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Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2006 Managing Customer Relationships through Mobile Medium – Underlying Issues and Opportunities Jaakko Sinisalo*, Jari Salo, Heikki Karjaluoto and Matti Leppäniemi Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Oulu, P.O.Box 4600, FIN-90014 University of Oulu, Finland [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] * Please address correspondence to first author Abstract Although customer relationship management (CRM) is currently gaining widespread popularity in several disciplines and industries, mobile medium as an element of CRM is rarely taken into consideration. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, to guarantee a coherent discussion about phenomenon, a preliminary conceptualization of mobile customer relationship management (mCRM) is presented. Second, the authors illustrate the underlying issues of the initiation of mCRM. A single case study method is used for the empirical component of the study. In more detail, a major retailer that implemented mCRM and use mobile medium to promote CRM activities is investigated. The main results of the study indicate that while there are a lot of uncertainties related to adopting mCRM, the mobile medium can be an effective complement to traditional CRM. The paper finally presents contributions, limitations and avenues for further research of this emerging topic. 1. Introduction Customer relationship management (CRM) [e.g. 1, 2] has gained lately widespread popularity in many disciplines and industries. Relying on the proposition that customer relationships are a true source of competitive advantage [3], the objective of CRM is to build and maintain customer relationships by encompassing the sales, marketing, and customer service activities. In order to build and maintain long-term relationships with customers, companies should provide differentiated relationship value and communicate continuously and consistently with each of their customers [4]. For this purpose, new digital marketing channels, such as the Internet and mobile phones, are considered powerful channels to reach customers because they allow personalization and interactivity of the content and the context of the message [e.g. 5, 6]. Moreover, digital channels are seen to create unique and positive experiences to customers by mixing aspects of products, service, brand, and communication – not just transactions [7], and making it possible for companies to develop interactive and relationship-building contacts with their potential and current customers [8]. Despite the potential of digital channels, only the Internet as a channel to manage customer relationships (eCRM) has attracted a lot of attention among academics [9-11], whereas understanding of managing customer relationships through the mobile medium has gained far less attention [12]. In practice, the possibilities created by the mobile medium have lead to situation that several companies and industries have started to utilize mobile medium to promote CRM activities. By utilizing mobile medium, companies aspire at advance activities with the customer in the sense of saving time, cost and inconvenience. For example, Finnair (the national airline of Finland) is the first company in the world to adopt a mobile phone service for their loyal customers that enables passengers to check-in in advance for flights with SMS (short message service) message. By using this service, passengers can go directly to the departure gate without the hassle of waiting in the check-in line. The advantage for the customer is, in addition to saving time and being easy to use, that the details of a flight are automatically stored on the mobile phone and are accessible whenever needed. In this light, relatively little is known about mobile customer relationship management (hereafter referred to as mCRM), and from marketing perspective we are still dealing with an extremely unacknowledged phenomenon. The purpose of this study is twofold. As the conceptual agreement is necessary prerequisite for coherent discussion about phenomenon, first a preliminary conceptualization of mCRM is presented. Subsequently, in order to increase our understanding of this, the present 0-7695-2507-5/06/$20.00 (C) 2006 IEEE 1 Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2006 study deals with the underlying issues that companies have to take into account when moving towards mCRM. In order to do this, this study analyses the phenomena from company’s i.e. retailer’s point of view. The remainder of this study is structured as follows. First, a preliminary conceptualization of mCRM is presented. Second, the theoretical background of this paper that motivates our research is discussed. Then, based on the conceptualization and the theoretical background, the possible implications of mCRM for the business are evaluated. Fourth, the key aspects of initiation of mCRM are described. Fifth, the data collection method of this study is described. Sixth, the underlying issues of initiation of mCRM based on the results of the empirical analysis are presented. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the results for both theory and practice, outlining the main limitations of the work and identifying avenues for further research in this emerging field. 