Customer Relationship Management Approach Research Articles

Customer Relationship Management Research from 2007 to 2016: An Academic Literature Review

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to review the literature on customer relationship management (CRM) to analyze the trends in CRM approaches, activities, tools, and implementation from 2007 to 2016. The objective is also to provide a classification of the literature with a comprehensive bibliography. The top 10 marketing journals, on the basis of SCImago rankings, were chosen for the study. A total of 56 research papers with 4633 citations emerged out of these top 10 journals for classification and analysis of different parameters. This research explores how CRM research has evolved over a period of 10 years in terms of key areas, research types, tools used, and most researched areas. It shows that the loyalty program is the most researched and published area with regard to CRM studies, whereas topics like privacy concerns and social CRM are underresearched areas. This article analyzes the CRM published research studies over a period of 10 years to provide topical classification, which can be useful for researchers, academicians, and practitioners to understand how CRM has progressed over the years. Since this article consists of the latest classification and analysis of CRM studies, it can be very meaningful for use in further teaching, research, and application by the industry. Also, none of the published research has reviewed the top 10 marketing journals to review and classify CRM articles. This article presents the first such review and therefore provides the latest classification and analysis of CRM literature.

IMPACT OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND LOYALTY: A STUDY OF TELECOM COMPANIES IN J&K

INTRODUCTION:In today's highly competitive environment, companies need to look at their customers with all together a different perspective. The changing dynamics of business operations across the globe are characterized by intense competition, luxury of too many choices, enlightened and demanding customers, government regulation and a highly turbulent socio-economic environment. All these changes have made today's producer's shift from traditional to modern marketing practices. Customers are emerging as the potential stake holders on the centre stage of business activities. Their raising power and ability to get whatever they want at any time, from any place and any one has shaken-up the traditional marketing strategies. Globalization and global dynamics are forcing business organizations to change their strategies. Customer's experience is increasingly becoming an important aspect of business's survival.Today, customers are seen as the strategic partners in the success story of a business enterprise. This has made companies to realize the importance of retaining and managing value customers for long term profits. It is for this reason that traditional marketing orientation is shifting towards Customer Relationship Management approach. Customer Relationship Management is a management strategy to manage long term relationship with customers. It helps organizations to achieve and maximize customers' loyalty. By enabling organization to manage customer interactions across multiple channels of communication, CRM practices maximize the value drawn from every such interaction leading to better corporate performance. In a highly turbulent business environment, Customer Relationship Management provides a mean to connect with the customers not only to know them but also to encourage them to participate and lead the organizations in the marathon of growth and development.CRM is a customer- focused philosophy and culture to support organizations to gain sustainable competencies.REVIEW OF LITERATURE:According to Liljander& Starndivck (1995), Relationship should be defined from customer's point of view. Organizations must strengthen this relationship and try to find out what makes their customers more committed. They further observed that the nature of relationship between the organization and the customers is based on customer commitment and relationship satisfaction. Global dynamics have propelled a shift of power from seller to buyer and have made companies not only to meet but exceed customers' demands (Mack, Mayo, & khare, 2005). Marketing practitioners across the globe have strongly recommended the importance of building close relationship with customers (Day, 2000; Lemon et al, 2002; Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995). Companies are adopting relationship marketing principles to develop long lasting relationship with their value customers.Greenberg (2010) observes that CRM is a set of strategies that would effectively manage the interaction of customers with companies and the subsequent relationships thereafter. Some companies have created management positions to take care of relationship building activities (Roger 2005). CRM enables organizations to link their front office and back office functions with their customer touch points (Fickel, 1999). Hence the purpose of CRM is to serve the customers in better way, retain valuable customers and to enhance organizational performance (Fjermestad & Romano, 2003). Companies should focus on the integration of people, processes and technology to gain long-term competitive edge over competitors and in order to earn profit (Bygstad, 2002). Customer focus is the basic concept behind Customer Relationship Management. W Ravi Kumar (2011) mentions that, CRM is the buzzword in the Indian corporate sector today as cut throat competition in the liberalized Indian market place has rendered undertaking CRM, as an imperative than just an optional feature.CRM, now has been recognized as one of the major tools for enhancing customer loyalty and in the process reducing customer defections to competing firms. …

