Investigation Critical Success Factors of Customer Relationship Management Implementation

Transcription

1 World Applied Sciences Journal 18 (8): , 2012 ISSN IDOSI Publications, 2012 DOI: /idosi.wasj Investigation Critical Success Factors of Customer Relationship Management Implementation 1 2 Hossein Vazifehdust, Abbas Shahnavazi, 3 4 Mohammad Reza Taghizadeh Jourshari and Fataneh Sotoudeh Sharifi 1 Department of Faculty MBA, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran 2 Department of Accounting and Management, Roudbar branch, Islamic Azad University, Roudbar, Iran 3 Department of Business Management, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran 4 MBA graduate student at International University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran Abstract: Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects.. The main purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze the critical factors in CRM system design and implementation in the organizations. Our research methodology is based on studying and reviewing relevant literature from numerous fields of study associated with the essential issues of CRM projects implementation. Furthermore we proposed holistic approach for CRM project implementation based on an extensive review of the factors and essential elements that contribute to success of CRM project implementation. We have categorized factors into nine main groups (top management, chief executive officer, culture, organizational infrastructure, human resource management, continuous improvement, KM processes, technical infrastructure and CRM process) and a number of subgroups representing various dimensions of change to relate to CRM implementation. Key words: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Critical success factor (CSFs) INTRODUCION more effectively than their rivals in order to have sustainable competitive advantage. We can define The changes occurred in technology, economy and resource-based marketing approach as the adoption and social and cultural structures have changed the extent of application of source basement in marketing strategies. competition. Nowadays, competition reflects the search Enterprises will have unique values, which the rivals for new markets rather than having a larger portion in the cannot imitate, by focusing on market, using the marketcurrent markets. The enterprises, which perform activities based resources and developing market-based abilities. In in an environment full of uncertainty, have to foresee the addition, they will be able to foresee and compensate the opportunities and threats; furthermore, they have to be necessities of the consumers, which the rivals will not be able to use the opportunities and get rid of the hreats [1]. aware of, in the best way. This situation will grant the Resource-based view reflects the importance of the enterprises with a sustainable competitive advantage. enterprises self resources in granting sustainable CRM is increasingly taking centerstage in organizations competitive advantage for themselves. Market-oriented corporate strategies.customer relationship management strategies must be adopted in order to be able to apply (CRM) is the key competitive strategy businesses need to source-based approach. Pioneer basic abilities of stay focused on the needs of the customers and to enterprises are developed parallel to the market and the integrate a customer facing approach throughout the relationship between enterprises and clients [2]. In market- organization [3]. CRM strategies should result in orientation, enterprises should determine the demands improved customer service through improved value, and necessities of clients quicker than their rivals and coordination and selling efficiency [4]. Formulating CRM they should compensate these demands and necessities strategies can also create valuable marketing Corresponding Author: Abbas Shahnavazi, Department of Management,Roudbar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Roudbar, Iran. 1052

2 opportunities, increase customer value and enhance more efficient to maintain an existing customer customer satisfaction in the pursuit of business excellence relationship than create a new one. Relationship marketing [5]. CRM, closely related to notions of relationship and is proposed for building more unique relationships with database marketing, aims at creating, developing and customers and for adding more value to goods and enhancing personal and valuable relationships with services than what is possible through transaction customers by providing ersonalized and customized marketing [12].CRM has developed as an approach based products and services [6]. CRM is as an integrated on maintaining positive relationships with customers, approach to managing relationships. The goal of CRM is increasing customer loyalty and expanding customer to achieve a competitive advantage in customer lifetime value [13]. CRM is founded on four relationshipmanagement and ultimately increase profit levels [7]. based tenets: Even though CRM systems are becoming a widely popular choice for implementation,success is becoming Customers should be managed as important assets. illusive. In this sense, only 3% of the companies are Customer profitability varies; not all customers are developing successful CRM projects; 17% are starting to equally desirable. see the projects from a holistic focus; 35% of the Customers vary in their needs, preferences, buying companies have started projects without any type of behavior and price sensitivity. coordination; and 45% have not evaluated CRM [8]. By understanding