2. A preliminary conceptualization of mCRM The purpose of this section is to present a preliminary conceptualization of the mCRM. Then, the proposed conceptualization is used to examine the correspondence between mCRM and CRM. As mCRM has only recently aroused interest in academic research, no formal conceptualization of mCRM currently exists. Before any phenomenon can be comprehensively understood, it must be concisely and clearly defined. As mentioned before, without the consensual definition of key concepts, there cannot be coherent discussion about the phenomenon. Unless a concept, such as mCRM, possesses a common meaning, its economic, financial, behavioral, other boundaries will be blurred [13]. When a concept is deeply embedded with technology, as is the case with mCRM, there is a tendency to mistake the technologies for the concept itself [14]. Therefore, it is necessary to separate the concept from its underlying technologies to accomplish the conceptualization without the subject to the volatility of technological changes. On this basis, mCRM is defined for the purpose of this study as utilizing mobile medium (i.e. mobile phone, smart phone or PDA) for the purpose of managing customer relationships and activate customers to start dialogue with company via mobile medium. Based on the definition, the concept of mCRM is argued to involve of the following characteristics: • It involves communication, either one-way or interactive, for the purpose of build or maintain customer relationships between company and its customer • • • • • The communication refers to sales, marketing, and customer service activities conducted through mobile medium between the company and the customer Communication can be initiated by either the company or the customer Communication refers to SMS (short message service), MMS (multimedia service), JAVA application and browsing – based communication, making difference to the voice calls through mobile or fixed-line phone At least one of the parties engaged in communication must be human and, naturally, communicate through mobile medium Mobile medium is seen as a complementary channel for CRM activities, instead of seeing it as a substitute of traditional ones The characteristics states that communication has vital role in mCRM. In order to provide value for the customer, communication should be continuous, consistent and based on individual customers’ preferences. In general, communication through mobile medium can occur in the form of information, advertising, promoting, feedback, shopping, ordering, alerts, reminders, votes, competitions, lotteries to mention few. However, for initiating this kind of communication with customers, the necessary prerequisite for the company is to get the permission from customers [15-17]. In other words, customers have to be already registered or have otherwise beforehand given their acceptance for the communication through mobile medium. When thinking about mCRM, the communication form depends on the purpose of it. To build customer relationships, competitions and lotteries are argued to be most suitable. For the purpose of enhancing customer maintenance, company can send any kinds of sales, marketing, or customer service messages based on individual preferences via mobile medium to customers signed up to the loyalty program. In addition, like the characteristics of mCRM stated communication can be initiated by the customer as well. For example, the customer may see an advertisement on a magazine, and makes an order for the advertised product by using SMS message without giving any contact information. The company can identify the customer based on the phone number and, consequently, respond to the order and send a confirmation SMS to customer including details of the purchase, order reference and contact number. To further elaborate and to accurately define the mCRM concept, it is also critical to establish how it relates to CRM and why it is important to make the distinction between these two terms. Although mobile medium is just one channel to manage customer relationships in the multi-channel environment [18], the rules that companies will encounter 2 Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2006 for utilizing it are different than in traditional channels. These differences are mostly due to the unique features of the mobile medium. Naturally, some of the customer relationships management activities conducted through mobile medium are similar to activities conducted through traditional channels (e.g. fax, phone, letter, personal, personal contact). Despite this, in most cases mCRM activities are purely designed to utilize the unique features of the mobile medium. For instance, check-in service of Finnair (mentioned in introduction) is a good example of personalized service designed for and useful only in the mobile medium. In addition, the challenges of utilizing mobile medium in managing customer relationships are unique. The personal nature of mobile medium sets up very high standards to communication in mCRM. As the companies cannot afford to irritate the customers even once [see e.g. 19, 20], finding the right way to communicate with the customers is very challenging. Small screen size, differences in devices, slow download times with current telecommunications networks, and different technological standards are other issues making communication even more challenging. To highlight the different nature of mCRM and clarify the discussion among