Customer centric production planning and control in job shops: A simulation optimization approach

Today, customer centricity becomes the key success factor for the manufacturing companies in gaining sustainable competitive advantage. In this regard, they need advanced production planning and control (PPC) techniques to be more customer focused. This study aims to integrate customer relationship management (CRM) and PPC approaches in order to use manufacturing resources of job shops more effectively in satisfying customers. To this aim, a simulated annealing based simulation optimization approach is proposed. To confirm the viability of the proposed approach, it is applied to a realistic job shop system. In order to accelerate the flow of production, product type based lot splitting is applied. In the scheduling phase, dynamic scheduling is implemented by machine-based dispatching rules. Multiple customer segments with different importance weights, and their expectations and penalties on order completion rate on due date, tardiness and earliness are considered. The aim of the proposed approach is to make near optimal policy decisions regarding the machine-based dispatching rules and number of equal sublots for the products. In this regard, four well-known dispatching rules and five modified versions of these rules which are proposed in this study are employed. Computational experiments are performed by using different dominance relationships between the customer segments, inter-arrival times and level of due date allowance factor. Results of the experiments reveal that integration of CRM and PPC approaches in job shop systems provides more effective use of resources in satisfying customers, and that the proposed approach can easily be implemented in practice.

Evaluasi Strategi Pemasaran Dalam Upaya Membangun Loyalitas Pengguna di Perpustakaan UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta Ditinjau dari Pendekatan Customer Relationship Management

This research aims to examine how the evaluation of marketing strategies in effort to construct a user loyalty in Library of UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta based on Customer Relationship Management approach. This research is a qualitative research using evaluative approach. The data collection methods are using observation, interviews and documentation. Analysis of the data in this research using two stages analysis namely the data analysis before in location and the data analysis after in location , the steps are (1) data collection, (2) data reduction, (3) data presentation, and (4) drawing conclusions. Then this research is equipped with quantitative data analysis to measure the value of evaluation results in the form of percentage figures compatibility. While the data validity used credibility test using triangulation techniques and membercheck. The results of this research is concluded that: (1) Internal communication patterns UIN Sunan Kalijaga Library is encircled in interpersonal way and through by media; (2) Human resources in the UIN Sunan Kalijaga Library consists of librarians group and structural staff; (3) The top products of UIN Sunan Kalijaga Library are technology-based services, Islamic collections, facilities and comfortable room; (4) The work evaluation of UIN Sunan Kalijaga Library organization is by forming a regular forum once a month and work meeting in each end of the year; (5) The communication with UIN Sunan Kalijaga library users occurs in interpersonal way, through social media and “Friends of Library”; (6) The attitude and performance of UIN Sunan Kalijaga Library officer are considered in deficient standart and less attention to policies appearance; (7) UIN Sunan Kalijaga Library makes the extensive cooperation with various stakeholders. Thus, the marketing strategy in effort to construct user loyalty in Library of UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta is stated 86% (in accordance) with the concept of Customer Relationship Management.

Developing an integrated revenue management and customer relationship management approach in the hotel industry

Revenue management (RM) and customer relationship management (CRM) are the standard strategies of many hotels to increase their profitability. Although the objectives and time horizons of RM and CRM are different, they can be considered as complimentary business strategies. However, the integration has received little attention both practically and theoretically. In this study, we develop an approach to jointly make the capacity allocation and overbooking decisions considering CRM strategies over a hotel network. Hotel customers are divided based on their lifetime value into two major groups of occasional and loyal customers. Price discounts and room availability guarantee (RAG) are offered to loyal customers, who are the hotel’s essential source of profit. The main problem is tackled by a stochastic dynamic programming model whose expected value of objective function is approximated by two deterministic linear programming-based algorithms. The computational results indicate that the loyalty programs may lead to decrease in short-term net revenue. However, another analysis is required to decide upon cost-effectiveness of loyalty programs in an extended planning horizon. On the basis of an estimated discount-RAG response function, the cost-effectiveness of different loyalty programs is compared, which shows potential increase in hotel expected net revenue up to 3.5 per cent. The analytical long-term evaluation of loyalty programs introduced is capable of determining the most appropriate loyalty program factors. Moreover, it suggests discount-RAG response function and the level of tightness as sensitive parameters.

