Background of Research
Discuss about the Research Proposal on the Impact of Customer Relationship Management on Customer Retention.
In this highly competitive business environment, the organizations are facing it extremely challenging to retain the customers for longer period of time (Nyadzayo and Khajehzadeh 2016). Every organization is almost equally capable of providing similar quality products and services to the customers. In such situation, customer relationship management is the only element for the organizations towards retaining the customers for longer period of time (Khodakarami and Chan 2014). Customer relationship management strategies are mainly created with an intension of creating long lasting relationship with the customers. This research proposal will be focused on exploring the impact of customer relationship management on customer retention. The proposal will specifically consider Panda Retail Company for collecting specific information about the research topic.
Effective maintenance of customer relationship enhances the loyalty level of the customers, which encourages the customers towards repeating the purchase leading to organizational profit. Organizations can build relationship with the customers at superior level through concentrating on customer relationship management process (Soltani and Navimipour 2016). Extended customer relationship is the only way of understanding the core needs and demands of the customers. It helps the organizations towards providing customized products and services towards creating high level of competitive advantage (Choudhury and Harrigan 2014). Customer relationship also helps in assessing the issues of customers, which help organization to resolve those issues immediately and retain the customers for longer period.
Over the years, various scholars have conducted researches on the topic of “impact of customer relationship management on customer retention”. The scholars have lack of ability towards providing exact customer relationship management strategies for retaining the customers. This research will identify the issues of customer relationship management and then provide advanced process of customer relationship management. The research is also intended towards gathering genuine information regarding the topic of the research. It will use different types of research methodologies for gathering detailed information about the research topic.
Customer relationship management is the prime key to understand the core needs and issues of the customers. Hence, it helps the organizations towards meeting the customized needs of the customers and resolves their issues immediately before it turns into customer dissatisfaction. In this way, effective customer relationship management helps in retaining the customers for longer period of time. However, 80% organizations still fail to understand the importance of customer relationship management towards creating devoted customers (Trainor et al. 2014). Over the last few years, customer relationship management process of Panda Retail Company is being ineffective with lack of involvement customer executives in understanding the customer issues. The customers are also not getting prompt response from the organization in the issues raised by them.
Research Purpose
Chapter 1: Introduction: This section of research proposal will demonstrate the purpose and background of the research topic. The study will also highlight problem statement, research objectives and research questions for gathering most authentic research information.
Chapter 2: Literature Review: This chapter will evaluate the previous literature associated with the research topic. The chapter will also apply various theories and models associated with the research topic for assembling relevant research information.
Chapter 3: Research Methodology: This chapter will select the most suitable research methodologies for gathering accurate information regarding research topic.
The research is aimed at exploring the impact of customer relationship management on customer retention.
Research Objectives
- To explore the impact of customer relationship management on customer retention
- To recognize the issues in customer relationship management process of Panda Retail Company
- To suggest effective customer relationship management strategies to Panda Retail Company for retaining customers
Research Questions
- How customer relationship management process impacts on customer retention?
- What are the issues in customer relationship management process of Panda Retail Company?
- How Panda Retail Company can improve its customer relationship management to retain customers
Concept of Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship management (CRM) is the strategies for managing the interaction and relation of an organization with its existing as well as potential customers. According to Diffley, McCole and Carvajal-Trujillo (2018), customer relationship management is intended towards maintaining healthy relationship with the existing and prospective customer towards retaining them for longer period of time. Properly managed CRM strategy empowers the organizations to create new leads from the initial contact through the sales pipeline to the closure. On the other hand, Tseng and Wu (2014) technological advanced CRM strategies help in keeping every record of information gathered from the interaction with the customers. Moreover, it is extremely essential for managing marketing, customers and sales.