practitioners and academics, it is suggested to make a difference between the terms mCRM and CRM. The relevant theoretical background for mCRM stems from CRM literature evolving from marketing tradition. Therefore, the next section is dedicated to the review of CRM literature and state-of-art review of mCRM. 3. Theoretical background of mCRM Several authors have clearly pointed towards a high level of association between CRM and relationship marketing [21, 22], and some authors do not even make any distinction between the terms [8, 23]. The term relationship marketing (RM) was initially coined by Berry [24] who defined it as attracting, maintaining and – in multiservice organizations – enhancing customer relationships. This emphasis on relationships is redefining how companies are interacting with their customers [25, 26]. On the other hand, elements common to all definitions of CRM include leveraging technology to engage individual customers in a meaningful dialogue so that firms can customize their products and services to attract new customers, develop relationships, and retain existing customers [27]. While RM does not acknowledge the technology underlying the management of customers, CRM is described in this study as using information technology (IT) in implementing relationship marketing strategies [28]. As such, CRM unites the potential new technologies and RM thinking to deliver profitable, longterm relationships [29]. The main reason underlying the adoption of CRM among most of the companies is an attempt to achieve a competitive advantage by offering more value to customers. The customer value is striven by an approach to differentiating the management of individual customer relationships. But implementing a software tool alone to manage customer relationships does not guarantee such results [27]. Although the role of IT is seen crucial in accomplishing this objective, CRM is much more than a pure technology [30]. So, basically CRM enables a company to become familiar with its customers. Acquiring a better understanding of customers allows companies to interact, respond, and communicate more effectively with them [2]. Enabled by advanced technologies, companies can gather up an unprecented amount of data about their customers; demographics, psychographics, buying behavior and history. The existence of customer data does not merely lead to understanding of customers. To be useful, the companies have to turn this data into customer information and, subsequently, know how to utilize this information for CRM purposes. In other words, CRM is about how customer information is used to create more personal interaction with the customers by taking advantage of technology. Accordingly, CRM requires information from all relevant departments to be centralized to customer database so that customer information can be used intelligently to develop relationships with customers. In addition, the central database in which the customers’ information is stored should be available for responsible for the CRM activities company widely. By accessing the central customer database, responsible personnel have an opportunity to “know” each individual customer [31]. Moreover, customer databases enable companies to provide more satisfying and consistent relationship with customers, regardless of the channel the customer chooses to interact with. By utilizing the CRM in the right manner, companies can move closer to their customers, and use more effort in finding new ways to create value for their customers. By the aid of CRM solutions, companies can have up-to-date information of customers gained directly from customer interaction. Based on the understanding of customers, CRM allows for more targeted campaigns and tracking of campaign effectiveness [32]. In the long-term, it produces a method of continuous analysis and refinement in order to enhance customers’ lifetime value with the company [33]. For customers, CRM offers better value based on customization, simplicity, and convenience for completing transactions [34]. In other words, customers may benefit from the belief that they are saving time and money as well as receiving better information and special treatment. In addition the customer support is strengthened, because all customer contact from sales, support, field service and 3 Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2006 marketing are centralized increasing customer satisfaction and retention [31]. CRM requires that the company manages and coordinates the customer interactions across different customer touch-points. For a relatively long time, customers have expected to interact with companies for example via phone, fax, e-mail, and Internet. As the uppermost purpose of CRM is the ability to communicate with customers on an individual basis, mobile medium represent an appealing additional channel that can complement the existing channels [19, 35]. Since mobile technologies have become ubiquitous, customers have begun to expect to interact with companies via mobile medium on anytime and anywhere basis as well. Several industries have attracted to the potential of utilizing mobile medium and used it to activities which can be classified as being part of mCRM. In Finland, mCRM has attained a substantial number of industries. For example, the customers of all major mobile operators, Finnish national airline and banks can perform various activities through mobile