Customer Relationship Management Approach and Student Satisfaction in Higher Education Marketing

The primary objective of the article was to determine the relationship between customer rela- tionship management and student satisfaction. The study explored the ways in which student satisfaction can be achieved with the use of customer relationship management. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed in this research. The following hypotheses were formu- lated in this study: Student Lifecycle management has a significant impact on the student's will- ingness to recommend to others, Parent relationship management has a positive impact on the students' willingness to recommend their universities to others. A multiple regression analysis was employed in the hypothesis testing. The research findings showed that student's willingness to recommend to others increases when the student lifecycle in the university is well managed. It was also discovered that strong parent relationship management at the University enhances the student's willingness to recommend their Universities to others. It is therefore recommended that Universities should adopt effective customer relationship management strategies to achieve student satisfaction.

Customer Satisfaction and Profit Enhancement through Social CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a concept for increasing companies' profitability by enabling them to identify and concentrate on their profitable customers. CRM and knowledge management, have great influence in the success of an organization. A number of CRM approaches focuses on technology applications, but the critical role of knowledge management has now become an active research area. The customer's value has become apparent for the leading companies in today's competitive environment. Therefore they are constantly trying to improve their relationship with customers via their customer relationship management systems. Knowledge Management (KM) can also help to improve the quality of the information obtained by CRM. However, in order to be more effective, KM should be provided with a steady and ongoing process of gathering information from outer sources in cooperation with the CRM system. In this study, a Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) model has been integrated with CRM and KM in four stages. Then, in order to improve the performance of CKM, a Social CRM (SCRM) is proposed. SCRM would help in reaching the customer in a more efficient manner through online. SCRM can improve the overall profitability of the organization as direct feedback from customers are made available online which can motivate other customers to buy the products. This research study mainly focuses on the integrated SCRM model with CKM to compete with the online customers and to add values to the product based on the feedbacks of the customers.

Evaluating of CRM in Banking Sector: A Case Study on Employees of Banks in Konya

Customer relationship management approach is mainly a process. In order to realize this process some elements are required. In this process business apply CRM in four stages: Identification, Differentiation, Interaction and Customization. The aim of this study is to make an attempt the CRM practices in the context of banking services. Hereby this study has been conducted in the branches of banks, which give individual/commercial services in Konya, applying the Customer Relations Management. Surveying method has been used in order to collect data. The employees of these banks who work in the sales and marketing department of the branches participated in the survey. Finally the results and suggestions related to the analysis results have also been introduced in the study.

The Development of a Strategic CRM-i Framework: Case Study in Public Institutions of Higher Learning

The mission of Strategic Plan for National Higher Education in Research and Development is the development of human capital to achieve quality research culture and international recognition. The present educational institutions which in the beginning focused on improvement of internal operations began to shift their attention to the human aspect placing importance on customer management. Thus, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is seen as a new approach to help educational institutions maximize centralization of customer resources. Research has shown that there is no specific framework available in application of human based approach utilizing CRM in Public Institutions of Higher Learning (IPTA) in Malaysia. The objective of this research is to develop a strategic framework for customer relationship management. The scope of the research is the Centre for Research and Development, IPTA. The methodology of the research is qualitative, using the iterative triangulation method. The framework is named CRM-i and combines three different approaches; CRM, Strategic Information System Planning and Humanity Management. Additionally, this research introduces a new dimension in CRM approach, i.e the Human dimension. This article shall discuss the development of components and phases for the framework. The CRM-i framework has been acknowledged as a suitable customer management framework.

CRM Customer Value based on Constrained Sequential Pattern Mining

role of data mining has become increasingly important for an organization that has large databases of information on customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are implemented to identify the most profitable customers and manage the relationship of company with them. Intelligent data mining tools and techniques are used as backbone to the whole CRM initiative taken by the companies. Data mining tools search the data warehouse maintained by the companies and predict the hidden patterns and present them in form of a model. Strategic decisions about the customers can be taken based on the outcomes of these models. The data mining researchers have presented various mining algorithms to extract patterns in data for successful CRM approach. These approaches are however facing several problems like they are not business-focused and often results in enormous size of data after applying mining approaches. They have no relevant mechanism to provide guidance for focusing on specific category of customers for business profitability. In this article, the requirements of sequential pattern mining process for CRM environment is described, and then a novel constraint guided model for knowledge discovery process is proposed. We have suggested even how the selection of appropriate constraints can be made from the perspective of customer value analysis.

