than just a

Website with professional expression; they need to

absorb and involves users, thereby having a

encyclopedic system and strategies to support their

businesses (Chen and Sockel, 2004). .CRM

applications are able to provide a proper connection

from front office to back office and touch points

with the customers. An organization’s touch points

are the Internet, E-mail, call centres, face to face

marketing, fax, pagers and kiosks. CRM can be

employed to consolidating these touch points to the

benefit of the organization. While doing so, the

company will work much appropriately in a

invulnerable ecosystem(Chen and Popovich, 2003).

Using CRM companies would be capable of idealize

their interactions with customers and finding a 360

degree vision of customers (Chen and Popovich,

2003). Ultimately, CRM implies one-to-one or face

to face marketing in the literature(Chen and

Popovich, 2003). The whole study will be

accomplished under the context of CRM, so, it is

mandatory to know some important definitions and

improvements in this area. Therefore, in this paper,

we propose a conceptual framework to improve

CRM system and strategies. The paper is organized

as follows. Section 2 discusses the impact of the

Internet on CRM, which is the main research subject

of this paper. Section 3 will introduce the history of

loyalty and loyalty problem as well as providing

some important definition regarding that. Section 4,

defines the impacts of CRM on customer loyalty

programs. Section 5 describes our conceptual

framework to increase loyalty, using components

like interactivity, trust and value proposition and

113

Faed A., Ashouri A. and Wu C..

THE IMPACT OF TRUST AND INTERACTIVITY ON INTENSIFYING CUSTOMER LOYALTY FOR CRM.

DOI: 10.5220/0003048501130120

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing (KMIS-2010), pages 113-120

ISBN: 978-989-8425-30-0

 2010 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

their relationship to enhance the loyalty. In section

6, we introduce our case study to validate our

conceptual framework. Eventually, section 7, deals

with research approach within which we can solve

the problem.

2 IMPACT OF THE INTERNET

ON CRM

CRM has been transformed during past couple of

years from a customer service business unit

approximately related to marketing to an electronic

generator attempting to maximize the value of

existing customer relationships (Clemons, 2006).

CRM technology has been changed by the

advent of the Internet. Various kinds of online

transactions and ordering have made companies to

strengthen their CRM strategies in a way to fulfil

their clients. In addition companies need to create

lasting bond with e-customers by proposing new

approaches in a virtual environment. Moreover, the

Internet has got a different E-loyalty program which

should be cost-effective for the customers (Chen and

Popovich, 2003). This paper aims at creating

advantageousness, advisability, lifetime value,

retention and satisfaction using Internet-CRM

(Rygielski et al.), (Chen and Popovich, 2003). I-

CRM can generate new opportunities for the buyers

and the sellers to have a comfy relationship, find

distribution channels and better clarify business

strategies (Chen and Popovich, 2003). Organizations

can take benefit from the Internet to acquire and

keep clients all around the world and create

usefulness and productivity (Lawson-Body and

Limayem, 2004). The Internet can reveal a safe and

virtual environment in which company can interact

and exchange priceless ideas, face to face

communication or computer mediated

communication with their current or potential

customers (Lawson-Body and Limayem, 2004).

More customer-oriented approach to the

organization, such as online ordering and

purchasing, has already adjusted the level for an

altering paradigm in customer service. A recent

report describes how successful Web sites are in

building continuous relationships with e-clients by

offering services in traditionally impossible ways

(Chen and Popovich, 2003). Internet-CRM which is

regarded as E-CRM by some researchers, refers to

the marketing activities, tools and techniques,

delivered over the Internet with a particular goal to

locate, build and enhance long-term customer

relationships to intensify their individual potential

(Lee-Kelley et al., 2003). We believe I-CRM

evolves around the notions of brand credibility,

interactivity, trust and loyalty. All these elements are

specifically proposed to deal with the Internet based

CRM.

