Phenomenography of Citizen Relationship Management

Citizen relationship management in public administration is rooted in customer relationship management concept in the private sector. This new concept in the public sector can increase citizen participation and involvement in decision-making procedures, can be the voice of citizens, and can enhance their feeling of belongingness to the government. Using the phenomenography strategy, the research aims to investigate the perceptions of government agencies’ managers regarding citizen relationship management. In order to collect data for this qualitative research, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 public managers, who had been selected through the snowball sampling method. The findings of the research have been categorized into three main concepts which expect managers to: (a) have philosophical view towards citizen relationship management, (b) have objective view toward citizen relationship management, and (c) utilize customer relationship management concepts in citizen relationship management. Some of the important results related to these three concepts are: (1) CiRM, is a criterion for persistence or deterioration of governments (2) regarding the difference in the nature of citizenship and customership, CiRM must be given priority (3) personalization has no place in the public sector; (4) budget-centrism and disregarding the importance of CiRM must be avoided.