Critical factors and benefits in the implementation of customer relationship management

In competitive consumer markets, building and maintaining a good relationship with customers is essential to long-term business survival. Currently, firms are applying Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to facilitate the maintenance of this relationship. This investigation applies interview survey methods to explore the relationship between Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Organizational Learning, Relationship Quality, and Organizational Performance in the implementation of a CRM system. Among these factors, BPR and Organizational Learning are the first steps in the construction of CRM. BPR involves staff reward and training, organizational structure, and information technology tools. Organizational learning involves commitment to learning, shared visions and open-mindedness. Relationship Quality involves trust, satisfaction and commitment, which are intended to be increased by the implementation. The Balanced Scorecard approach is applied to the measurement of Organizational Performance, involving the internal business process, learning and growth, customer, and financial performance perspectives. Overall, the study supports the proposition relationship between the four perspectives. The actual implementation of CRM is believed by the respondents to contribute to an improvement in relationship quality and organizational performance, and the consensus is that implementation of a CRM system should be preceded by BPR and organizational learning.