3 THE ADVENT OF LOYALTY

The notion of enhancing the relationship of a

company with its clients goes back to many years

ago and has been examined those days in

distribution marketing stage. Now, it is reflected as a

bond builder. Nowadays, some organizations regard

loyalty as a defensive marketing method and

strategy (Sharp and Sharp, 1997). Defensive

marketing strategies concentrate on empowering

relationships of the company with its clients for a

long term and probably create new connections and

businesses with potential clients (Bridges and

Freytag, 2009). However, it focuses on the current

and potential customers and it is believed that it

should happen in the early time of the sale (Sharp

and Sharp, 1997).

3.1 Customer Loyalty

Today, the concept of customer loyalty is all-

inclusive and it is an important research topic for the

researchers and companies that need to be studies

more in order to reach to the highest effectiveness.

Loyalty is considered as an invaluable resource and

credit in cutting edge markets of today. Moreover,

customer loyalty is recognized as the probability of

purchase, probability of product repurchase,

purchase frequency, repeat purchase behavior and

buying order (Kumar and Shah, 2004), (Anderson,

2003). At the centre of loyalty programs is the

principle of bolstering whereby it is supposed that

behaviors , which are rewarded will be repeated

(Bridson et al., 2008). Loyalty is defined in terms of

repeat buying behavior (Gommans. M . 2001). It

costs a company more to attract and absorb a new

customer as it does to implement a retention

strategy. Reichheld and Sasser (2000) distinguished

that client acquisition cost is 20 to 40 percent more

than finding a new client in the physical

marketplace, as mentioned in the study of the

Internet clothing market. This conveyed to higher

losses in the very first stages of the relationship, but

after 24

to 30

month, the Internet clients probably

need to spend twice as much as they used to do in

the first six months (Lee-Kelley et al., 2003). A

KMIS 2010 - International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

114

gratified customer have a tendency of being more

loyal to a brand or store over time than a customer

whose buying is occurred by other causes such as

time limitations and information about loss making

(Gommans. M . 2001). The main goal of this loyalty

and E-loyalty is to increase customers support and

their level of faithfulness to the brands and the

company and make the customers repeat their

purchasing rates. (Cortiñas et al., 2008), (Anderson,

2003). Using infinite and broad loyalty or E-loyalty

program, the company will be eligible of measuring,

enhancing, controlling and managing customer

profitability (Reinartz. W, 2005). The main aim of

customer loyalty programs is to increase customers’

loyalty to the firm, by attempting to increase repeat

purchase rates or total purchases (Cortiñas et al.,

2008). The benefits of customer loyalty to a provider

of either services or products include: Lower

customer price sensitivity, reduced expenditure on

attracting new customers; and improved

organizational profitability (J., 2005). Loyalty has

been measured by the probability of product

repurchase (Anderson, 2003). Brand loyalty Is the

preferential, attitudinal and behavioral answer

toward one or more brands in a product group

expressed over a period of time by series of

customers (Anderson, 2003).

3.2 E-Loyalty

First, we would like to have a clear definition of e-

loyalty, which is going to be created in a better way,

using our conceptual framework. Utilizing

conceptual framework, companies can take benefit

from loyalty as well as E-loyalty. An exclusive

factor in E-loyalty is the impressive and eminent

role of the first impression generated by a website as

well as its ease of use easy exploration, loading the

web pages smoothly with high speed, dependability

and accuracy of the server, quick shopping and

checkout procedures, and a personalized

communication that the company wants to prepare

(Gommans. M . 2001).

4 THE IMPACT OF CRM ON

CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Using the Internet to endorse CRM admits firms to

improve their customer loyalty followed by

customer satisfaction in the IT sector. CRM has

Seven significant factors which are customer

exploring association with customers, recognizing

customer anticipation, verification, companionship,

interactive management, and personalization

(Lawson-Body and Limayem, 2004). It is proved

that the scope of CRM in terms of partnership,

relationship with the clients and personalization

have a direct effect on customer loyalty (Lawson-

Body and Limayem, 2004). Moreover, the level of

CRM existence on the Internet has a positive impact

on loyalty as follows:

1-It is beneficial with a low cost to serve a loyal

customer. 2-Price-sensitivity is one of the loyal

customer’s characteristics. 3-Loyal customers long

to be with the company all the time. 4-Word of

mouth will be conveyed and admitted by loyal

customers and they always tend to give concrete and

certain advocacies about their popular product or

service (Kumar and Shah, 2004). 5-Loyal customers

tend to go for more pay outs, more purchases.