Importance of Customer Retention
Customers are the prime assets of any business for gaining high level of business profitability. Acquiring new customers may lead to huge cost of the organizations through attractive advertisement. In such extent, retention of existing customers saves lot of money for the organizations. On the other hand, Fouad and Al-Goblan (2017) opined that loyal and existing are willing to purchase products repeatedly leading to repeated profitability for organizations. Such loyal customers are also inclined towards referring their preferred products and service to their closed persons. In this way, retention of customers results in advertising effectiveness for promoting the products and services of organizations.
Impact of Customer Relationship on Customer Retention
Contemporary business organizations must need effective customer relationship management for retaining the customers. In other words, customer relationship management is the only way of creating competitive advantage over the rivals. Increased customer interaction through proper CRM strategies helps the organizations to understand the interior demands of the consumers (Joseph 2016). In this way, the organizations become able to meet the customized needs and demands for the organization for creating high level of competitive advantage over the Rival organizations. On the other hand, Rahimi (2017) opined that flourishing relationship with the customers helps in making them loyal. Such flourishing relationship encourages the customers towards repeating their purchase in the organizations. It ultimately leads to repetitive sales and increased profitability for the organizations. Effectively managed customer relationship facilitates in understanding the issues associated with the customers (Krishna and Ravi 2016). Hence, the organizations become able to assess the main issues associated with their business and can improve the business offerings through modifying their products and service offerings as per the issues raised by the customers.
Problem Statement
Customer relationship management facilitates the organizations for developing customer oriented strategies intended towards customer retention. Moreover, Wali and Wright (2016) stated that properly managed CRM strategies lead to enhanced customer bonding, which allow the organizations to keep in touch with the customers even after the sales have been made. It results in maintaining sustainable cooperative and mutual relationship between the organizations and the customers. The adoption and integration of new technologies in CRM strategies help in allowing the customers in making business decisions. In such strategies, the customers can suggest their preferred services or products to be modified by the organizations. In this way, the customers feel highly valued, where their decisions are valued a lot for modifying the business process (Rahimi et al. 2017). In this way, such customers become loyal and want to stay with the organizations for longer period of time.
Issues in Customer Relationship Management
Missing key information about customers is a big challenge for the organizations in implementing CRM strategies. Moreover, such issue can often lead to get in the information about the customers’ basic purchase history of demographic data can no longer be sufficient for getting effectiveness of customer relationship. On the other hand, Lee and Chan (2015) opined that customer information is always likely to change with time. However, the marketers often make use of out of dated information regarding the customers in the business process. In this way, the outdated information ultimately hampers the success of customer relationship management. Shafique et al. (2015) pointed out that the marketers always need to use accurate information regarding the customers need for leading effective marketing campaigns. However, the marketers often rely on unverified information about the customers, which can result in incorrect customer data in the marketing process leading to unsuccessful marketing for organizations. Furthermore, Maggon and Chaudhry (2015) stated that the organizations need detailed information about the customers for having a deeper insight regarding the code needs and demands of the customers. In such situation, lack of insights of the market is regarding customer data can lead to disastrous customer relationship management.
Effective Customer Relationship Management Strategies
The prime strategy for leading successful customer relationship management is to understand the code needs and demands of the customers. It will help organizations towards producing customized products and services as per the customers’ needs and demands. On the other hand, the organization must also consider issues associated with the customers. Moreover, framing of customer issues can lead to high potential for business innovation in the organizations. Hence, organizations must include the actual issues of the customers for modifying their business offerings (Hasanian, Chong and Gan 2015). Integrated sales marketing is extremely necessary in maintaining the effectiveness of the customer relationship management. Moreover, integrated marketing meets the expectations of the customers successfully, which make the customers loyal to the organizations. The organizations can also use Social Medias for involving the customers in the business decision making process. Moreover, the organizations should allow the customers in raising their issues and preferences about the products and service offerings. In this way, the organization should develop their products based on the customer feedback made on the Social Medias (Lee and Chan 2015). It will enhance the value of the customers, where their values are prioritized for making any crucial business decision.