customer drivers and customer There are a lot of factors which influence CRM process profitability, companies can tailor their offerings to and projects. Work on critical success factors (CSFs) maximize the overall value of their customer should encourage more appropriate implementation portfolio[14]. practice; however many CSF studies conclude with a list of factors but provide little further guidance. The Although the importance of CRM as a successful primary challenge in CRM initiation is integrating the strategic approach since the 1990s has been widely above factors with organizational,personnel and market recognized, there is no consistent definition of it [15]. constraints and capabilities. Nowadays a great wish of CRM has been defined variously as data-driven organization is to define a suitable CRM system and marketing [16]. CRM is an enterprise approach to manage their customer relationship successfully. understanding and influencing customer behavior The main purpose of this research is to investigate the through meaningful communications in order to improve critical factors in CRM system design and implementation customer acquisition, customer retention, customer in the organizations.the remainder of the article is loyalty and customer profitability [17].Gro nroos [18], organized as follows. First, the literature n relationship The role of relationship marketing is to identify, management is reviewed, identifying CRM, its objectives, establish, maintain and enhance relationships with benefits. And pervious studies in CRM CSFs are given. customers and other stakeholders, at a profit, so that the Subsequently, the proposed CFS is discussed. The article, objectives of all other parties involved are met; and that finishes with a conclusion and discussion of the this is done by a mutual exchange and fulfillment of limitations to the research and suggests avenues for promises. According to Piccoli et al.[19], CRM is an future research. active, participatory and interactive relationship between business and customer. The objective is to achieve a Literature Review comprehensive view of customers and be able to The Definition and Importance of CRM: As the business consistently anticipate and react to their needs with world has shifted from product focus to customer focus, targeted and effective activities at every customer touch managers have found that the enhancement of existing point.payne and Frow [20] have a process oriented customer relations brings the benefit of profitable and perspective where CRM is defined as: the crosssustainable revenue growth [9]. Customer relationship functional integration of processes, people, operations management (CRM) is a critical research domain [10]. and marketing capabilities that is enabled through CRM refers to a customer-focused business strategy. information, technology and applications. This This concept is not new and it is in fact a natural definition requires a multidimensional strategic approach development of another concept that is very well to CRM. Customer relationship management incorporates accepted in the marketing sphere: relational marketing information acquisition, information storage and decision [11]. Relational marketing emphasizes that customer [21].A review of these and other definitions suggests that retention affects the company s profitability because it is CRM can be considered at three levels [22]. 1053

3 Table 1: CRM objectives Author CRM objective Wilson et al. [26] Increased customer retention and loyalty Higher customer profitability Creating value for customer Ryals and Knox [27] Service reduces costs and increases profitability Service improves service delivery Service helps organizations to delight customers Bayon et al [28] Closed- loop marketing Better information for better management Expand marketing channels through the web Kim et al. [29] Custom knowledge Custom interaction Custom value Custom satisfaction CRM is about the implementation of a specific technology solution project; CRM is the implementation of an integrated series of customer-oriented technology solutions; and CRM is a holistic strategic approach to managing customer relationships to creates areholder Companies use CRM not only to create a customer profile, but also to anticipate customer needs, conduct market research and prompt customer purchase [23]. CRM provides transform organizations into customer-centric enterprises that maximize the value of every customer [24]. A CRM business strategy includes marketing, operations, sales, customer service, human resources, R&D and finance, as well as information technology and the Internet to maximize the profitability of customer interactions [25]. CRM Objectives: In this section objectives for CRM within organization will be discussed. The presented CRM objectives have been verified in previous research and studies by each author mentioned below. CRM Benefits: This section presents an example of the benefits of CRM [30]. Helping an enterprise to enable its marketing departments to identify and target their best customers, manage marketing campaigns and generate quality leads for the sales team. Assisting the organization to improve telesales, account and sales management by optimizing information shared by multiple employees and streamlining existing processes (for example, taking orders using mobile devices) Allowing the formation of individualized relationships with customers, with the aim of improving customer satisfaction and maximizing profits; identifying the most profitable customers and providing them the highest level of service. Providing employees