Moreover, they are more accessible and consider as

happy customers, and appear as useful agent for the

organizations (Harris and Goode, 2004).

5 A CONCEPTUAL

FRAMEWORK

Based on the literature, we propose the following

model of E-loyalty with the underlying drivers

consisting of, Value Propositions, Brand Building,

Trust and Security, and, Customer and Loyalty.

Figure 1: The conceptual framework.

5.1 Interactivity

The interactivity illustrates a high level of validity

and reliability (Liu, 2003). Despite the potential for

interactivity, little attention has been paid to how

interactivity might be more fully utilized (Cyr et al.,

2009). (Cyr et al., 2009) Defined interactivity as the

capability of a computer- enabled communication

system that permits exchange of roles between the

sender and receiver in real or delayed time so that

Brand credibility

Loyalty

Value proposition

Interactivity

Information

collection

Connectedness

Choice

CRM Contex

Trust

THE IMPACT OF TRUST AND INTERACTIVITY ON INTENSIFYING CUSTOMER LOYALTY FOR CRM

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communicators have more control over the structure,

pace, and content of the communication. Although

interactivity has numerous dimensions, a common

theme is that the website successfully provides

information to the user, is perceived as responsive,

and allows a sense of connection often with other

users. Interactivity alone on the Internet intensifies

the relationship between personalization and

customer loyalty (Lawson-Body and Limayem,

2004). In addition, it is regarded, as an important

online marketing approach (Cyr et al., 2009).

Interactivity is one of the items that can have an

impact on loyalty. Based on some studies, there has

been a lack of interactivity as a major problem in

companies and no research has been done on

interactivity and its relationship with loyalty and

little interactivity is understood. Also, unclear results

have been generated. Also, five important

interactivity dimensions defined to satisfy

communication needs: playfulness, choice,

connectedness, information collection, and

reciprocal communication (Cyr et al., 2009).

Ultimately, this lack of interactivity can simply

hinder the productive utilization of the Internet as a

marketing communication channel (Srinivasan et al.,

2002, Liu, 2003, Anderson, 2003), and (Faed, 2010).

Interactivity has a positive relationship with trust

and value proposition.

5.1.1 Choice

According to our conceptual framework is one of

subsets of interactivity. It create motivation for the

customers and some companies provide this, as a

promotion or reward to their customers (Patall et al.,

2008). Moreover, in another study by Dianne Cyr

(2008), choice considered as an elements of

interactivity (Cyr et al., 2009).

5.1.2 Connectedness

Connectedness is one of the newest marketing

strategies and shows the closeness and friendship of

a brand with customers. In addition, having

connectedness, companies have the ability to think

about different target audiences. Various ways of

creating response to the customers is called

connectedness. It can simply provide control over

the customer and a good relationship (Cyr et al.,

2009).

5.1.3 Information Collection

Information collection is another component of

interactivity, which has a direct and positive effect

on the whole procedure. While collecting

information, we can customize it clearly in order for

better communicate with our clients. What is more,

due to interactive nature of the Internet, all

information should be updated on daily bases (Fortin

and Dholakia, 2005). (Yoo et al.)

5.2 Trust

Trust plays a central role in augmenting both

behavioral and attitudinal loyalty and a critical role

in generating customer loyalty. which in turn

influences marketing outcome related factors like

market share maintenance and price elasticity

(Gommans. M . 2001). Trust is also outlined as the

confidence in the exchange partner’s authenticity

and integrity (Anderson, 2003). Moreover, trust is

defined as “the perceived credibility and generosity

of a goal. One of the primary reasons for the

significance of trust or confidence in an online

business is the perceived level of risk accompanied

with online buying (Anderson, 2003). In addition,

trust can create strong relationship with the clients

and some researchers defined it as a willingness to

rely on an exchange partners in whom one has

confidence. Moreover trust can be described as

existing when one party has confidence in the

exchange partner’s reliability and integrity

(Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002). Trusting beliefs can be

described as consumers’ perceptions of particular

attributes of vendors, including the ability, integrity

and benevolence of the vendors, when handling the

consumers’ transactions (Lin and Lin, 2006). Based

on conceptual framework, trust has a strong positive

and mutual relationship with loyalty and they can

intensify each other throughout the process.

