Implementing e-CRM using Intelligent Agents on the Internet

Internet has opened new doors between a company and its customers as companies are preparing to shift their focus from transaction to relationships. Today it is widely acknowledged that how a company treats its customers goes a long way in determining its future profitability, and companies are making bigger and bigger investments on it. Firms that develop strategies and technologies for implementing customer relationship management, with the most profitable customers, become winners in the intensely competitive, dynamic markets of the digital economy. Intelligent agents are a rapidly developing area of research. It is an emerging technology, which has its roots firmly in AI research. With the proliferation and evolution of the Internet, it has also increasingly emerged as a means to achieve customer satisfaction and delight by the way of extensive e-CRM. However, it is not yet very clear how agents can be used in the domain of e-CRM. In the first part, this paper provides an overview of intelligent agents. The second part presents the ways in which enhanced customer attainment and retention can be achieved with e-CRM. Finally an integrated model is proposed wherein we suggest how intelligent agents can be used as powerful tool to achieve e-CRM over the Internet.