medium. The passengers in the public transport in the capital area of Finland can order and buy their tickets as SMS-message. In addition, some retailers and restaurants are among one of the first to promote services and activities through mobile medium. Indeed, the potential of mCRM is acknowledged also among academics [15, 35, 36] although the empirical research is still quite scarce. Therefore, mCRM systems will be a requisite to compete and retain customers who are mobile users [37]. Now that we have discussed about the theoretical background of mCRM, it is time to take a closer look at the possible implications mCRM for the business in B2Ccontext. Although utilization of mobile medium to promote CRM activities is a relatively new area, it enables novel ways for managing customer relationships which were not possible before. There are several reasons behind high expectations laid to mobile medium in using it for CRM purposes. For example, mobile medium is considered to be powerful opportunity to reach customers [5, 6], offering various opportunities for the company to plan and implement more advanced ways to communicate with the customers. Especially, the SMS is seen as immediate, automated, reliable, personal, discreet and customized channel making allowing an efficient way to reach customers directly. Additionally, mobile medium allows high speed message delivery, relatively low cost and high retention rates [40, 41]. Because of these characteristics, mCRM is likely to be suitable also for the industries, such as retailing, involving a lot of customers to communicate with. To further elaborate mobile medium, the most essential characteristic that differentiates the mobile from traditional media is the concept of interactivity [42, 43]. Interactivity means two-way communication enabling real-time dialogue between company and its customers as well as the opportunity to the instant response for both of the parties [15]. In other words, mobile medium transcend traditional communication by incorporating interactivity. In that sense, it seems that mobile medium may not have a comparative alternative when building a continuing dialogue between the company and the customer [42, 44]. Before the presentation of the case study and methodology related to it, the key aspects about the initiation of mCRM are described and briefly discussed in the next section 5. Key aspects for initiation of mCRM 4. Possible implications of mCRM for the business The essence of convergence between CRM and mobile medium is to make both the customers’ and companies’ “life” easier for doing business with each other. In this study, it is argued that the utilization of mobile medium may offer several benefits to both the companies and the customers. The benefits may include learning from and about customers, revealing their needs and interests, and on this basis, making it possible to provide customers with better and more personalized service. For example, the Internet has given power for the customers to get up-to-date information, ability to more easily compare products and services, and to get in touch with companies [38, 39]. In other words, mCRM aims at finding ways to make customers’ interaction and relationship with the company more positive by saving time, frustration, costs and inconvenience. As mentioned earlier, technology plays the substantial role in CRM [45]. Because this kind of information system development often includes major uncertainties [46], the technological issues have an even more vital role in the initiation of mCRM. In addition, customers will not begin using their mobile phones for new functions simply because new technology exists. Despite, the key challenge is to get the customers to open and use the company’s mobile portal [47]. To sum up, in order to start the mCRM companies have to build the technology underlying mCRM and, accordingly, solve the technological uncertainties related to it. Subsequently, companies have to find the marketing means to attract customers’ attention and gain them to initiate customer dialogue over a mobile phone. So, at the initiation of mCRM, there are two aspects to consider: (1) technology and (2) marketing. In the next section, the methodology that helped us to gain an understanding of the subject phenomenon and to further evaluate these key aspects is described. 4 Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2006 6. Methodology The present study pursues a deep understanding of the subject phenomenon in a specific setting. Retailing in Finland forms the empirical context. Because this study is focusing on underlying technology and marketing related issues of mCRM in real-life context, the case study method is regarded as suitable for this study [48, 49]. Case selection is a crucial phase in case research and therefore literature is full of advice on how to select cases [50-54]. Nevertheless, the decision, as to how many, and which cases are selected, is left to the researcher [53]. Here, our empirical strategy is a single-case study i.e. one central company forms the case. Taking into account the purpose of this study, the single-case study is seen as appropriate choice for two reasons. First, the aim is to gain an indepth understanding from this complex subject under investigation. Hence, choosing a single-case study allows to taking a holistic and thorough view of the case. Second, as the information of this kind of issues