Presentation of Content
Epistemological Position
Research philosophy is associated with the activities of gathering research phenomenon and analyzing them. Research philosophy helps in gathering detailed information concerning research topic. Three Types of research philosophies are positivism, interpretivism and realism. Positivism philosophy always gathers factual data related to the topic of research. Such data is detailed in nature and is highly trustworthy leading to authenticity of ultimate research result. Interpretation philosophy gathers socially constructed information on the topic of research (Lewis 2015). In this way, socially constructed data facilitates in understanding the research topic properly for conducting the research in successful way. On the other hand, realism philosophy gathers both factual data as well as socially constructed data. This research will select positivism research philosophy for collecting factual information, which will contribute in the quality of ultimate research result.
Methodological Approach
Research approach is highly significant for gathering relevant and authentic information about research topic. Inductive approach suggests framing new research theories and models for collecting authentic research information. Deductive approach allows in using existing models and theories to assemble proper and mostly relevant information regarding research topic (Choy 2014). This research will use deductive approach, as it can save the time and money for conducting the research through using the existing theories and models
Research Design
Research Design is highly important for gaining an in-depth understanding about the research topic. Effective choice of research design helps in assessing the research variables and finding the link between the variables of the research. Explanatory research design assesses the relationship between different research variables. Exploratory design facilitates in assessing the research background that also explores the social causes related to the topic of the research including the current issues associated with it (Dumay and Cai 2015). Descriptive design gathers the actual purpose related to the research topic. Hence, this research will use descriptive Research Design for gathering actual purpose linked with the research study for conducting it in effective way.
Population and Sampling Strategy
Research population defines a well defined collection of objects and individuals, who are having similar characteristics and traits (Jamshed 2014). Moreover, the samples for the research are collected from this population size. In this research, 100 customers of Panda Ritual Company will be chosen for conducting survey method. On the other hand five managers of the organization will be chosen for arranging interview with them. The research will use random sampling strategy for gathering the samples and collecting information from them. In random sampling method, the respondents will be gathered at the convenient place for having a smooth data collection process. It will also encourage the participants in providing accurate information regarding the research topic.
Literature Review
Measurement and Data Collection Strategy
Data collection is highly useful for collecting relevant and accurate information regarding research topic. The research can use both primary as well as secondary data collection process secondary data for constructing effective literature review associated with the topic of research. Secondary data will mostly be collected through thinking journals magazines books websites and others (Lewis 2015). However, the results will mostly be based on primary data collection process, where qualitative and quantitative technique of data collection will be used. In case of quantitative research, survey method will be conducted through distributing research questionnaires among the respondents for collecting authentic research information. On the other hand, qualitative technique will be linked with arranging interviews with the managers of the concerned organization. Five point likert scales will be used for measuring the collected data based on the feelings attitudes loyalty level of the customers in respect to the concerned organization.
Methods of Data Analysis
Data analysis methods are extremely vital for assessing the actual information from the collected data of the research. In case of this research, SPSS tool will be used for evaluating the collected data of the respondents. Moreover, this research will use Chi square test for examining the actual meaning off the data collected from the research participants. This data collection method will identify the link and differences between the observed data and the theoretical data associated with the research topic (Dumay and Cai 2015). In this way this method will definitely later authentic research result.
Aspects of Reliability and Validity
Validation of research data is associated with assessing the accuracy level of the collected data. In case of this research, statistics measures will be chosen for assessing the validity associated with the qualitative data. On the other hand, reliability evaluates the consistency of the collected data (Choy 2014). In case of this research, inter method reliability approach will be used for assessing the reliability of the gathered data.
The success of research study is highly dependent on its ability to comply with ethical considerations. In this research study, it will be ensured that the participant in the research will not be forced in any mean to take participation in the research process. Moreover, in the participants should be allowed to take voluntary participation in the data collection process, where they will have the right to quit the data collection process anytime they won’t even after enlisting their name in the process. Apart from that, the research will be also complying with the data protection act for protecting the sensitive research information from any unauthenticated.
Concept of Customer Relationship Management
Table 1: Gantt Chart
(Source: Created by Author)
Reference List
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