A married couple buys ten acres of land in another county where they plan to retire when time comes.

Two years later they divorce. Title to their ten acres remains in both their names after split.

Months later wife checks county records and finds a deed transferring property from her name and her husband's name to a buyer.

But wait...she never signed deed. Her husband had forged her signature and had a notary (who was a friend) notarize false signature.

Is wife in a fix? Has she lost property through action of her slimy ex-husband? Should she try to remarry ex? Should she tell her story on Oprah for 15-minutes of fame? Should she have old husband whacked?

From Ebay to smallest home-operated start-up, e-businesses of all sizes struggle to accurately answer a common question: who are my customers? If you can't answer that question, chances are you're also in dark about following questions. What customer demand trends can I expect in future? How can I improve customer retention? What can I do to build long-term relationships of trust with customers? Knowing answer to these questions can mean difference between long-term growth and profitability and crashing and burning.

Enter eCRM

With proliferation of e-business into just about every consumer market, customers are faced with more options than ever. As a result, they have naturally become increasingly demanding both of products they purchase and customer service they receive. The idea is that, "if company A doesn't meet my expectations, I can always go to companies B thru Z. By merely doing a Google search on your product or service you can quickly discover number of competitors waiting for chance to eat your lunch.

The importance of eCRM is highlighted when you think of fact that e-business' customer 'touch points' are limited and usually virtual. There's seldom any face-to-face contact because company usually doesn't have a physical location, just a web domain.

Because of relatively recent appearance of eCRM on business scene, many people aren't quite sure how to define it. In fact, definition of eCRM varies almost as widely as techniques companies use to manage it. For some people, eCRM may be as simple as pulling data off their order tracking system; they may believe keeping track of who bought what tells them whole story. Other e-businesses with more experience may take a more complex view; metadata, datamining and drilldowns, and CTI can all be seen as vital eCRM tools used to paint a picture of customer.