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The continuous and rapid advancement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has changed the operations and services provided by the banking sector (Dhingra & Dhingra, 2013). Based on its vital importance in the financial sector, the banking industry has been the cynosure of academicians and policy makers alike in the modern times. The banking sector has been one of the biggest victims of the ICTs developments. The changes fueled by rapid transformation in technology and adaption by customers followed by higher internet penetration and increased usage of smart phones embedded banks under serious challenges in innumerable ways (Mathew et al., 2020). Steep competition, globalization, growing customer demand and exposure to higher credit risks, have forced banks to offer the best possible service in a prompt and efficient manner so as to retain their customer base and convert them into their loyal supporters (Mang’unyi et al., 2018) and further to improve their profitability (Joju, Vasantha & Manoj,2016).And the same time, the homogeneity of products have also added to the burden of the banking industry and proved to be an uplifting challenge for the banks to maintain customer loyalty during such a remarkable transition in technical as well as in consumer behavior (Singh & Chauhan, 2018).The number of complaints lodged by the customers to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Ombudsman scheme got increased drastically every year. As per RBI’s annual report on Banking Ombudsman Scheme (2019-20), around 21.97% of the complaints filed by the customer were pertaining to ATM and debit card-related issues, 13.38% were related to online banking issues, 11.73% were related to banks not adhering to the ‘fair practice code’ and whereas 9.30% were related to credit-card related complaints.
The current scenario require banks to monitor prudently the customers’ trends, expectations, needs and requirements. Because of ever-changing dynamic consumer tastes and coupled with rapid technological advancements, the banks can no longer completely rely on the conventional ways of satisfying their customers (Abdi, Hamidizadeh & Gharache, 2019). Such constant change in the consumer’s behavior due to changing business-technology leads to complexities in customer relationship management (CRM). As the conventional paradigm of banking dwindles, the traditional approach of CRM may not be compatible with the new banking model. CRM is a reactive approach which lacks vividness, hence, needs to be upgraded. The emergence of electronic customer relationship management (E-CRM) is one of such phenomenon. E-CRM, being a proactive approach, is an only solution to the present situation in which the banks can tend to operate (Singh & Chauhan, 2018). E-CRM is defined as managing and building long-lasting mutual relationships with the customers over the internet by using various electronic touch points, emails, websites, etc. Thus, banks are required to boost their economic lines by looking at disparate ways to satisfy their customers and building long-term strong relationships with them through acquisition of new customers and retaining existing customers which can further succor the banks (Kumar, Mokha & Pattnaik, 2021). If a bank gets succeeded in pleasing their current customers, it will not only fascinate potential customers in near future but will also drastically fill up their methodize aura of business processes (Abu-Shanab & Anagreh, 2015; Sharma, 2019). Therefore, the banks should focus on implementing various E-CRM strategies to attract, create and retain prospective customers.