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World Academics Journal of __________________________________________ Research Paper.
Management
Vol.9, Issue.1, pp.16-20, March (2021) E-ISSN: 2321-905X
Factors for Success in Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Systems
Hamadi Khlif
Dept. of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics and Management, Sfax University, Sfax, Tunisia
Author’s Mail Id: hamadi.khlif@fsegs.usf.tn, Tel.: +216-22-699-873
Available online at: www.isroset.org
Received: 27/Dec/2020, Accepted: 09/Feb/2021, Online: 31/Mar/2021
Abstract— Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become the main interest areas of researchers and
practitioners, especially in the domains of Management and Information Systems (IS). Also, Customer Relationship
Management is the most important tools in our era and is the integration of trust, business and technology to gratify the
requirements of the clients. This paper is an overview of success factors that could facilitate successful adoption of CRM.
There are two factors: the organizational climate and the capacity for innovation. For this study, a survey was developed
with 200 CRM users. Empirical research is in the positivist paradigm based on the hypothetico-deductive method. Indeed,
the approach adopted is the quantitative approach based on a questionnaire complied by Tunisian companies operating in
different sectors of activity. For the data analyses, the structural equations method was used to conduct our exploratory and
confirmatory analysis. The results revealed that a creative organizational climate and high innovation capacity positively
influences the success of CRM practice.
Keywords— Customer Relationship Management, organizational climate, innovation capacity, structural equation, Success
factors.
I. INTRODUCTION
Today, the success of many companies is largely
conditioned by its capacity for innovation. Indeed, a
company is expected to be innovative to meet the needs of
its customers and remain competitive in the market. Rare
are the research works that have studied the success of the
relationship management practice [1].
CRM is a term used for the implementation of some
procedures within a company to arrange its customers
through the CRM software that is used to support the
procedures.
The importance of effective customer relationships as a
key to customer value is widely emphasised. In order to
enhance these relationships, the application of IT to
marketing through customer relationship management
(CRM) software, e-commerce and other initiatives is
growing rapidly.
The objective of CRM is to create a customer-oriented
organization that maximizes customer value and long-term
organizational profitability through realization of mutual
benefit, durable relationships with customers.
The main objective of this study was to identify the effect
of organizational climate and innovative capacity, which
are two key factors, on the success of CRM practice.
II. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The core aim of this theoretical paper includes three
objectives:
Objective 1: To identify success factors for the customer
relationship management
Objective 2: To increase the understanding of CRM
Objective 3: To justify and validate the summarized
success factors and suggest how to best reach success
according to these factors.
III. RELATED WORK
The CRM Practice
CRM is a customer database that allows a company to
have a clear and consistent view of its customers and
future customers (prospects). It represents all the tools that
identify prospects, and then processes, analyzes and retains
customers. The goal is to ensure a personalized follow-up,
by offering the best quality service possible. This tool
makes it possible to place the customer at the heart of the
company by listening to them and having a better
knowledge of their expectations and needs. It also helps to
better target customers, optimize working time, while
increasing the responsiveness of a company and boosting
its productivity.
There are usually three categories of CRM: analytic CRM,
operational CRM and collaborative CRM
Charoensukmongkol, P. & Sasatanun, P. (2017).
World Academics Journal of Management Vol.9, Issue.1, Mar 2021
© 2021, WAJM All Rights Reserved 17
Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM includes: customer knowledge and
segmentation analysis, dashboard development to analyze
profitability, customer value measurement and life
calculation.
Analytical CRM provides decision-makers and managers
with tools to measure the performance of marketing, sales
or customer service departments. It also gives statisticians
tools to strengthen the operational capacity of their
department.
Operational CRM
Operational CRM focuses on the daily management of the
relationship with the customer, through all points of
contact (remote contact center by telephone or internet,
sales force tools). Management can coordinate the different
channels of interaction between the company and its
customers by synchronizing information for marketing,
sales and all services.
Collaborative CRM
The collaborative synthesis approach is designed to
facilitate communication between the company and its
customers, as well as integration with other departments of
the company such as logistics, finance, distribution.
Reference [2] has proposed his own definition of CRM
which translates as follows: “CRM is a multi-tasking
technology in the form of a database containing huge
volumes of customer data. It promotes the integration of
customer-centric systems, enabling the organization to
better understand its customers through the alliance of
business and customer data, with the goal of increasing
profits”.
Indeed, for [3], CRM or its terms "remain associated with
various representations, fruit of the concerns of the variety
of actors concerned".
CRM is also seen as a management practice that helps
retain the most profitable customers. Indeed, the
establishment of good CRM practice within a company
offers benefits in terms of improved sales, evolution of
market share (PDM), customer satisfaction and reducing
the default rate.
