The Human-Centered Experience of mCRM
Kirsten Woodhams-Thomson
Department of Computer Science
The University of Waikato
Hamilton, New Zealand
kthomson@cs.waikato.ac.nz
ABSTRACT
Motivation – Mobile customer relationship
management (mCRM) is an emerging business strategy,
technology and area of research. We aim to learn how
to develop mCRM technologies that provide the human
with more fun and engaging experiences.
Research approach – This paper presents a brief
review of the literature on CRM, mobile technologies
and human experiences with the goal of understanding
directions for future research.
Findings – It will be important for our ongoing research
to adopt human centered design approach that involves
real customers and users throughout the entire process
and in contexts where the technologies will be used.
Keywords
CRM, mCRM, mobile, human experience, customer
experience, user experience, human-centered design,
customer-centered design, user-centered design,
funology
INTRODUCTION
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business
strategy and set of software programmes aimed to
develop and improve relationships with customers.
Recent development in mobile technologies (global
positioning tools, multimedia applications, and so on)
have opened up new possibilities for engaging and
interacting with customers. For mCRM to be accepted
and used by customers it will be important that offering
meet the motives of the customer with regard to their
desires for a relationship with the business, and provide
a usable, attractive, pleasurable and enjoyable
experience.
This paper explores the converging topics of customer
relationship management, mobile technologies and
human experience.
BACKGROUND
Customer Relationship Management
Simply put, CRM is about how a business manages the
relationship between itself and its customers. CRM is:
1. A set of sales, marketing and customer service
strategies designed to maximise the business'
profits (Sinisalo et al., 2005) that are put in place
to:
a) Attract new customers.
b) Gain loyalty from existing customers.
c) Lower business costs (Chan and Lam, 2004).
2. A set of sales, marketing and customer service
software programs used to gather information about
the customer.
CRM software tools fall into two groups. The first
group of tools are business facing tools e.g. sales force
automation, contact management systems, marketing
automation and customer service tools. The second
group of tools are customer facing i.e. tools that
customers can use to help interact with the business e.g.
websites for information provision, e-commerce sites
for product purchases, mobile applications, and so on.
It is the customer facing tools (business-to-customer,
B2C) that we focus on in this paper.
But “There Is a Paradox”
There has been much research on CRM as a business
strategy within the management disciplines. Equally,
information systems research has focused on the
development of the business facing software tools.
Usability practitioners have been drawn by the design of
websites and e-commerce sites, so much so that they
have shifted their “focus” from the usability
(functionality, utility, effectiveness and efficiency) of
the tools to the “experiences” of the users and/or
customers of the tools.
And here lies a number of paradoxes:
• Users are not customers, but customers are users
and expect such attributes as ease of use when
using a product.
• Research of experiences, and experience design,
has been followed up by little practical application.
The “focus” has not shifted from usability but
instead the terminology has been altered.
Therefore, designing and testing for aspects of
experience are not frequently performed in
practice.
• Although part of the business relationship is to
deliver “a seamless customer experience across all
networks, channels and services” (Shen et al.,
2009), the customer is often “left out of the
solution” (Reinhold and Alt, 2009, p.97). Little
research is conducted into understanding
customers' motives and wishes regarding their
 relationship with the business (Reinhold and Alt,
2009).
Mobile Technology
Wireless communication enables communication and
interaction transfer across distance without the use of
wires. This allows any time, any place connectivity.
In this paper, we focus our attention on mobile
technologies that will be used by typical customers in
their daily lives, and which businesses will utilise within
their CRM strategies. Mobile devices include mobile
telephones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Invisible networks, provided by a mobile operator or the
carrier, enable the devices to communicate with each
other over a wide geographical area. Mobile
technologies offer an array of features. Older devices,
e.g. feature phones, provide the most basic tools: voice
calls, SMS, games, alarms and calendars. More
sophisticated tools, e.g. smartphones, offer many more
applications: video, global positioning service (GPS),
touchpad display screens, internet access, built-in
sensors, etc.
As stated by Consolazio (2004), “years of innovation
and competition across the industry have yielded
tremendous benefits for end users, driving down the
cost of wireless devices and services while dramatically
improving their power, functionality and overall utility.”