with the information and processes necessary to know their customers, understand and identify customer needs and effectively build relationships between the company, its customer base and distribution partners Pervious Studies in CRM CSFs: A variety of factors determine significant success ingredients for successful implementing CRM in organization. There are many pervious researchers to identify critical success factors (CSFs) [31]. CSFs are described as being in necessary and sufficient for success: each factor is necessary and the set of factors are sufficient [32]. Many researchers have attempts to develop a comprehensive list of CSFs for CRM implementation.in this study by reviewing academic and practitioner literature regarding CSFs for CRM implementation, the researcher found 14 relevant studies. (Table 3). However, the list differs because of the multidisciplinary nature of CRM.found 13 relevant studies. (Table 2). However, the list differs because of the multidisciplinary nature of CRM. There are great expectations for what CRM can accomplish.however, despite consider able organizational and executive commitments these expectations have not always been met. The perception of a widening gap between the potential of customer relationship management (that is, what it can ideally achieve) and its ctual accomplishments has increased the need for better understanding of the nature of the problem and for better measures of factors that influence outcomes [46]. Failure rates of CRM projects are high. These failures reflect that CRM is too often implemented with a focus on a software package without an in-depth understanding of the issues of integrating culture, process, people and technology within and across organizational context [47]. Finnegan and Wendy [38] describe some of the main causes of the failure of CRM Strategies Such As: Thinking that technology is the solution Lack of management support There is no passion for the customer Lack of vision and strategy Not redefining processes 1054

4 Table 2: Summery of literature review identifying critical factors influencing CRM No. Year Reference Dimension Handen [33] Strategy Organization Technology Segmentation Process Goodhue et al.[34] Top management support Vision (again) Willingness to change processes Willingness to share data Croteau and Li [35] Top management support Technological readiness Knowledge management capabilities Torkzadeh et al. [36] Champion leadership Business-IT alignment System integration Knowledge management Culture/structure change Lindgreen et al. [37] Strategy development process Value creation process Multichannel integration process Information management process Performance- assessment process Finnegan et al. [38] Definition of the company's organizational framework Definition of a customer strategy Designing a customer relationship assessment system Process map Human resources organization and management Construction of the information system Kim and Kim [39] Standard operating procedure compliance Accountability and ownership Callback information content Customer contact process Billing issues Dispensing and replacement process Queuing procedure Strauss et al.[40] Customer strategy Customer-interaction strategy Brand strategy Value-creation strategy Culture Bull [41] Communication-distribution infrastructure Business dynamics Customer relations Innovation and quality Campbell. [42] Processes Human factor Technology King and Lam[43] Top management support Communication of CRM strategy Knowledge management capabilities Willingness to share data Willingness to change processes Technological readiness Culture change/customer orientation Process change capability Systems integration capability Nonaka [44] Culture People Process Technology Leibowitz [45] Infrastructure Process Customer Organizational performance Table 3: Proposed CSFs of CRM process Dimensions Factors Factors Top management 1. Support and Commitment 2. The link between business vision, mission and task and CRM strategy 3. Providing necessary resources and budget 4. Remove organizational constraints Chief Executive 1. Champions and leaders Officer (CEO) 2. Defining CRM strategy and vision 3. Network of experts 4. The pilot of formal CRM program 5. Communication 6. Segmentation Culture 1. Strategic change to customer-focused culture 2. Customer orientation 3. Customer satisfaction 4. Acceptance of customer knowledge sharing with the positive attitude Organizational 1. Establishing CRM roles and teams infrastructure 2. The CRM implement unit (department) 3. The unit (committee or team) to plan and promote CRM 4. Communities of practice (CoPs) 5. Having a flat or network structure Human resource 1. Employee empowerment management 2. Employee involvement (HRM) 3. Employee training and development 4. Employee recruitment and selection 5. Employee retention Top management 1. Support and Commitment 2. The link between business vision, mission and task and CRM strategy 3. Providing necessary resources and budget 4. Remove organizational constraints Chief Executive 1. Champions and leaders Officer (CEO) 2. Defining CRM strategy and vision 3. Network of experts 4. The pilot of formal CRM program 5. Communication 6. Segmentation 1055