5.3 Value Propositions

Value proposition is an ancillary service that other

competitors can dedicate this service to the

customers better than one company. Product

customization and interactivity are two exceptional

value propositions that assign to E-loyalty in online

buyer attitude (Gommans. M . 2001). It expresses

the relationship among the performance of the

product, the satisfaction of the customer’s

requirements, and the total cost to the customer over

the customer relationship life cycle (Payne, 2005).

5.4 Brand Credibility

Brands can affect various stages of consumer choice

processes, and hence, various components of

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consumer utility functions (Erdem et al., 2002).

Brands potentially play many roles in affecting

consumer choice attitude. A significant factor that

underlies many of these roles is consumer

uncertainty about product attributes and/or benefits

(Erdem et al., 2002). Brand credibility or the

credibility of a brand as a signal is known as the

believability of the product position information

contained in a brand, which entails consistently

delivering what is promised (Erdem et al., 2002).

Firms can use various individual marketing mix

elements to signal product quality, such as charging

higher prices, offering extended warranties or

distributing via high-end channels. The role that the

brand can play in customer retention, as well as in

promoting certain behaviors by customers that lead

to long-term benefits for the firm. Brands embody

the long-term experience that a customer has with a

service provider; in effect, the brand is a ‘‘summary

statistic’’ characterizing the cumulative temporal

relationship between two parties, the customer and

the service provider. In this perspective, the brand

comes to embody the credibility of the firm, which

can only be built and solidified over time through

repeated customer/firm interactions, but can quickly

be lost if trust is violated by the firm; this makes

brand credibility a firm-wide responsibility that must

concern all functions at all times. Building the

credibility of a brand is recognized by consumers to

be a long-term and continuing investment by the

firm; hence, they behave towards the firm as if it

were posting a bond that is forfeited when its

promises are not kept (Sweeney and Swait, 2008).

Brand is an important relational tool in the firm’s

customer relationship management and is an

efficient market signal that the company employ to

address market information asymmetries (Sweeney

and Swait, 2008). Brand loyalty is an intricate

commitment to re-purchase or support a preferred

product or service steadily in the future, as a

consequence creating continual identical brand or

equivalent brand buying, in spite of positional

impacts and marketing endeavors having the

potential to make changing attitude (Lin and Lin,

2006). Brand credibility encompasses two

significant elements: trustworthiness and expertise

and price sensitivity (Sweeney and Swait, 2008),

(Payne, 2005).

6 CASE STUDY

In this section, we discuss a business case based on

the conceptual framework. We proposed that the

approach be assessed by means of case study in

which a transformation of CRM occurs in order to

adapt to the mobile business world. Company

ACME Ltd. is a mobile vendor in the Asia-pacific

market. The aim of the case study is to increase the

level of customer loyalty and promote ACME's

CRM system and CRM strategies. While ACME

offers varieties of mobile phones with different

features, it is situated in the mobile-commerce

industry that requires some application in the context

of customer relationship management to increase the

perceived loyalty of the customers. Due to the lack

of customers' trust and the deficiency of perceived

interactivity, the company needs a CRM-

consolidated system and strategies to monitor

various marketing activities. The company has an

enormous production; it should act in way, to boost

all aspect of the process to have a desirable output.

This system will help the company and customer

mutually.

6.1.1 ACME Company

The ACME, Ltd, a mobile phone company serving

the Asia-Pacific area market. Acme Mobile was

established in Singapore in 2002, fundamentally

distributing mobile games to retailers and sellers in

the region. Today, with offices in Bangkok, Manila,

and Singapore, Acme Mobile distributes almost any

kind of mobile entertainment subject. It has a big

amount of investment on mobile industry and has

various partners in this area such as Samsung, LG

and Nokia. Moreover, they take benefit from

different electronic commerce markets such as B2B

and B2C. In addition, they have a salient

customization service in which people can give

order to the company. According to the model,

customers have different choices which are different

types of mobile phones with variety of options.

