Critical Success Factors in a Six Dimensional Model CRM Strategy

Introduction

Organizations are currently embedded in an increasingly unstable and turbulent context, accentuated by globalization that leaves companies exposed to many unpredictable changes in their environment. In this scenario, organizations require trustworthy information and personalized knowledge that are indispensable in decision processes.

Relational marketing is becoming increasingly important. The main objective of relational marketing is to meet the needs of customers and the fulfillment of their wishes, through the design and development of products and services that can fulfill the expectations of customers. Kanagal (2009) mentions the application of relational marketing by companies is a competitive differential factor in leadership development, customer loyalty and rapid acceptance of new products and services in the market.

In addition to the acquisition of new customers, the retention of existing customers is of growing strategic importance, considering that the acquisition costs of a new customer are generally much higher than the retention costs of an existing customer. This vision is confirmed by Orantes-Jiménez, Vázquez-Álvarez, and Tejeida-Padilla (2017), which highlight that customer retention can offer greater profitability to companies. Van Triest, Bun, Van Raaij, and Vernooij (2009) complement this by stating that the customer retention process offers companies the potential to become more competitive than the competition, even in those with lower production costs. However, in the current competitive paradigm of national and international markets, customer loyalty is only possible if customers have a high degree of satisfaction with the products/services offered by the company.

Market orientation is an organizational culture that requires customer satisfaction to be at the center of business transactions. To this end, it is necessary to ensure that the company generates added value for customers and better performance for the organization (Anderson & Narus, 1998). Furthermore, market-oriented behavior facilitates organizational innovation, positively influencing commercial performance and the company's ability to perceive and satisfy customers (Prifti & Alimehmeti, 2017).

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategic model that aims to facilitate the management of knowledge from customer interaction and, consequently, helps to improve the decision-making process. CRM is not merely software or an activity that focus only in the customer service process, but it should be seen as a holistic process of anticipating and satisfying the expectations of customers. The management of the relationship with the customer (CRM) has been analyzed from diverse perspectives, standing out the information and marketing systems. CRM has implications throughout the organization and studies reveal a concern in analyzing in CRM adoption the relationship between critical success factors across the organization and their performance (Alamgir & Shamsuddoha, 2015; Meyliana, Hidayanto, & Budiardjo, 2016; Sebjan, Bobek, & Tominc, 2014). However, considering all dimensions of CRM, which can be viewed as a strategy, it is pertinent to exhaustively identify the critical success factors.

The objective of this chapter, based on the six dimensions model on the adoption of a CRM strategy, is to present and characterize a total of sixty-five critical factors, which are grouped into six dimensions. These critical success factors are generally cross-cutting regardless of the structure and sector of activity of the company, but the organizational specificities and the context must be taken into account in the establishment of a CRM strategy following the recommendations of Ahmad and Buttle (2002). Initially, the manuscript describes the different dimensions that influence the CRM adoption strategy. Consequently, critical success factors are integrated and discussed in each dimension. The paper concludes with the presentation of recommendations and solutions for its adoption in a business context, looks to the main current research lines in the final and the final conclusions are drawn.