5 Table 3: Continue Dimensions Factors Continuous improvement (CI) Knowledge management (KM) Technical infrastructure CRM process According to Kim and Kim (2009): Factors 1. Measurement 2. Benchmarking) 1. Knowledge-enabled Customer Relationship Management 2. Customer knowledge sources 3. Customer knowledge management 4. Customer knowledge competence 1. Building ICT infrastructure 2. Integrating with current systems 3. Effective use of software tools 4. Security of data on internet 5. The database is updated periodically 1. Acquiring customer relation 2. Retaining customer relation 3. Expanding customer relation Poor quality data and information Not managing the change properly Not involving the final users in designing the CRM solution CRM is a complex term that involves several aspects within the organization and it cannot be reduced to only one of these aspects. Systemic approaches to CRM help organizations coordinate and effectively maintain the growth of different customer contact points or communication channels [48]. The systemic and holistic approach places CRM at the core of the organization, with customer-orientated business processes and the integration of CRM systems [49].We highlighted the following points as the important gaps and weakness of pervious studies: The proposed CSFs are fragmented and diversified, depending on the researches background and interest. Many studies on CSFs are narrowly scoped. Some studies only cover one part of CRM process As a result, we need for a holistic study on CRM that overcomes all of gaps and weakness. Research Methodology: Our research methodology is based on studying and reviewing relevant literature from numerous fields of study associated with the essential ssues of CRM. These cover the factors that affect a CRM process based on comprehensive analysis of CRM literature combining of research studies. Furthermore it proposed holistic approach for CRM based on an extensive review of the factors and essential elements that contribute to success of CRM process. Proposed Framework of CRM Process CSFs: The factors listed below are distilled from various articles and empirical research on CRM process. They were nine categorized into a number of subgroups representing various dimensions of change to relate to CRM process. Top Management: This factor explains the degree of top management involving and taking customer relashioship management seriously. For CRM project to be successful, the first step is to gain the support and commitment of top management to initiatives. The level of support by top management will determine CRM success or failure. With out the support of top-level managers, the success of CRM activities is cumbersome. Eriksson [50] explains the importance of support from senior management as being critical to their firm s ability to develop a customer knowledge competence. Top managers must demonstrate their support to CRM programs by involving themselves in the customer knowledge sharing activities and, including CRM as a part of organizational vision and mission and developing a friendly culture through organization. Since management support is a critical factor for successful innovation, CRM as an organizational innovation also requires management's strong impetus and support [51]. Another role of top managers is eliminating constraints (such as rigid regulation,hierarchical bureaucracy, lack of funding to CRM programs, close culture and etc) faced by organization when implementing CRM process. Proper budgeting of resources is crucial for CRM. Making technical system, recruiting and training employees, reward system and etc required financial support. Lack of commitment in budgeting and funding would be a major problem and barrier for effective CRM active ties.it is critical that the CRM strategy should be tied to the business strategy. CRM strategy should be developed based on business strategy to confirm that CRM goals are congruence with the strategic goals of the firm. Chief Executive Officer (CEO): CRM should be the responsibility of dedicated staff with a leader. If this does not happen,the program never gets the attention it deserves. Implementing CRM program and planning in the organization successfully depends on directly on CEO (Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO),director of CRM, Chief Operation Officer (COO), Chief Learning Officer (CLO), ChiefMarketing Officer (CMO), Chief Information Officer (CIO) and etc) support and commitment. CEO has responsibility to implement CRM strategies and practices 1056

6 within organization. Some firms use a cross functional value creation strategy offers superior value to team to develop CRM processes while in others the CEO individual customers and at the same time maximizes has taken the leading role. CEO influences other profitability from each relationship. Consultants can employees to imitate them and increase the propensity of bring to the organization specialized skills, experience employees to participate in CRM activities and know-how that the organization needs and it is Leadership is responsible for creating the customer both time consuming and expensive for it to build vision of the organization, communicating that vision by internally setting clear objectives, prioritizing customer projects, setting customer strategy and building a culture that Reward System regards knowledge as a vital company resource. Creating Continuous Improvement (CI): an effective system for managing relationships means companies need to radically change their own behavior Measurement and define a real CRM strategy. To do this, a company Benchmarking must: Identify customers, analyze the profitability of Knowledge Management (KM): customers and defining customer objectives[52]. Lindgreen et al. [37] define 4 kinds of customer strategy, Knowledge-enabled Customer Relationship such as: Management Customer knowledge sources Customer strategy: If a customer strategy is not Customer knowledge management created prior