Also, customers are able to order different plans for

broadband. Since ACME is a mobile phone and

Internet provider, it aims at initiating with

interactivity toward customers. Interactivity in our

model has three levels. First, we consider choice of

the customers as an important aspect. Customers

have different choices, for example, they can choose

various plans (e.g. 30 dollar cap, pre-paid, etc.) if

they intend to buy a mobile phone. Moreover, for

their availability and usefulness, customers need to

be prepared with different promotions. Second issue

is the connectedness, which will be accessible via

SMS, e-mail, fax; telephone and mobile services.

This way, ACME can easily update customers with

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117

various news and/or problems raised. The last issue

is related to information collection.

6.1.2 Information Collection

The company has a variety of sources to accumulate

raw data about the customers and the sort of data

could be private or public and turn them all into

valid and credible information. In terms of having a

choice, connectedness and information collection,

both customers and ACME can take a real benefit of

each other and have a better perceived interactivity.

Moreover, the ACME alone can acquire proper

brand credibility in order to increase the sale and

promote the trust of the clients. In this paper, we

tend to set a motion in this process and build up the

loyalty and help company to come up with such a

CRM system to reinforce the validity, reputation of

the company and make the people repeat their

purchase. As a result, interactivity and trust increase

the probability that customers will find something

that they wish to buy with a good loyalty.

6.2 Brand Credibility

The company cannot sell efficiently LG products

and the brand alone has a low credibility. Great

brand is a brand that clients trust and believe in.

When consumers cannot trust a brand they do not

buy it. One of the important reasons why people go

for a brand repeatedly is the credibility the brand has

among the consumers. Moreover, brand credibility is

defined as the believability of the product

information contained in a brand, which requires

that consumers perceive that the brand have the

ability and willingness to bear without interruption

what has been guaranteed. As an example, brand

credibility can bring about price sensitivity, as it

occurred to the clients in this company. The data-set

will be examined by confirmatory factor analysis.

6.3 Interactivity

SMS, E-mail, face to face, fax, IM, different

selections, varieties of data. We will use t-Test,

ANOVA to ascertain the relationship between each

sub-component with interactivity. To have a

concrete interactivity, the company should have

three factors which are choice, connectedness,

information collection (Chen and Sockel, 2004, Lee,

2005). Moreover, interactivity alone should have

other criteria such as user control and responsiveness

which we overlook them in this study(Cyr et al.,

2009, Lee, 2005). In addition, the feedback from

well-interactivity would be efficiency, effectiveness,

enjoyment and trust within which companies can

receive lots of clients (Cyr et al., 2009). Lack of

interactivity is a problem for a majority of web-sites

as the companies cannot map their customers

out(Srinivasan et al., 2002), (Srinivasan et al., 2002).

In this study, we concentrate on three significant

aspect of interactivity which will be discussed

below:

6.3.1 Choice

Most of the times clients have a variety of choices

regarding product or service but in some cases in can

be limited to specified ones like changes in

company’s discounts in one brand.

6.3.2 Connectedness

According to the previous studies companies should

find proper ways for connecting with the clients and

increase their level of interactivities with each other.

Using SMS, email, IM, fax in the first level and

advertising, word of mouth, branding and producing

customer experience in the second phase can enrich

this interactivity and are interconnected and provide

a good amount of interactivity within company.

6.3.3 Information Collection

The Company needs a good information collection

while it needs to have a decision-making. So, it has

to be clear, actual and concise. Moreover, the source

of the data should be credible enough. Interview and

questionnaire, needs assessment and both need

comprehensive information.

6.4 Value Proposition

B2C, B2B distribution, new delivery channels, free

calls, different services, giving discount and sending

precious gifts to the potential customers. For

analyzing value proposition, To begin with, we

should go toward ample definition. This is followed

by an open-ended questionnaire with at least 100

customers. As discussed before, value proposition is

kind of service or product that a competitor can

provide better.

