CRM literature: conceptual and functional insights by keyword analysis Eleni K. Kevork and Adam P. Vrechopoulos Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on customer relationship management (CRM) to obtain a comprehensive framework of mutually exclusive CRM research areas and sub-areas free of all potentially disruptive factors (plethora of CRM definitions, personal judgments, etc.). Design/methodology/approach – The keywords reported in 396 CRM articles published during the period 2000-2006 are used to uncover first a great number of detailed keyword sub-groups and, by subject summation, the CRM-related research areas. This classification scheme is considered unbiased, in contrast with any direct classification of articles alone among CRM research areas fixed in advance. Findings – An up-to-date conceptual and functional CRM framework emerges, consisting of a total of nine distinct research areas having their own weights, importance and popularity among the research community. Newly emerging CRM research areas are self-identified as attracting the interest of the researchers and managers. Originality/value – Keywords are activated, for a first time, as an added value characteristic reflecting genuinely the authors’ beliefs about the subject content fields of their articles, important enough to reveal a self-supported and self-weighted unbiased and exhaustive CRM framework, useful to researchers and marketing practitioners. The paper offers strong evidence that e-CRM is too complex to be comprehensively classified by mere procedures and simple criteria alone. Keywords Electronic commerce, Classification schemes, Referencing, Customer relations, Information retrieval Paper type Literature review Introduction While companies have more or less solved the problems concerning their back-end operations through the use of enterprise resource planning systems they now focus on improving their front-end operations towards enhancing the value they offer to their customers (business and consumers) through the adoption of customer relationship management (CRM) systems. There is, however, a strong debate both in the academic and in the business community concerning the discipline(s) or research domain(s) in which CRM actually belongs. Evidently, CRM is a multidisciplinary topic since it deals with marketing (e.g. relationship marketing, consumer behaviour, etc.), information systems (e.g. e-commerce, human computer interaction, etc.), management, etc. To that end, there is a clear need for researchers to work towards conceptualizing, defining, classifying and in general providing through a structured and documented manner all CRM’s available research approaches. Nevertheless, during the last ten years, a great number of articles related to e-CRM/CRM have been published. This body of international literature has been The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-4503.htm MIP 27,1 48 Received March 2008 Revised July 2008 Accepted September 2008 Marketing Intelligence & Planning Vol. 27 No. 1, 2009 pp. 48-85 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0263-4503 DOI 10.1108/02634500910928362