to implementation of the relationship- Customer knowledge competence management program there is a real risk that managing the program will fail. A customer strategy Technical Infrastructure: focuses on how to attract new customers and how to maintain and develop relationships with existing Building ICT infrastructure valuable customers. Integrating with current systems Customer-interaction strategy: Customer interaction Effective use of software tools refers to how an organization interacts with its Security of data on internet customers and how it delivers goods and services to The database is updated periodically them. This includes all the interaction processes, touch points, employees and distribution channels. CRM Process According to Kim and Kim (39): The purpose is to get to know when and how customers want to interact with the organization. Acquiring customer relation Brand strategy: Brands are a major determining Retaining customer relation element in the repeat purchase of an organization s Expanding customer relation goods and services. Successful brands achieve higher levels of customer loyalty. The brand strategy For developing customer knowledge, new marketing describes what an organization s brand stands for, methods in the organization, there should be some who it wants to be and how to act to achieve that networks for facilitating share of knowledge among identity. The strategy positions the brand as experts. These networks can be formed as scientific perceived by customers and shareholders to occupy commitments, communities of practice, CRM teams and defensible positions in various marketplaces. CRM centers.starting CRM programs can be costly, Value-creation strategy: Relationship management financial cost (for example, the cost of resources are is a value-adding activity through mutual allocated into CRM system) or the cost of risk (time and interdependence and collaboration between an cost of maintaining databases). Thus it is imperative to organization and its customers and other company to perform cost-benefit analysis of a CRM stakeholders. It should provide answers to questions project in terms of business value. Many benefits of CRM like: how to create and deliver value to customers are intangible and difficult to quantify. They can be either and how to maximize customer lifetime value in order a large one at the organization-wide or limited a particular to increase customer profitability. A well-defined process or function. Thus it is logical carry out pilot 1057

7 implementation, during which it should be possible to Organizational Infrastructure: Organizational leaders learn from process and avoid the extra costs.it has been must act as catalysts in building team-oriented recognized by organizations that communication would organizations [55]. Itis critical for establishing a group of play a vital role to entrench CRM as a strategic focus area people with specific and formal responsibilities for CRM. in the organization. Many CRM activities fail because Before CRM program formally begins, Key positions and employees can not see the benefit of sharing customer skill should be identified and staff should be recruited. knowledge and relation. Thus another role of CEO is to Members of customer relationship teams interact and educate employees of any level of organization on the influence each other with trusty and meaningful importance of CRM. Employees should be informed about relationships for achieving objectives and goals. The benefits of sharing customer knowledge, establishing development of customer relationship teams composed of communication with customer, respect to customer value workers from cross-functional areasof the organization and providing customer satisfaction. Some (both vertical and horizontal). By creating teams, it allows communication channels used in organization to convey organization to apply diverse skills and experiences achievements of CRM projects are internal magazines, toward its processes and problem solving. This calls for journals, meetings and etc. Customer- segmentation a high degree of cross-functional collaboration to provide analysis means identifying profitable customers. customers with a high service level.besides establishing Segments, in turn, are based on the lifetime-value of teams, organization should establish department of plan, customers for which qualitative or quantitative objectives promote and implementation of CRM projects. Staff in that are set. The customer segmentation process should department, have interact with other department of therefore take place in two stages, first rank the customers organization and up to date their customer knowledge by their value and then differentiate them by their specific plan and program based on environment, social, needs. The more an organization can break down its economic, cultural changes.organization structure may valuable customers into different groups with different have great impact on CRM activities especially sharing needs and expectations the better it can serve those [53]. customer knowledge. Two types of rganizations, mechanic and organic may have different value creation Culture: Culture is the combination of shared history, approaches. Organizational structure hierarchical expectations, unwritten rules and social customs that bureaucracy leads to insufficient, ineffectiveness, compel behaviors. Relationship management requires a powerlessness and prohibiting sharing knowledge and strategic change from a product or process-focused expertise among employees and managers [56]. Mechanic culture towards a customer-focused