Customer Relationship Management System a Case Study on Small-Medium-Sized Companies in North Germany

Abstract

Customer relationship management is a common tool in large enterprises; yet it seems not to be successful with small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME). We conducted a survey to analyse the state-of-the-art customer relationship management systems and the degree of pervasion in SME. The survey covers 253 SMEs from North Germany and evaluates the available systems, desired and actually delivered functionality, integration in the Information Technology landscape, client satisfaction, and arguments about benefits and drawbacks of current CRM-systems. The main contribution of the chapter is improving the awareness of the importance that CRM has specifically for SMEs and benefits which SMEs can gain using CRM.