is often latent and confldential, the researcher must have access to an organization to be able to identify them [49]. The choice undoubtedly influences the generalizability of the results of the study [50]. Therefore, the choice of single case study means that this study does not aim at statistical generalization based on hypothesis testing. The empirical part of this study consists of various kinds of data. The objective of data collection was to get rich primary data from the studied phenomenon by interviewing people who have been actively involved in developing the mCRM in a particular company. Therefore, two in-depth-interviews of retailer’s key informants form the main data source through which the issues in the initiation of mCRM are identified [55, 56]. Both interviews were conducted with the CEO, the marketing manager and key technology officers of the company. By using multiple informants the authors has increased both reliability and validity of the research [56, 57]. In addition, using key informants inside cases enhances the understanding of the companies and the cases [58]. CEO of the case company was chosen to be interviewed because of his ability of giving a holistic picture of the business surrounding the phenomenon under investigation. By the aid of the interview of marketing manager, the authors could take a closer look at the marketing related issues, while the key technology officers gave us viewpoint from the technology related issues of the studied phenomenon. In addition, participant observation, company reports, presentations and other documents were used to validate the findings obtained from the interviews [for data triangulation see e.g. 59]. Finally, the key aspects and the underlying issues related to them was presented to on industry expert, i.e. chief technology officer for the leading mobile marketing and mCRM technology company in the Europe, to be evaluated and commented on. The result is presented in the next section. The identities of the respondents and the company are not revealed due to confidentiality issues. 7. Initiation of mCRM: a case study The key aspects presented in chapter 5 were further evaluated in the context of retailing. Because SMS messaging is the most successful mobile service in the world, it is chosen to be focus of the investigated phenomenon. In Finland, over 2.2 billion SMS messages were sent in 2004 and the figure is estimated to grow steadily in the years 2005 and 2006 [60]. The company of this single-case study has two nonfood department stores in two different cities and is one of the biggest retailers in Finland (in terms of annual turnover). The process of the initiation of mCRM was followed from August until December 2004 in this particular company. In the light of the case study we propose that the initiation of mCRM is based on several technological and marketing related issues as shown in Figure 1. 7.1. Technological level At the technological level, there are five critical issues to discuss. These revolve around the sourcing and implementation of mCRM technology enabling communication through mobile medium. The first issue is that the company had to acquire mCRM server, to be capable of handle, i.e. send, receive and store, unprecented amount of SMS and MMS messages. The company has to decide either to build in-house expertise or rely on partner, and whether to use a managed or a hosted solution. In this case, the company decided to start mCRM with a hosted mobile marketing platform provided by one of leading companies in the mobile marketing and mCRM applications market. The second issue is that the company had to decide how to acquire a short message service number (the number which directs SMS messages from mobile phones to mCRM server). In Finland, the user applies for the number from the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA). To avoid this application procedure, the company can also rent a short message service number from some mobile marketing service provider. Basically, all of them have short message service numbers which can be used when company do not have the short message service number on their own or have no interest to apply the number at the very beginning of the mCRM process. In this case, the company decided to rent the number. 5 Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2006 Server Permission database Number Gateways Technology Marketing Media mix Campaign Logic Pricing Figure 1: Issues underlying the initiation of mCRM The third issue at the technological level concerns the total number of service operators needed to reach target audience i.e. connections opened to operator’s messaging network. Basically, the target audience for every campaign will span all major networks of a particular country. Consequently, the campaign must connect to all networks. In Finland, there are approximately seventeen service operators. The complexity of connecting to each network directly is significant and has led to situation where marketers are in troubled waters when deciding to start mCRM in-house. However, major service operators are providing service for connecting their messaging network. The service is often called messaging interface, which enables sending and receiving SMS- and MMSmessages between mobile devices and companies’ information systems. Basically, this service includes three different connections: content gateway, short dial number / SMS