culture. Skaates & organization with hierarchical bureaucracy breaks tasks Seppanen [24] suggest that nurturing the right culture is into simple parts and different level of employees has an important element in CRM strategy implementation, responsibilities of each of them and each defines by particularly where CRM strategy falls within the domains specific rules and regulations. In this kind of organization of IT and marketing, each of which contain their own knowledge is transfer vertically through typical chain of organizational sub cultures.one of the most important command. The different level making it harder is to create factors for the quality and extension of customer a learning culture that facilitates sharing of ideas and knowledge creation and dissemination is the customer building of knowledge, its diffusion, co-ordination and oriented culture. It is a positive relation between control [57]. Hierarchical bureaucracy also limits customer-oriented culture positively and customer communications between employees and between satisfaction.customer satisfaction is essential for employees and supervisors. But organic organization with increasing the competitiveness of companies and flat and network structure has low functional barriers, achieving customer objectives. To improve it, it is foster cross communication, allows the sharing of necessary to identify customer values, needs and organizational, building new knowledge and seems it can expectations and ensure they are met. Every department facilitate CRM more effectively.communities of practice in an organization should realize that customer (CoPs) first stated by Gupta and Iyer [58], who described satisfaction is a component for building strong it as, an activity system that include individuals who are relationships and that this depends on the delivered united in action and in the meaning of action has for them quality of the value-added goods or services [54]. and for a larger collective. CoPs enable customer 1058

8 relationship team members to interact with the member of for employees to grow and to advance their career.to other CRM teams in other organizations. In fact, the retain valuable employees they must receive recognition growing interest in the study of communities of practice and be rewarded for theirperformance and customerstems from the fact that they can encourage the creation focused behavior [63]. of value in the short and long terms, facilitate the conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit, overcome the Continuous Improvement: Stylianou and Robbins (2010) barriers to the transfer collaboration [59]. indicate that organizations must set measurable, specific relationship-marketing objectives and key performance HRM: Implementing a CRM strategy means involving a indicators (e.g. retention rate, share of wallet, customer wide variety of people - frontline sales, marketing and lifetime value and customer satisfaction) Formal feedback service providers, business analysts, IT professionals and and formal evaluation of relationship-management a broad array of managers, all of whom must collaborate strategies and processes are important for continuous to ensure that a CRM strategy is well defined, delivered improvement. The benefits, performance and impacts of and deployed [60].Empowered employees are given the CRM projects should be measured and then necessary freedom, independence and discretion over their activities improvement should be carried out. Drew [64] suggested [61]. Delegating responsibility and empowering staff to that the function of measurement is to develop a method handle customer contacts is essential for relationship for generating a class of information thatw ill be useful in management [62]. By empowering people, it gives them a wide variety of problems and situations. Organization the sense of power and authority, thus giving them more must find the right system of measuring tangible and chance and rooms to innovate, creation and explore new intangible results of CRM. Measurement enables fields. Employee involvement means allowing employees organization to track the progress of CRM, to ensure that to involve in their own jobs design and evaluation of their its objectives are being attained and to determine its own jobs. If employees are not involved and consulted in benefit and effectiveness.in a business environment the CRM project design and planning stages, this will lead facing global competition, organization should develop to their requirements to be poorly understood and any business unit continuously in order to survive and satisfied.training is an important factor to CRM grow. Benchmarking is a very well known management implementation. Employees should become completely tool. It has played an important role in the implementing familiar with CRM process concepts. They should be CRM. It is the systematic or ongoing process of searching trained in using CRM systems and other technical tools. for industry-wide best practice that lead to superior Internal communications, promoting cross-functional performance [65]. Benchmarking measures the company s teams and establishing a learning community are ways performance toward its strategic goals. It is one of the that organizations can use and train their employees. most important tools for continuous improvement. Besides training, organizations should pay attention on Organization should start the benchmarking process from developing their employees skills. The skills and within before looking outside. This is because there are competences of employees need to be continuously usually exiting