There are four functions of CRM practice, namely:
1. Operational CRM: allows managing the relationship
with customers on a daily basis [4].
2. Strategic CRM: places CRM at the heart of the
company's overall strategy.
3. Analytical CRM: uses the data collected by
operational CRM to carry out a thorough analysis of
these data in order to drive the activity (decision
support, forecasts, creation of customer profiles).
4. E–CRM: is the new generation of customer relations.
Although the techniques of customer relation 2.0 are
today anchored in the mores of the companies, they
are still very evaluative and far from reaching
maturity. In some sectors, the implementation of an e-
CRM strategy is encouraged, while in others, it is at its
beginnings.
One can also imagine that depending on the activity of the
company and its customers, the digitalization of the
relationship is different. For example, depending on
whether the clients are individuals (B2C) or professionals
(B2B), it is assumed that the strategies and issues are
different. The techniques and examples detailed above are
largely drawn from a B2C context; the reason it seems is
that the e-CRM market is more advanced and studied for
the general public.
There are two components of e-CRM that must be
distinguished, which are front office and back office:
- The front office: these are the supports that the client
can see and with which he has interaction and direct
use. These include e-mailing, newsletters,
personalized content and spaces, virtual spaces, portals
or social forums and networks.
- The back office: this is the set of systems that make e-
CRM work. The customer has no vision of these tools;
they are managed by the company or its external
provider in CRM. This is the set of solutions that
manage data mining and are integrated into the IS.
Thus, the data are interconnected with each other and
with front-office tools. These are mainly data analysis
tools collected and communication campaign
planning.
The success of e-CRM practice depends not only on the
acquisition of the technology itself, but also of factors
whose presence is now important. These factors are
intrinsic to the modern enterprise, especially the
organizational climate and the capacity for innovation.
These allow to give a better performance, and ultimately
that the e-CRM (acquisition, maintenance and retention of
the customer); and, for this to be realized, a harmonious
and global vision is necessary.
The Organizational Climate
The literature on organizational climate is as abundant as it
is varied. The very notion of "climate" applied to the field
of organizations is not without raising a series of questions
of semantic order (what definition?) and methodological
(how to apprehend or measure it?). The search for a
consensual definition comes up against the implicit
nuances between the "social climate" mentioned by French
specialists and the "organizational climate" that their
Anglo-Saxon counterparts seem to prefer. As part of this
study, we will talk about organizational climate.
The organizational climate in its basic sense would be the
personality of an organization; that is, a set of
characteristics that describes an organization, distinguishes
it from others and influences the behaviors and attitudes of
those members.
The creative organizational climate is often seen as a
phenomenon that largely influences the company's
World Academics Journal of Management Vol.9, Issue.1, Mar 2021
© 2021, WAJM All Rights Reserved 18
capacity for innovation. The organizational climate is
therefore a very important factor in producing and
implementing any new idea. The work of [5] shows that
creativity is positively related to the innovation of the
company. The latter depends on the re- activity of the
enterprise and the degree of acceptance of adoption of new
technologies.
According to [6], the organizational climate is "[...] the
tenor of life in a working environment. An innovative
climate fosters commitment and enthusiasm, encourages
people to take calculated risks in a safe environment,
promotes learning, and encourages independent thinking".
Hence, the hypothesis H1: The creative and
collaborative organizational climate influences the
positive performance of CRM practice.
Innovation Capacity
Innovation capacity: it is the ability of a company to
engage in the process of innovation, i.e., to be able to
transform new knowledge into products, processes or
systems. It is based on a set of essential factors,
including people, tools and methods, physical resources
and financial resources. Technology is the major factor that
drives all the above discussed processes and strategies.
Organizations will also need to select and track
technologies that are likely to impact their efforts. The
second hypothesis presented, H2: Innovation capacity
has a positive influence on the performance of CRM
practice.
The Performance of CRM Practice
Improved performance practice CRM is precisely the
development of the customer relationship, it is a real need,
especially as, in general, companies consider that acquiring
a new customer is much more expensive than keeping a
customer already acquired [7].
CRM is a strategy framed in a methodology and supported
by new technologies. Indeed, for the CRM project to
succeed, we must take into account its failure. In their
study on the implementation of an e-CRM technology, [8]
showed that this new technology was directly rejected by
the sales team because it imposed a collaboration between
the sales representatives. One of the facets of e-
management is CRM [9].
IV. METHODOLOGY
To verify our research hypotheses, a survey of 200
Tunisian industrial enterprises was conducted. The
questionnaire includes an introductory paragraph
explaining the purpose of the study and specifying the
possibility of answering anonymous.