Paradigm of Customer Relationship Management and its Various Perspectives

The research presented in this article demonstrates that the implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) activities seems to be beneficial in building a good image of the organization in the eyes of customers by making them psychologically satisfied. In today’s competitive scenario it becomes crucial for firms and specially the service organization’s to implement CRM Approach to build up a loyal customer base. The purpose of this research was to increase knowledge and understanding the concept of CRM and its various perspectives. The contribution of this article is to show that what the CRM is and how this approach works for benefiting both customer and organizations.

From social media to social customer relationship management

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the augment of the authors, who are IBM consultants, that companies need to meld social media programs with customer relationship management (CRM). This new paradigm – Social CRM – recognizes that instead of just managing customers, the role of the business is to facilitate collaborative social experiences and dialogue that customers value.Design/methodology/approachSocial media holds enormous potential for companies to get closer to customers and, by doing so, increase revenue, cost reduction and efficiencies. However, using social media as a channel for customer engagement will fail if the traditional CRM approaches are not reinvented,FindingsAccording to IBM research, there is a large perception gap between what the customers seek via social media and what companies offer. Consumers are far more interested in obtaining tangible value, suggesting businesses may be confusing their own desire for customer intimacy with consumers' motivations for engaging.Practical implicationsTo reinvent the company's CRM strategy it is important to recognize social media is a game changer and the customer is in control; make the customer experience seamless – across social media and other channels; start thinking like a customer – if one isn't sure what customers value, they should be asked; and monetize social media, if that is what customers want.Originality/valueSocial CRM is a new approach that recognizes consumers have strong opinions about relationships as customers being managed in a social media context and that their willingness to engage with companies should not be assumed or taken for granted.

Exploring Customer Perception and Behavior towards CRM Practices in Banking Sector: An Empirical Analysis

Globalization and competition on the one hand has created unlimited opportunities in each sector including the banking sector; but on the other hand has added many new challenges and threats too. “Survival of the fittest” is the truth of today’s global market. To be more competitive, productive and profitable, today banks are changing their way of doing business; they are shifting from a transactional based marketing approach to a relationship based approach. Customer relationship management (CRM) has emerged as a new paradigm of marketing. The recent rush of publications in the area may give rise to the impression that CRM can be applied in any context, yet there is little empirical evidence to support it. CRM is, probably, one of the least clearly defined business acronyms, as there is no single definition for it. It is probably easier to say what CRM is not. Unfortunately, in many cases CRM has become a misnomer. Many a times, the companies who practice it never look at whether it is really pleasing their customers or irritating them. Do their customers have some serious issues and concern for it, which needs to be addressed? In most of the cases, companies feel that all their CRM approaches are working fine and are making their customers happy, but in reality it might not be true. The present study attempts to understand the customer perception and behavior towards CRM practices in banking sector in India-an emerging economy. It offers some insights and assistance to banking industry in planning their CRM strategies.

Customer Relationship Management Enhancement Using Informative Distributed Information Systems

Distributed teams play a significant role in Customer Relationship management. Using high-tech tools, especially for making intelligent connectivity between teams and team members is essential decision in current era. Using appropriate connecting tools is a critical issue to support team connectivity. Based on variety of available tools, Selecting, customizing, and developing a set of connecting tools are complicated issue. This paper provides some important criteria for choosing distributed information systems to support customer relationship management approaches. Easy to use, hard to misuse, reliable, maintainable, and reasonable price could be assumed as most important criteria for such information systems, which are described in this article. System Integration as a product of using appropriate tools within suitable approach is discussed.

Is There A Fe(Male) Approach In Customer Relationship Management?