best practices within different parts of the developed. For effective CRM, skills development should same companies. Thus organization do not solve the same occur in the following areas: communication, soft problems, in this way time and money can be saved. networking, peer learning, team building, collaboration, market sensing, ability to understand customers, KM Process: According to Jennex et al. [66], KM is gain customer trust and respect and creative thinking. managing the corporation s knowledge through a Employees bring knowledge, expertise and competences systematically and organizationally specified process for into organization, thus employee recruitment and acquiring, organizing, sustaining, applying, sharing and selection are critical for organization. Employees renewing both the tacit and explicit knowledge of selection should be based on their willingness and ability employees to enhance organizational performance and to share knowledge and communication skills with create value. Management of knowledge is increasingly others.employee retention is one of important factor in considered as a main source of competitive advantage for order to implementing CRM successfully.in order to retain corporation [52-54].The availability of appropriate employees, organizations have to provide opportunities knowledge is an essential component for the development 1059

9 of strategies, goods and services, as well as distribution Senior management involvement: to the processes by channels and communication channels to customers [67]. which top management signals its support for the True relationship management is said only to be possible generation and integration of customer knowledge when knowledge management is integrated,with data within the firm being transformed into knowledge [68]. Moffett (2003) Employee evaluation and reward systems: refers to defined Knowledge-enabled Customer Relationship the process by which employee behavior is aligned Management (KCRM) as managing customer knowledge to the firm s goals of generating and integrating to generate value-creating lock-ins and channel customer knowledge into the firm s marketing knowledge to strengthen relationships and collaborative strategies. effectiveness, knowledge-enabled CRM is more of a business model/strategy than a technology-focused Technical Infrastructure: Information technology and solution [49]. The availability of large volumes of data CRM are expected to provide the mechanism through on customers, made possible by new technology tools, which long-term, individualized relationships with has created opportunities as well as challenges for customers can be created and maintained [34]. The role of businesses to leverage the data and gain competitive information-technology tools in relationship management advantage [68].The importance of KM is highlighted by is to facilitate the different customer processes, such as Wilson et al. who identified KM as a process that helps segmentation of customers based on their value or organizations find, select, organize, disseminate and prediction of customer behavior [46]. Informationtransfer important information and expertise necessary for technology systems tools (e.g. data mining tools) allow activities. Kinds of customer knowledge sources a organizations to analyze information and identify unseen company really need are: Markets, Competitions, patterns or trends in markets and purchase behavior of Customers, Orders, Contracts, Products and customers [47]. We assume sub factors listed below, services,problems, Best practices [26]. Barney et al. (2007) which help organization handle technical infrastructure. have argued that through maintaining a consistent We describe them briefly.one of the important factors for and permanently cooperative relationship with implementing CRM successfully is information and profitable customers, a business can considerably reduce communication technologies (ICTs). ICTs can enable the fluctuations of price and demand in its business rapid search, access and retrieval of information and can cycles and stabilize its environment in the long run [2]. Lin support collaboration and communication between et al. [10] define the aspect of customer knowledge organization s employees and customers.technical management as: Knowledge identify, Knowledge capture, individuals should be appointed to the CRM project team Knowledge select, Knowledge storage, Knowledge who are able to formulate a clear vision of how the sharing Knowledge application, Knowledge creation and technology will be used. Reviewing existing Knowledge sell. We add knowledge of local and global architecture,infrastructure and IT systems for CRM market, knowledge service, knowledge quality assurance applicability avoid unnecessary costs. Any technical and knowledge of criticize and propose.customer solution must add value to the CRM processes and knowledge competence is the processes of generating achieve measurable improvement This is a broad and integrating customer knowledge [45]. He collection of software tools and information technologies conceptualizes customer knowledge competence as being that support CRM which can be applied and integrated composed of four organizational processes, which, into technical infrastructure. Such as intranet and Web together, generate and integrate customer knowledge portals, content management, search and information within the organization: retrieval engines, business and intelligence, relational and object databases, groupware and workflow systems, A customer information process: refers to the set of collaboration, data mining, electronic and publishing behavioral activities that generate customer systems, customer relationship management, data ware knowledge pertaining to customers current and housing, push technologies, agents and knowledge potential needs for products and services creation applications. CRM technologies and a software Marketing-IT (information technology) interface: application provide right information to the right people refers to the process by which marketing and at the right time. Thus organization can be able to design information technology functions communicate and dynamic operational processes, make right decisions on cooperate with each other time, e nhance communications and participation among 1060

