Customer relationship management (CRM) has long been used through digital platforms, mainly to enhance the customer experience, offering collaboration through shared characteristics, adding value and advocacy (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012).
In a recent publication via (Gartner, 2015), a hype cycle was constructed of underlying trends, emerging trends and prevailing trends, one prevailing trend indicating that “CRM is dead”, describing the need for brands to focus on curating customers into advocates by offering them the platforms and the ability to become their salespeople’s. Is CRM really dead, and how can brand advocates be formed?
Through social media it is suggested that “marketers should focus on new uses for idea management, market research, social media engagement, social analytics, and social campaigns”. Moreover, B2B marketers are now investing in B2C technologies to maximise data mining, customer segmentation, behavioural analytics, multichannel campaigns, and real time marketing” (Levy, 2015).