6.5 Loyalty

Most of the times, the users come back to re-

purchase their popular products after ACME

conducted a promotion in the recently-held

conference. In addition, trustworthiness practices

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behalf of the company are conceptualized and

personalized differently for different clients and the

clients can experience new featured services. In

addition, as discussed previously, loyalty is proving

that we always patronize a particular company.

6.6 Trust

Customers trust the company due to their vast

amount of services but sometimes because of the

risk involved in a product or service customers

cannot go any further, so they shift to another seller.

Company must respect commitments; Control its

language in its communications and in which it

needs to convey its messages to the clients and

above all the company should let the customers talk.

Not only can our criteria turn into interactivity but

they can change into trust, as well (Lee, 2005).

7 RESEARCH APPROACH

A qualitative study among customers provides

further insights into the benefits of customers when

participating in loyalty programs. To discover

whether the value-proposition may result in a better

customer experience, a company should address a

value assessment to measure the relative

significance that clients locate on the different

aspects of a product. Logical tools like conjoint

analysis may be utilized to recognize clients that

supervise generally known preferences regarding

product aspects. Such tools may also clarify

substantial market parts with service requirements

that are not absolutely provided to by the aspects of

current implications (Payne, 2005). We will develop

a questionnaire and survey as the major data

collection method. The questions in this

questionnaire, comprises of 100 questions and will

follow the scales, developed in prior studies. In

general, our aim is to a self-administered

questionnaire survey of complains and customer

feedback from our mobile commerce industry

partners. Moreover, we need to apply 7 Likert-Type

scales for measuring personal values. According to

our Likert-scale, 1: not very important, and for 7:

very important. Other scales for measuring store

attributes and other notions were anchored for 1:

strongly disagree, and for 7: strongly agree. The

questions involves in the questionnaire should be

confirmed in a pilot test. A pilot study is to be

conducted among students and for that reason, it

may need some revisions in the structure of the

questionnaire might be created. According to the

outcomes of the pilot study, all components in our

conceptual framework will be clarified and chosen

(Luck and Lancaster, 2003). Moreover,

Confirmatory factor analysis will be conducted to

evaluate the measurement for our conceptual

framework, basically for trust, level of interactivity

and perceived loyalty within the company. Then, the

demographic elements and the advanced key plans

of the samples of customers and non-customers of

company will be compared, with chi-squared for

explicit data followed by Student t-tests for the

continuous data. After that, SPSS 17 will be adopted

for discovering descriptive statistics and factor

structures, and structural equation model will be also

considered for confirmatory factor analyses to

clarify the credibility of the scales. In the next stage,

all kinds of feedback about CRM and perceived

loyalty will be gathered and will be utilized as the

main population for our study. In the next phase, we

will take an accidental sample of the population. For

having a satisfactory assessment we will use a five-

point Likert-type scale was applied ranging from 1 =

completely satisfied to 5 = dissatisfied. Process of

loyalty program in our study then, will be measured

by some items, one item for each of the components

of the process. The clients will be asked to express

their degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction on the

same five-point Likert-type scale from “totally

satisfied” to “dissatisfied”. About interactivity, it

could be measured by some variables like, Face to

face, Telephone, fax, E-Mail in order to calculate the

level of interaction, communication and number of

contacts that the company have with the customers

whether new or potential. Several measures of

interactivity have been utilized in experimental

researches (Liu, 2003).

8 CONCLUSIONS

The Internet is dragging us closer to the electronic

marketing’s concept of a complete market, many

goods and services will be sharply perceived

valuable by the assistance of the Internet. This work

is being carried out to propose our conceptual

framework for the success of CRM. This framework

consists of key elements including value proposition,

trust, interactivity, brand credibility as antecedents

of loyalty under the context of CRM. We provided a

detailed case study to qualitatively demonstrate the

effectiveness of our conceptual framework. Future

work needs to be carried out to quantitatively

validate the conceptual framework.

THE IMPACT OF TRUST AND INTERACTIVITY ON INTENSIFYING CUSTOMER LOYALTY FOR CRM

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The researchers would like to appreciate Prof

Elizabeth Chang for her immense advice and support

throughout this study. Further more, the researchers

hope to have a little contribution to this field.

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