Mobile users – a person who is expected to be and
expecting to be “on the move” – demand mobile tools in
any place and at any time (Reinhold and Alt, 2009,
p.98). Mobile devices are convenient to use, as due to
technologies such as GPS, users can access personalised
(Kenteris and Gavalas, 2009) location-based and value-
added (Basole, 2007) applications and services
(Kenteris and Gavalas, 2009). However, using a mobile
in any place and at any time adds stressors to its use:
• The amount of device memory and storage space
(Kenteris and Gavalas, 2009) means that large
applications can not be easily downloaded and
used. Although, we note this issue may be met
with the use of cloud computing technologies.
• Limited bandwidths (Chan and Lam, 2004;
Kenteris and Gavalas, 2009) (although bandwidth
limitations are constantly improving (Basole,
2007)) mean that on-demand applications and
services may be slow and tedious to use .
• Poor network coverage (Chan and Lam, 2004)
means that users may not be able to use their
devices where ever and when ever they want.
• Small screen displays (Chan and Lam, 2004;
Harding et al., 2009; Kenteris and Gavalas, 2009)
particularly on feature phones but even on
smartphones and PDAs (compare the size of a
mobile screen to a computer screen for example)
means that limited information can be displayed at
one time causing overall interaction to be more
tedious and fiddly.
• Difficulty in input and output formats (Chan and
Lam, 2004; Kenteris and Gavalas, 2009; York and
Pendharkar, 2004; Harding et al., 2009;). Feature
phones utilize keypad buttons which requires heavy
use of thumb control. The larger touch pad screens
of later phones enable use by a special pen device,
but the environment and context of use may make
even this difficult to use.
• The cognitive resources of the users (Harding et
al., 2009; York and Pendharkar, 2004) e.g. consider
the task the user is involved in (York and
Pendharkar, 2004) – driving for example; the user's
attention due to environmental constraints (Harding
et al., 2009; York and Pendharkar, 2004) –
avoiding objects while walking for example; and
the varying interaction models, even on the same
device.
• Limited colour and font support (Kenteris and
Gavalas, 2009; York and Pendharkar, 2004) for the
older mobile technologies.
• The high cost of wireless connections (Kenteris
and Gavalas, 2009), where nearly everything a user
does with their mobile device, especially while
roaming, will be at a price.
The Second Paradox
There has been a lot of research into mobile
technologies, with much focus on networks, hardware
design and functionality, but as (Harper and Taylor,
2009, p.1) state “the problem of understanding how
people themselves orient to and act with
communications technologies in a way that gives
priority to the overall experience and motivations
behind that use which accords what users themselves
think they are about” has still to be addressed.
Kjeldskov and Graham (2003) further indicate that few
real-world real-context studies have been conducted.
Harper and Taylor (2009) go further and suggest that
human-centered research, through HCI research, of
mobile technologies have “not really been too interested
in philisophical reflections on the object, the human, at
the heart of its inquiries. It has tended to take a rather
middle-of-the-road, somewhat behaviourist view.” (p.2).
Human Experience
Early on in this paper we touched on the human
experiences with CRM and mobile technologies. When
a person sees, hears, touches, controls or communicates,
the interaction, the event, leaves an impression on the
person. The impression may be influenced by the
context of the situation and the environment and
location the person is in. The person judges the
phenomena based on previously held tangible or
conceptualized expectations and understandings.
Judgement is often made at an intangible, subjective,
emotional level that involves the person's memory,
imagination, and feelings (Havelena and Holbrook,
1986).
Human experiences in the contexts of this paper involve
customer and user experiences. These are similar
concepts but differ in their focus.
Customer experience is predominantly a marketing
domain. It focuses on the motives and goals of people
in relation to direct or indirect contact with the business
through marketing, sales, customer service, and general
use of the services or products. The contacts are called
touchpoints and are made throughout the customer-
relationship lifecycle.
User experience research is a research area of Human
Computer Interaction (HCI). It focuses on the tasks and
activities a person undergoes when trying to achieve a
goal in relation to a particular product. It is about the
experience gained through direct manipulation of the
product. User experience researchers seek to improve
the usage experience by improving the design of the
product. It is about the experience a person has while
using a product. User experience and what experience
means in relation to product design is still undergoing a
definition process.
Of great interest to us and our research into CRM and
mobile tools, is the developing concept of funology,
where the experience should be fun, enjoying,
pleasureable (Blythe and Hassenzahl, 2004), good, and
beautiful (Overbeeke et al., 2003).