number, and pricing service. The set-up expenses of mCRM are considerably high, because of all above mentioned connection charges have to be paid for every service operator connected to the mobile marketing server. In this case, altogether seven major service operators were connected to the mCRM server. Basically, all mobile subscribers were able to start SMS dialogue with the company. The fourth issue for the company to consider is that the campaign logic has to built into mCRM server, because mCRM campaign can not be run before that. Campaign logic refers the details that customers are supposed to answer i.e. the details that are asked from the customers during the campaign. Without the campaign logic, the server can not receive and store messages sent by the service users. In addition, the data received from customers is almost impossible to turn into customer information without the logic. To be sure that relevant information will be saved to the database, accurate plan have to be made. All these logic related issues has to be implemented to the server before a launch of a mCRM campaign. In this case, the campaign logic consists of keyword, age, gender, and interest areas. By the aid of the keyword, mobile marketing server can identify received messages to be belonged to the particular campaign. Age, gender and interest areas were asked, and will be used in the future to send personalized communication to customers. The fifth issue is pricing i.e. the price collected from the subscriber has to be decided. Basically, there are three options for setting up the price per message sent by service user. The first option is a normal SMS price, which is a price according to the pricelist of the operator in question charged from the service user. The second option is a free SMS message, which means that the service is free of charge for the service user. The last option is a premium-rate SMS message, which means that the price collected from the service user is determined on the basis of the premium rate price categories provided by the operator in question. In this case, the customers were charged the normal SMS price (cost per send message for the customer was from 2 to 14 cents). In the light of the above, the company can, basically, rely to the partner i.e. some mobile marketing service provider that take care of all issues related to technological side of initiation or solve them on in-house basis. Neither approach - building in-house or relying on partners - is inherently better than the other. It depends entirely on the position, ambitions and resources of the company in question. 6 Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2006 7.2. Marketing level Since technically implemented, the key challenge is to find marketing means to attract customers’ attention and gain them to initiate dialogue with the company in question. At this marketing level, there are two issues to discuss. The first issue at the marketing level to consider is how to attract the attention of the potential customers to use mobile medium in communication. Because the attraction is pursued by the aid of the other mediums, the initiation of mCRM for the very first time has, therefore, the same basic principles as any other traditional marketing campaign. The company must identify the target audience, determine communication objectives, design the message, choose the medium through which to lure customers’ attention, and finally collect feedback to measure the promotion’s results. When considering mCRM after the initiation, a concept should be incorporated into the overall marketing strategy. To undertake a new series of campaigns based merely on the mobile medium or integration mobile medium to existing marketing channels. The latter option, where the mobile medium is integrated to existing marketing campaigns on other media has proven to be the most effective and efficient [61]. In other words, mCRM campaigns complement other media, such as television, print and Internet, and vice versa. In this case, the newspaper was used to attract the customer to join into the mCRM campaign. The second issue is to think carefully about where they obtained the details of the target group from and whether they are in fact able to send mCRM messages to these people because of legal constraints. Basically, there are three different ways to obtain a database of opt-in mobile numbers; purchasing, renting or developing the database of your own. The company in question decided to develop or collect the database independently, in order to get prior permission to start mobile dialogue with its customers. The collection of the database was organized around a marketing campaign, where the company was asking customers to send their personal information, such as mobile phone numbers, as well as names and addresses, preferences and a permission to send messages to end user’s mobile phone via SMS to the retailer. The customers could also sign up to the loyalty program. By signing in for the loyalty program, customers automatically opt-in to the company’s permission based mCRM database. The campaign was successful as almost 18 000 out of over 22 000 respondents (approximately over 80 percent) signed up to the loyalty program and gave their permission. The incentive for the customers to give their personal information was a chance to win a brand new car in a lottery. In addition, valuable information and special offers