No abstract

The insurance companies are getting aware that due to the business environment which is becoming more and more competitive nowadays, their priority should be the control over the final market. That means holding good relationship with customers. Companies can get feedback of what customers are looking for by understanding them better, their choices, preferences and what they expect and what they want from company's product or services offered. The advance in ICT offer new ways of managing relationship. This paper try to give a better understanding of the effects of ICT in customer relationship management in the insurance industry in Albania. In order to be more competitive in the market, the question is: "How are the insurance companies adopting the latest Information Technology advances and is this a good tool for creating adding value to the product they offer?"

Today knowledge is considered as the heart of business. The first step of gaining knowledge is gathering data from internal and external sources. Then these data are classified and processed to turn into information. And information is then transformed into knowledge upon which organizational strategies, decisions and actions are built. In the changing conditions of marketing today, marketers see it essential to know their customer base and plan and make marketing strategies and actions based upon this knowledge. This is called database marketing. Customer data are transformed into customer information kept in a marketing database.The aim of this paper is to investigate the application of database marketing as a tool of knowledge management within firms in Albania.

The adoption of e-banking is occurring quite extensively as a channel of distribution for financial services due to rapid advances in ICT and intensive competitive banking markets. E-banking offers o lot of benefits which add value to customers' satisfaction in terms of better quality of service offerings and at the same time enable the banks gain more competitive advantage over other competitors. Internet banking is either offered as a value added service of physical bank branches or a virtual bank where customers can only perform banking transactions through the Internet and it is important to mention that operating costs of a virtual bank are much lower compared to traditional banks. This study is designed to evaluate e-banking as a strategy and related methods adopted in banking sector in Albania to improve the customer satisfaction. The aim was to analyze customers' perception towards e-banking services, the quality of e-banking services provided by the banks and the constraints in achieving customer satisfaction. The study also recommends the possible and practical additional measures the banks should take in order to achieve maximum customer satisfaction. Data were collected from the bank customers through self designed structured questionnaires. Out of 100 questionnaires distributed, only 62% were returned/ responded back. Non-probability sampling was used due to the limitation of resources and time. Data management and analyses were done using SPSS program and Microsoft excel.

E-Customer relationship management is an issue that every company, large or small must take in some way. Handled well, a CRM strategy can deliver significant benefits for companies and customers. Interaction with customers, in particular, has been enhanced and organizations who wish to remain competitive have started to implement CRM programmes and techniques in order to develop closer relations with their customers and to develop a better understanding of their needs. At the same time, the use of e-commerce techniques in CRM allows insurance organizations to identify customers, monitor their habits and use of information, and deliver them improved information and services according to their recognized needs and buying behavior. This paper looks at new developments in e-CRM in the insurance industry.