Customer Relationship Management Philosophy Research Articles

Creating exceptional guest experiences: the role of engagement and relationship building in hospitality

PurposeThe study seeks to explore the intricate dynamics among customer relationship management (CRM) practices, guest satisfaction and loyalty in the hospitality context. Additionally, it aims to examine the moderating influence of guest engagement on the relationships between CRM practices and guest satisfaction and loyalty.Design/methodology/approachAn integrated theoretical framework is developed by incorporating CRM practices and guest engagement into the satisfaction-loyalty framework. Two research instruments were adapted from the literature to assess the perspectives of customers and employees in the hotel industry in Kashmir. The customer survey measured guest satisfaction, loyalty, and engagement, while the employee survey focused on CRM practices, including key customer focus and CRM organization. Data was collected using a pen-and-paper survey with convenience sampling across 10 qualifying hotels, each classified as 3-star or above. A total of 270 matched responses from guests and employees were obtained and analyzed using descriptive analysis, structural equation modeling (SEM), and moderation analysis with SPSS and AMOS software. The study utilized a rigorous data matching process to ensure reliability, with guest-employee pairs verified and cross-checked with hotel records.FindingsThe results indicate CRM practices play a pivotal role in shaping guest satisfaction and loyalty. Notably, personalization and a targeted customer approach emerged as the most influential factors in enhancing tourist satisfaction. Similarly, prospecting, personalization, and effective knowledge management significantly contributed to visitor loyalty. The establishment of robust relationships is underscored through collaborative active guest engagement. Furthermore, the study highlights the nuanced relationship between satisfaction and loyalty moderated by guest engagement. High levels of guest engagement amplify the positive impact of satisfaction on loyalty, while lower engagement levels attenuate this effect. Moreover, the moderating influence of guest engagement on the relationships between CRM practices and guest satisfaction and CRM practices and guest loyalty was notably strong at elevated guest engagement levels and relatively weaker at lower engagement levels.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the study findings encourage organizations to prioritize customer relationship development, hospitality entities must emphasize the adoption of CRM philosophy and robust guest engagement measures. Actively involving guests in co-creating services can yield incremental benefits in terms of attracting, retaining, and effectively serving guests.Originality/valueThis study introduces novel dimensions to the existing CRM framework within the hospitality context, specifically exploring the impact of hotel-specific elements (personalization and prospecting) on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Furthermore, it innovatively investigates the moderating role of guest engagement in the satisfaction-loyalty relationship, expanding its scope to include the relationships between CRM practices and guest satisfaction and guest loyalty.

A review of customer relationship (CRM) implications: Benefits and challenges in construction organizations

The management philosophy, namely, Customer relationship management (CRM) has been widely accepted and successfully applied across a range of sectors. However, there has been very little research efforts in the field of CRM in the construction industry. This paper provides a review of the CRM philosophy and technology, and considers the implications; benefits and challenges to construction organizations at a strategic business and operational level. Given the generally unstable economic and highly competitive marketplace, implementation of CRM throughout the lifecycle of assets may provide for more effective management of existing and prospective clients. The CRM approach would seem to be compatible with general trends in the construction industry towards more collaborative working and the paper provides that both the philosophy and technologies can be integrated with current initiatives such as building information modeling (BIM). Construction clients in the public and private sector are diverse in nature, complex in their buying processes and at varying levels of knowledge of the Industry. In addition to seeking value for money from their projects and assets, they have become more concerned about sustainability and environmental impact. It has been recognized that management of a broader range of business and project level stakeholders is necessary.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Philosophy and its Significance for the Enterprise

Abstract The article presents the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) philosophy. The principles of building the CRM strategy, enabling building and strengthening ties with the client (including ensuring its safety in relationship with a company), thanks to which the company can expect continuous sales, have been presented. Exemplary tools used in CRM (such as: call centre, contact centre, key account management) are listed and described. An attempt has been made to assess the cost-effectiveness of implementing the CRM philosophy in the enterprise based on the SWOT analysis. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of such an undertaking were analysed, and the results were presented in the summary and final conclusions.

English

Recent academic and practitioner studies have implied that customer relationship management (CRM) provided improved business opportunity yet it has received sundry performance reviews in the present literature. The pharmaceutical industry, in Bangladesh, is in the midst of fundamental changes. Situational regulations have been placed for decades that minimize pressure from competitor companies, and application of modern information technologies that improved the customer knowledge about better service, force the pharmaceutical companies to build relationship with their key customers, such as physicians. This research explored the affiliation among CRM philosophy acceptance, market orientation and relationship marketing, and the subsequent impact on business relationships and relationship performance. A strategic model was developed based on the literature and information obtained through interviews. Key words: Customer relationship management (CRM), hospital pharmacy, physician

Strategic CRM: Improving the Business of Academic Libraries

An argument can be made that libraries are businesses, with users as their customers. Given the increasing scarcity of funding and pressure for proving value, academic libraries could benefit from leveraging certain business practices to increase user satisfaction. Creating a comprehensive strategy for building long-term user relationships can solidify support for libraries by engaging with all stakeholders to improve their library experiences. The Customer Relationship Management philosophy described here provides an opportunity for institutions to show their total value to all users and stakeholders and in doing so, improve the business of academic libraries.

