Is CRM for luxury brands?

Luxury brands have so far been reluctant to adopt any of the classical tools of mass marketing. One of these is customer relationship management (CRM). Prestigious brands are, however, now starting to examine the benefits of the 'lifelong customer value' approach, beyond building the social prestige of their names. This paper develops 'why' luxury brands need to apply CRM systems and 'what' they could achieve by doing so, and addresses 'how' this could be applied with the necessary adaptations if these brands wish to keep their luxury status intact.