Customer relationship management (CRM) has been the favorite topic of scores of marketing consultants and academicians for over a decade. CRM approaches marketing as dating in which the marketer attempts to turn strangers into friends and friends into lifetime partners and to retain the loyalty of the right customers for this is the key to long-term profits in a company. Gender theories posit that women and men behave differently, and that they approach things differently. Moreover, these theories have documented a picture of women are being more expert and motivated relationship psychologists than men, as more active in their relationship monitoring, and as more oriented toward the maintenance and success of their relationships. Based on these theories, this paper develops some propositions to facilitate its empirical testing related to relationship communication and relationship dissolution in business market. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it attempts to create more insight into areas where relationship marketing research to date has not been abundant. Second, this paper attempts to contribute to methodological development of measuring relationship success by systematically distinguishing between good communication relationship and good management relationship.

Customer relationship management strategic application and organizational effectiveness: an empirical investigation

This study was undertaken to study the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) as a strategic approach on overall organizational effectiveness and to identify barriers that affect CRM success. A survey of customer relationship management practices was developed and distributed to 500 randomly selected financial service providers in the United States. Follow‐up interviews were also conducted with key managers among several financial service providers. The results show that organizations generally considered themselves successful at managing their customer relationship management programs. However, while they have achieved significant improvement in customer responsiveness and performance, they have not reached the order of magnitude of improvements ascribed to customer relationship management. This exploratory empirical investigation provides insight into the effectiveness of implementing a customer relationship management strategy approach for increasing the probability of success of the CRM approach and identifies areas that need further investigation.

Developing new business strategies in B2B markets by combining CRM concepts and online databases

This paper illustrates how online databases, available from commercial vendors, can be used as the foundation for developing new business strategies. Emphasis is placed on the use of customer relationship management (CRM) ideas to identify new prospective customers for a high‐tech B2B firm. Specifically, the concept of customer lifetime value was used to evaluate current customers and match their profiles with the profiles of new prospects from the database. Once high‐quality new prospects were identified and prioritized, the company’s salesforce had a much clearer path to follow towards success. The paper contributes to the competitive strategy literature by documenting the successful use of a CRM approach to develop marketing strategies and tactics for a B2B firm that is seeking growth by acquiring new customers.

CRM at a pay-TV company: Using analytical models to reduce customer attrition by targeted marketing for subscription services

The early detection of potential churners enables companies to target these customers using specific retention actions, and subsequently increase profits. This analytical CRM (Customer Relationship Management) approach is illustrated using real-life data of a European pay-TV company. Their very high churn rate has had a devastating effect on their customer base. This paper first develops different churn-prediction models: the introduction of Markov chains in churn prediction, and a random forest model are benchmarked to a basic logistic model. The most appropriate model is subsequently used to target those customers with a high churn probability in a field experiment. Three alternative courses of marketing action are applied: giving free incentives, organizing special customer events, obtaining feedback on customer satisfaction through questionnaires. The results of this field experiment show that profits can be doubled using our churn-prediction model. Moreover, profits vary enormously with respect to the selected retention action, indicating that a customer satisfaction questionnaire yields the best results, a phenomenon known in the psychological literature as the ‘mere-measurement effect’.

Developing new business strategies in B2B markets by combining CRM concepts and online databases

This paper illustrates how online databases, available from commercial vendors, can be used as the foundation for developing new business strategies. Emphasis is placed on the use of customer relationship management (CRM) ideas to identify new prospective customers for a high‐tech B2B firm. Specifically, the concept of customer lifetime value was used to evaluate current customers and match their profiles with the profiles of new prospects from the database. Once high‐quality new prospects were identified and prioritized, the company’s salesforce had a much clearer path to follow towards success. The paper contributes to the competitive strategy literature by documenting the successful use of a CRM approach to develop marketing strategies and tactics for a B2B firm that is seeking growth by acquiring new customers.

Managing process-centred e-government in Taiwan: a customer relationship management approach

The authors surveyed major government departments/agencies in Taiwan, a world leader in e-service, to explore how process management can reduce service quality gaps. The study found that: implementation of CRM strategies and TQM will enable an e-government to improve services; processes differ widely - a government needs to understand current conditions and the attributes of its services in allocating limited resources; e-government promotion must start with redesigning administrative processes from a customer's point of view; to provide better customer service and thereby add value to their services, all departments/agencies will need to do well on process management; the front-end system of customer interface must be periodically reviewed to improve the degrees of load and repetition in the service process; for reasons related to shared exposure to propaganda and education, employees responsible for e-service in Taiwan tend to express similar opinions on communication, training, and implementation.