A study of customer relationship management trend through bibliometric methodology based on SSCI database from 1989 to 2009

This paper surveys customer relationship management (CRM) technology trends and forecasts using bibliometric analysis from 1989 to 2009 with topic as “customer relationship management” in SSCI database. The bibliometric analytical technique is used to examine the topic in SSCI journals from 1989 to 2009, based on the scope of 1121 literatures of CRM. This paper implemented and classified CRM literatures using the seven categories for different distribution status in order to explore how CRM technology trends and applications have developed in this period. Also, the paper will perform K-S test to verify the reliability of Lotka's Law. The analysis provides a roadmap to guide future research and abstract the trend information so that CRM researchers can save some time since core knowledge will be concentrated in core categories. This implies that the phenomenon “success breeds success” is more common in higher quality publications.