We enjoy Carroll's (2004) perspective as we believe it
sits well with the concepts of human experience, where
customers and users want to be engaged and satisfied
among other things: “Things are fun whey they attract,
capture, and hold our attention by provoking new or
unusual perceptions, arousing emotions in contexts that
typically arouse none, or arousing emotions not
typically aroused in a given context. Things are fun
when they surprise us, when they don't feel like they
look, when they don't sound like they feel. Things are
fun when they present challenges or puzzles to us as we
try to make sense and construct interpretations, when
they transparently suggest what can be done, provide
guidance in the doing, and then instantaneous and
adequate feedback and task closure.”
Yet again, we are faced with the dilemma of funology
not having an agreed upon definition or set of terms.
Perhaps this is not an issue for the moment. But to
further our understandings of funology, it will be
important to consider the following issues raised by
Blythe and Hassenzahl (2003):
• Which terms encompass the concepts of funology?
• What do these terms mean?
• How can they be described?
• Are they the same or are they different, perhaps
depending on the context of the experience?
• Can they be used to describe all experiences or
only a subset of experiences?
• Do we need to consider fluidness, length [and
intensity] of experience, repetition, progressions,
frequencies, contexts, relevances and trivialities?
• What do the terms mean in terms of experience,
communication, relationship building, application
and user interface design?
CRM AND MOBILE TOOLS
The convergence of mobile technologies and CRM is
called “mobile customer relationship management”
(mCRM). It is also sometimes called ubiquitous CRM
(uCRM). Mobility and ubiquity are similar areas of
research. m-commerce applications also sit loosely
under this umbrella. At the present time we are
researching business-to-customer (B2C), rather than
business-to-enterprise (B2E), applications and services.
A simplistic view of mCRM would be that mobile
technologies provide an additional communication and
interaction channel to build continuing relationships
with customers. However, as mobile technologies are
so personal – they can: 1) “track consumers or users
across media and over time”, 2) “provide content and
services at the point of need”, and 3) “provide content
with highly engaging characteristics” (Chan and Lam,
2004, p.6) – their use will enable even closer, more on-
demand and more highly-personalised business-
customer interactions, enhancing the CRM process
(Reinhold and Alt, 2009; Sinisalo et al., 2006).
mCRM AND THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Due to the emerging nature of mCRM, there is little
research of how real life mCRM applications and
services are accepted and used by people. Background
concepts may be found from marketing and HCI
research of CRM strategies and tools or of mobile tools
– certainly these topic areas would provide a good
insight into the range of research methodologies and
techniques that can be used. But individually, none of
the research areas would provide the depth of insight
into the motives, needs and desires of the users of
mCRM applications and services, how they use the
tools, how the tools affect their lives and their
relationships with businesses, how the applications and
services can be better designed for the needs of the
customer, to engage and satisfy them in the process.
In addition, it is not clear to many businesses how the
mCRM will be implemented and how this
implementation will affect CRM; it is an
“unacknowledged phenomenon” (Sinisalo et al., 2005,
p.205). And it will be important not to “mistake the
technologies for the concept itself” (Sinisalo et al.,
2006, p.2). Indeed, as stated by Shen et al.:
“Technology alone cannot provide a sustainable
competitive advantage, and needs to be supplemented
by a well-designed user experience and the application's
value proposition.” [Shen et al., 2009, p.1).
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
The most important question to our research that we
need to ask is:
What do we need to do to develop mCRM technologies
(devices, applications and services) that:
• Attract, capture and hold the human's attention
• Provoke their perceptions and emotions in contexts
that are new to them
• Surprise them in ways that are pleasurable and
enjoyable
• Challenge or puzzle them to make sense of them
and construct interpretations of what is going on?
It is obvious to us that the human, the object at the heart
of the use, must be the center of the research.
1. We must develop an appropriate human-centered
design methodology; one we suggest should be
derived from both customer-centered and user-
centered design methodologies.
2. We must involve the humans through the entire
research process: start to finish.
3. Real humans must actively participate so we as
researchers can hear their voices and understand
their motives.
4. We must actively research in the actual context of
the situation: with mobiles, in the field,
communicating and relating to businesses.
SUMMARY
In this paper we have explored the topics of customer
relationship management, mobile technologies and
human experience with the goal of drawing conclusions
about future research and development directions for
mCRM technologies.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business
strategy and set of software programmes aimed to
develop and improve relationships with customers, but
which have been developed from the business, rather
than the customer, perspective. Recent development in
mobile technologies have opened up new possibilities
for engaging and interacting with customers, but we are
unaware of how users orientate themselves within the
mobile experience. There is much room for
understanding how humans use mobile technologies in
the real world and how they want to use them to
develop ongoing and engaging relationships with
businesses through the use of these technologies.
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