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Globally, the CRM market in 2021 is expeditiously growing at a pace of 13.7% compound annual growth rate (i.e. CAGR) as per Gartner estimates (Adair, 2020). The companies have realized the worth of CRM/E-CRM in acquiring and retaining customers for a much longer period. Whether it be a small or a big company, everyone is indulging themselves in enhancing long-lasting relationships with their customers as they have understood the saying that it is the customers who are the king (Das et al., 2018). To meet the objectives of customer-centric, CRM systems need to evolve further to improve their predictive and precision power and at the same time also aim at delivering valuable experiences to their customers. That is the reason, the investment in technology sector in CRM has increased to 44% from 38% in the preceding year (SuperOffice, 2021). The companies have understood the fact that there is a need to change the CRM systems to E-CRM systems in order to incorporate the digital demands of their customers and provide them with seamless services at their fingertips (Herman et al., 2020). Still, the significance of E-CRM is not yet utilized in Indian perspectives as the majority of the research in the area of E-CRM is studied in the developed nations (Mang’unyi et al., 2018). E-CRM is still in an “infancy” stage in India which is needed to grow at a much higher level keeping in view the necessity of digital transformation. Therefore, investment in E-CRM is a need of an hour. E-CRM is defined as “the marketing activities, tools and techniques, delivered over the Internet (using technologies such as web sites and e-mail, data capture, data warehousing and data mining) with a specific aim to locate, build and improve long-term customer relationships to enhance their individual potential” (Lee-Kelley et al., 2003, p. 241). E-CRM is a process that consists of a combination of hardware, software, processes, applications and commitment of management practices to establish much higher quality of customer service and customer maintenance and is considered to be one of the most powerful and effective applications of information systems (Usman et al., 2012). E-CRM has been considered as a part of online marketing, which is similar to traditional CRM tools but is implementing use of electronic channels with electronic businesses to form E-CRM strategy for the organization (Gartner, 2021).
Another vital issue is customer loyalty which is still one of the most significant factors for any service sector to overcome (Khan et al., 2020). The reasons for not being able to achieve customer loyalty are highly competitive business environment, rapid changes in taste and preferences of the customers, lack of attention to the needs and demands of the customers', deficiency of resources and lack of tactics (Herhausen et al., 2019). This has made the companies lose their existing and old customers to their competitors. Therefore, there is a desperate need to gain the loyalty of the customers which can only be possible by investing more time and efforts in managing durable relationships with the customers (Mang’unyi et al., 2018), creating memorable experiences for them and satisfying their needs and wants (Mulyono & Situmorang, 2018).