Testing and Validating Customer Relationship Management Implementation Constructs in Egyptian Tourism Organizations

ABSTRACTTo date, Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) have not been systematically investigated. Existing studies have derived their CSFs from different perspectives. However, it lacks scientifically developed and tested constructs that represent an integrative CRM philosophy. Through a detailed analysis of the literature, as well as adding new factors, this research identifies eight constructs for integrated CRM implementation in developing economies. The proposed CSFs are tested and validated through a sample of 162 Egyptian tourism organizations that utilize CRM systems, using Amos 19. The overall results from the empirical assessment were positive, reflecting the appropriateness of the proposed CSFs. This study is one of very few studies to provide an integrative perspective of CSFs for implementing CRM in the tourism sector and developing economies; it adds to the extremely limited number of empirical studies that have been conducted to investigate CRM implementation in developing countries.

Virtue ethics and customer relationship management: towards a more holistic approach for the development of ‘best practice’

This paper focuses much-needed attention on the ethical nature of customer relationship management (CRM) strategies in organisations. The research uses an in-depth case study to reflect on the design, implementation and use of ‘best practice’ associated with CRM. We argue that conventional CRM philosophy is based on a fairly narrow construct that fails to consider ethical issues appropriately. We highlight why ethical considerations are important when organisations use CRM and how a more holistic approach incorporating some of Alasdair MacIntyre's ideas on virtue ethics could be relevant.

The Evolution of Relationship Marketing (RM) Towards Customer Relationship Management (CRM): A Step towards Company Sustainability

This paper provides an overview of relationship marketing (RM) and how it evolves to customer relationship management (CRM). Since marketing continuum is the basic concept for relationship marketing it is apt that marketing continuum is explained first. The reviewed literature than discussed the evolution of marketing from the four P’s principle towards more challenge structure combining environment factors and global market scenario ending with customer relationship management philosophy. This paper developed from the rational theories that are very relevant for the practitioners’ who are alert to the environmental changes. This paper ends with more applicable of customer relationship management concepts that are most recent tools to be considered for company growth and sustainability in the millennium age.

A Case in Customizing E-Learning

Organizational change in today's competitive landscape is no longer just an option, but a fundamental strategy for success. In order to be the premier player in this type of competitive landscape, customer focus has to become a priority, and bearing this in mind both academia and competitive organizations have one key objective in common. Their current focus is on implementing successful support systems in order to meet their end-users’ needs. As early as 1995, University College Cork (a Third-level Irish university) introduced on-line support to provide learning material for students ranging from full/part-time undergraduates and postgraduates to distance-learners. However, students identified a need for more support, the type that only a more interactive system can provide. This paper focuses on the evolution of e-learning and learning management systems (LMS) in considering e-learning as the academic equivalent to the customer relationship management (CRM) challenge. This research outlines the different characteristics necessary for the successful management of the learning process and the support needed by students, through the investigation of current research and the analysis of the case environment. It also highlights the potential of the system to overcome the physical barriers of the traditional classroom aligning the key critical factors necessary for e-learning with those of CRM. Through the adoption of the CRM philosophy, the system presented here strengthened its link between the different actors and additionally provided the university with a more in-depth view of its target audience.

CRM and customer‐centric knowledge management: an empirical research

Current competitive challenges induced by globalization and advances in information technology have forced companies to focus on managing customer relationships, and in particular customer satisfaction, in order to efficiently maximize revenues. This paper reports exploratory research based on a mail survey addressed to the largest 1,000 Greek organizations. The objectives of the research were: to investigate the extent of the usage of customer‐ and market‐related knowledge management (KM) instruments and customer relationship management (CRM) systems by Greek organizations and their relationship with demographic and organizational variables; to investigate whether enterprises systematically carry out customer satisfaction and complaining behavior research; and to examine the impact of the type of the information system used and managers’ attitudes towards customer KM practices. In addition, a conceptual model of CRM development stages is proposed. The findings of the survey show that about half of the organizations of the sample do not adopt any CRM philosophy. The remaining organizations employ instruments to conduct customer satisfaction and other customer‐related research. However, according to the proposed model, they are positioned in the first, the preliminary CRM development stage. The findings also suggest that managers hold positive attitudes towards CRM and that there is no significant relationship between the type of the transactional information system used and the extent to which customer satisfaction research is performed by the organizations. The paper concludes by discussing the survey findings and proposing future research.

Data mining techniques for customer relationship management

Advancements in technology have made relationship marketing a reality in recent years. Technologies such as data warehousing, data mining, and campaign management software have made customer relationship management a new area where firms can gain a competitive advantage. Particularly through data mining—the extraction of hidden predictive information from large databases—organizations can identify valuable customers, predict future behaviors, and enable firms to make proactive, knowledge-driven decisions. The automated, future-oriented analyses made possible by data mining move beyond the analyses of past events typically provided by history-oriented tools such as decision support systems. Data mining tools answer business questions that in the past were too time-consuming to pursue. Yet, it is the answers to these questions make customer relationship management possible. Various techniques exist among data mining software, each with their own advantages and challenges for different types of applications. A particular dichotomy exists between neural networks and chi-square automated interaction detection (CHAID). While differing approaches abound in the realm of data mining, the use of some type of data mining is necessary to accomplish the goals of today’s customer relationship management philosophy.