promised to send via SMS those, who gave permission. In addition to these technology and marketing related issues discussed above, mCRM has to integrate with existing CRM system, as the mCRM solution chosen must have ability to provide complete integration with the existing CRM system. This system integration is necessary condition for achieving effective management of interactions across and information coordination between different customer touch points (e.g., Internet, direct mail, sales call, mobile medium). Naturally, the integration is necessary prerequisite for mCRM in that case that mCRM relies upon the existing CRM database. As shown in this case, permission database can be gathered also purely for mCRM purposes. Nowadays, extending CRM to mobile medium is not as complicated and many CRM systems already support the extension of CRM to mobile medium. To summarize, to initiate mCRM the companies have several issues to consider. We found that acquiring or rent hosting of a mobile marketing server, sourcing and setting up a short number to handle inbound and outbound messages, connections to the networks, the development of campaign logic, and setting the message price are the key technological issues at the initiation stage of mCRM. From marketing perspective, a database of mobile numbers for the desired target audience, and the integration of mobile marketing in companies’ overall promotion mix should be taken in consideration when designing a mCRM campaign. 8. Conclusion and future research directions This paper sheds a light on the emerging phenomenon called mCRM stemmed from the convergence between CRM evolving from marketing tradition and mobile medium. The goal of this study was twofold. First, to assure a coherent discussion about phenomenon, a preliminary conceptualization of this phenomenon was presented in chapter 2. Second, the issues that companies have to take into account when moving towards mCRM were illustrated in order to increase our understanding about the phenomenon. On the grounds of the case study, contributions of this paper are further discussed in the following. The theoretical contribution of this article lies on outlining the critical issues affecting the initiation of mCRM. Furthermore, the key aspects of the initiation of mCRM were presented and further verified and tested with empirical data. In a nutshell, the aspects of initiation of mCRM consist of technology and marketing related issues. The technology based issues of initiation of mCRM were: • acquiring server, • setting up a short number, • building gateways to service operators, • development of campaign logic and 7 Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2006 • setting the message price charged from customers The marketing based issues were: • gathering the customer database, and • choosing the right media mix. Because mCRM is becoming an issue of major importance across different lines of business, this paper provides significant insights for marketing managers as well. Based on this study we argue, that as customers increasingly expect to be able to choose which channel they use for interacting with company, companies should take advantage of these emerging channels as well. By utilizing this mobile technology, customers are always reachable and companies therefore have, the opportunity to manage these customers involved in mCRM in an effective manner. On the other hand, customers can always be interrupted as well by the companies. Therefore, to succeed in developing mCRM strategies for customers, companies need to understand how to communicate with them on their terms [47]. In addition, as the mobile medium allows personalized and interactive marketing messages which are almost impossible through other mediums, it is seen as a powerful medium to complement traditional CRM based on traditional marketing channels. For companies to be innovative in engaging with customers, mobile medium is seen as an effective way to communicate with the customer continuously and consistently providing opportunities almost impossible through other media. However, approaching mobile medium as a separate project may result in an inconsistent and unsatisfactory customer experience. Therefore, the greatest challenge for companies is how to integrate mobile medium with traditional media effectively. The findings of our study should be interpreted in the light of certain limitations. Because our empirical results are based on a single-case study in one country only, we should not draw far reaching conclusions from the data. Given the early stage of the market and lack of profound empirical evidence on mCRM, the results do suggest avenues for future studies. First of all, further research is needed of this emerging topic to conceptualize and define mCRM in more precise manner. Second, the natural extension of the study would be to look at how mCRM is utilized in different kinds of companies ranging from B2B to B2C markets. In addition, future studies could also test and further develop the presented conceptual model to understand how to effectively utilize means of mobile marketing in CRM. Acknowledgements: The financial support of the National Technology Agency of Finland is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also wish to thank the organizations whose invaluable collaboration has made this work possible. 9. 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