10 staff and customers, solve problems efficiently and their needs quickly and in ways that are relevant. improve financial performance.security of data on internet Organizations must understand their most profitable and update databases periodically are very important customers and respond to them in ways that maximize factors in using ICTs tools effectively. Any organization business opportunities. The concept of CRM is has private information, knowledge,documents which advocated as the next evolution of customer management revealing them is noxious. by extending and enhancing conventional relationship marketing methods [61]. CRM is a management approach Crm Process: Nonaka (2009) defines process as refers to that seeks to create,develop and enhance relationships a collection of tasks or activities that together result in a with arefully targeted customers to maximize customer desired business outcome [44]. Davenport, et al. [53] value, corporate profitability and thus, shareholdervalue suggest that CRM centers on gaining a steady or [62]. By implementing CRM systems, organizations assure increasing business from current customers, not that their contacts with their customers are timely, necessarily a constant stream of new customers. Winter relevant and completed efficiently. The most advanced [54] notice there are several ways to design a customer- CRM systems provide real-time data mining capabilities centric process.redesign front office and examine for assessing the company s customer databases to information flows between the front and back office; reveal insights that lead to profitable strategies. For foster customer loyalty by becoming proactive with customers, CRM offers customization,simplicity and customers and build in measurable checks and balances convenience for completing transactions, regardless of to continuously improve. Drucker [55] explain CRM has the channel used for interaction [63]. Companies been defined at two different levels of aggregation,when regardless of small, large or medium, whether established it is viewed as a process. Some have defined it as a higher or new, must understand the power of CRM. In this level process that includes all activities that firms review study we tried answer our research question,what undertake in their quest to build durable, profitable, are CSFs of implementing CRM? Although generic critical mutually beneficial customer relationships yet; others success factors exist for customer reshionship have construed it more narrowly and define it as a process management, each organizational environment and culture that is concerned with managing customer interactions for is unique and will present unique critical success factors. the purpose of promoting the establishment and We tried covered the CSFs suggested in literature related maintenance of long-term, profitable relationships.in this to CRM implementation. The CSfs of KM implementation paper, we define the CRM process as a series of activities were classified into nine dimensions and each of them for acquiring, retaining,and expanding the relationship subdivided into another factors. If organization wants to with customers. In the CRM field as well, the process survive and compete in the global environment, equal perspective is important in that buyer-seller relationships attention and emphasis must be given to all the CSFs. evolve over time,thus CRM success is contingent upon relationship activities can be effectively manage and CRM a firm s ability to detect and respond to evolving projects implement smoothly in order to maximize benefits customer needs and preferences [49]. Eriksson et al. from CRM projects and returns from customer relationship (2002) notice with a CRM process, companies can contact assets. customers prudently and manage the relationship differently in each distinct relationship phase,and such REFERENCES corporate relationship practices lead to augmenting buyers' trust and ultimately to cooperative relationships 1. Fahy, J. and A. Smithee, Strategic Marketing [50]. and the Resource Based View of the Firm, Academy of Marketing Science, pp: 10. CONCLUSION 2. Barney, J.B. and D.N. Clark, Resource-Based Theory: Creating and Sustaining Evans & Laskin, (2010) mention that the basic Competitive Advantage, Oxford, Oxford University assertion of relationship marketing is that developing a Press, strong seller-customer relationship provides customers 3. Zwick. Detlev, Nikhilesh. Dholakia, Consumer with an intangible value that is difficult for competitors to subjectivity in the Age of Internet: the radical imitate or match, which keeps them buying from the firm concept of marketing controlthrough customer [69]. More and more customers are expecting the relationship management, Information and companies with whom they do business to respond to Organization, 14:

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