Data Analysis Methods
We used, the reliability analysis of the measurement scales
as well as the principal component analysis (PCA) to
examine the dimensionality. The verification of the
research hypotheses was developed using the structural
equation method. Several software packages allow
checking the relations of our model, but the Amos 21
software [10] has been preferred for its simplicity.
Operationalization of Variables
All the items of the different constructs were evaluated on
a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 to 5, from totally agree
to totally disagree. We measured the built capacity of
innovation from four items inspired by the work of [11].
The built organizational climate was measured by three
items based on [12]. CRM technology was measured by 12
items [13].
Fig. 1 The research model
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Reliability Analysis and PCA
The reliability of a scale can be qualified as satisfied when
the results obtained during repeated measurements of the
same object or the same phenomenon prove almost
identical. To test the reliability of a measurement scale, the
most commonly used method is Cronbach's alpha.
The organizational climate kept its original form, namely
three measurement items, gave a value of α = 0.874. The
capacity for innovation, initially measured by four items,
was reduced to three items after purification and gave an
acceptable reliability value of α = 0.824. The CRM
technology is composed of 12 items. Purification gave us a
five-item scale with a value of 0.791.
The Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis: Overall
Model Adjustment Results
Table I indicates that the values of the following indices:
X2 normed, GFI, AGFI and RMSEA are satisfactory. The
RMR, CFI and NFI indices are nevertheless below the
required standards.
TABLE I Presentation of the Adjustment Indices of the Global Model
Indices
CMIN/DF
GFI
AGFI
RMSEA
CFI
NFI
Values
2.236
0.926
0.913
0.058
0. 960
0.952
World Academics Journal of Management Vol.9, Issue.1, Mar 2021
© 2021, WAJM All Rights Reserved 19
The results obtained in the exploratory factor analysis are
confirmed. The reliability of internal consistency scales
was verified by Rhô value.
The criterion of the average variance extracted or the Rhô
of convergent validity (ρvc) whose value must exceed the
threshold of 0.5 has been calculated for the convergent
validity of the constructs.
TABLE II Results of the Reliability and Validity of the Constructs
Variable
Convergent validity
(Rhô de Joreskog)
Rho of validity
convergent (AVE)
The organizational climate
0.917
0.754
Innovation capacity
0.856
0.644
The performance of CRM
practices
0.775
0.612
As regards to the discriminant validity, the square root of
the convergent validity Rhô is inscribed in the diagonals,
the other values are the correlations between the
dimensions.
TABLE III Discriminant Analysis
The
organizational
climate
Innovation
capacity
The performance
of practices
CRM
Organizational climate
0.868
Innovation capacity
0.299
0.802
Performance of
practices, CRM
0.379
0.433
0.782
Analysis of Research Hypotheses
The estimates of the regression coefficients and the
explained percentages of variance R2 allow us to verify
our research hypotheses.
TABLE IV Validation of Research Hypotheses
Student's t-
test
Significance
of links
Validation of
hypotheses
H1: Organizational climate
→ Practice s CRM
2.232
0.000*
confirmed
H2: innovation capacity →
Practice s CRM
0.000*
confirmed
*P < 0.05
The regression coefficient between organizational climate
and performance practice CRM is significant (t-test student
2.232). This result allows us to confirm our first
hypothesis. Similarly, the regression coefficient between
innovation capacity and performance practice of CRM is
significant (the student t-test t = 2.076). Therefore, our
second hypothesis are also confirmed.
VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE
CRM projects are complex to set up and require strong
involvement to ensure its success. Project management is
essential because it is through effective procedures
(processes) that the companies can properly introduce
these tools in their organization.
The aim of this paper is to study the impact of
organizational climate and innovative capacity on the
success of the CRM practice in Tunisian industrial
companies. The results of the survey, conducted among
200 Tunisian companies operating in various industrial
sectors of the country’s economy, revealed that the
capacity for innovation plays an important role in the
success of CRM practice. As well, a creative climate
favorable for performance practices of CRM must be in
place.
Like all research, this study has some limitations. Indeed,
the size of the study sample is quite small. Also, this
research was done in a specific period.
We conclude this work by specifying that it is the starting
point for further research, such as developing more
complex models to ensure successful CRM practices.
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World Academics Journal of Management Vol.9, Issue.1, Mar 2021
© 2021, WAJM All Rights Reserved 20
AUTHORS PROFILE
Hamadi Khlif obtained a Ph.D. degree
in Management sciences at the
Faculty of Economics and
Management in Sfax. He has 5 years
of teaching experience and 7 years of
Research Experience. He has
published more than 5 scholarly and
applied articles on these topics over
the past 2 years. His areas of research interests include E-
management, E-commerce management 2.0, and the
impact of Business Schools.
