چارچوب اندازه گیری عملکرد مدیریت ارتباط با مشتری (CRM) : فرایندهای توسعه و کاربردها

We suggest a performance measurement framework called a customer relationship management (CRM) scorecard to diagnose and assess a firm's CRM practice. The CRM scorecard was developed through a rigorous and stepwise development process collaborated with a number of firms in a variety of industries. During the development process, we conducted an extensive literature review to build a theoretical causal map, in-depth interviews with practitioners to extract a hierarchical map from industrial perspectives, feasibility tests to check whether or not Key Performance Indicators (KPI) could be measured, and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis to prioritize the evaluation factors on the CRM scorecard. The CRM scorecard contains antecedent/subsequent and objective/perceptual evaluation factors in four different perspectives to comprehensively measure corporate CRM capability and readiness. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed CRM scorecard, we apply the framework to a retail bank in Korea well-known for its exemplary CRM strategy.

Customer relationship management (CRM) has been increasingly adopted as a core business strategy and invested in heavily by corporations (Lindgreen et al., 2006 and Rigby and Ledingham, 2004). However, according to IDC (International Data Corporation) and Gartner Group, the rate of successful CRM implementations is below 30% (Rigby, Reichheld, & Schefter, 2002), hardly justifying the cost of implementation (Lindgreen et al., 2006). As part of efforts to find the drivers of CRM success or failure, academics and practitioners may refer to previous studies of performance measurement, or success or failure models of information systems (ISs) (e.g., Doll and Torkzadeh, 1998, Ray et al., 2005 and Slevin et al., 1991). However, since CRM is an information technology (IT)-enabled business strategy rather than an IS, previous IS success models are insufficient to indicate whether a company's CRM initiatives have succeeded or failed and why. Efforts to identify CRM success factors have appeared in marketing literature as well. While some research has focused more on IT-related factors (Avlonitis and Panagopoulos, 2005, Roh et al., 2005 and Wilson et al., 2002), others have emphasized organizational factors like human resources, organizational structure, and reward systems (Rigby et al., 2002), or business process-related factors (Campbell, 2003, Payne and Frow, 2004 and Reinartz et al., 2004). Similarly, although such research presents managerial implications in terms of focal factors, they are not appropriate for investigating the success or failure of CRM as a company-wide business strategy since they do not provide any integrative perspective. Therefore, rather than conducting impromptu post analysis of CRM successes or failures, firms are recommended to have an organizational evaluative mechanism to manage, control, and assess the effectiveness of CRM implementation and operational practices. In this paper, our objective is to propose a framework of CRM performance measurement, called a CRM scorecard, which can diagnose and assess companies' CRM initiatives. Any framework for measuring performance should address both readiness and performance from implementation for the following two reasons: First, since a proper performance measurement framework is based on a causal model spanning antecedent to subsequent factors (Lebas, 1995), it naturally deals with readiness and performance. Second, since a business strategy like CRM evolves continuously according to internal conditions and external environments, diagnosing the current level of CRM strategy means not only the performance of up-to-date implementation but also readiness for future implementation. To do this, we first identify which factors are important and what relationships between the factors exist for executing a CRM strategy successfully. Based on this conceptual framework, we develop a CRM scorecard through a series of systematic building steps and evaluate it through a real-world CRM implementation.

6.1. Summary of this study Measuring CRM performance has become an important topic for both academics and practitioners in recent years. To measure a company's CRM performance, the company must first understand what factors are important for performing CRM strategy and what interrelationships between those factors are the core relational mechanisms in the CRM performance measurement framework. Thus, a framework for measuring CRM performance should be regarded not only as a tool for diagnosing and assessing the present CRM initiatives but also as an organizational strategic guideline for future implementation of CRM strategies. With respect to this motivation, we suggested a CRM assessment framework called a CRM scorecard and showed its feasibility by introducing a case study. We firstly conducted an extensive literature review iteratively to extract a theoretical causal map, which would become the basis of the CRM scorecard. Then, a series of in-depth interviews with CRM practitioners were performed to derive a hierarchical map, a practical version of the causal map for the CRM scorecard. An integrated model was developed by combining the theoretical causal model with the hierarchical one in a practical perspective. Then we added perceptual and objective instruments to the CRM scorecard framework to measure corporate CRM capability and readiness. In this step, we eliminated irrational instruments through KPI feasibility tests with companies. Additionally, we conducted AHP analysis to prioritize evaluative factors in the CRM scorecard. To see whether the CRM scorecard would be suitable for measuring performance of CRM initiatives, we presented a case study with XYZ Bank, a major retail bank in Korea. In this case study, we tried to acquire a chain of evidence for explaining XYZ Bank's CRM strategy by applying scientific case study methodology. From this case study, we showed that the CRM scorecard framework provides effective diagnostic perspectives and factors to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a company's CRM strategy that could be applicable to real situations. 6.2. Academic and managerial implications We believe our study provides several academic and managerial contributions. First of all, the CRM scorecard includes both academic and practical perspectives. One-sided research might fall into one of two pitfalls: too theoretical to be applicable to real cases; or too field-based to be cognizant of theoretical basis. Second, we provide a systematic development process for building managerial tools. Since any business administrative device such as a CRM scorecard is encouraged to be developed through a stepwise and collaborative design methodology, the development process we suggested could be applied in other research and practice. Third, this study covers a wide range of CRM success factors addressed both in the literature and field which have been adjusted to the BSC framework to provide a causal model. Though the holistic causal model should be validated empirically in the future, we can infer the whole from the parts, partial causalities having been found through relevant literature and in-depth interviews with many practitioners. Finally, our study expands on previous relevant studies through various efforts to satisfy the requirements of a business evaluative framework. We place great emphasis that any performance measurement framework should have causality, multiple evaluative perspectives including a customer perspective, and antecedent and perceptual factors as its critical features. We believe our study presents several practical contributions as well. First of all, practitioners will glean ways of implementing their CRM strategies successfully from this study. Top management should recognize first that, unless they establish a CRM-ready infrastructure and customer-oriented business processes, they cannot enhance organizational performance by simply introducing a CRM system. The people in charge of driving CRM initiatives should also identify what area(s) they need to give more attention to, through determining the CRM characteristics, strengths, and/or weaknesses. This would help build a future CRM master plan and strengthen their current CRM initiatives. Second, by understanding the core model in the CRM scorecard, companies can ascertain the origin of their CRM successes or failures. In most cases of assessing CRM in terms of short-term outcomes, it has been common to attribute failure to the CRM department, resulting in downsizing or dropping CRM functions. However, our study highlights the need to integrate various enterprise resources to perform CRM successfully. In other words, just organizing an independent CRM team or introducing CRM technology does not guarantee positive outcome of a CRM strategy. Finally, companies can track several important perceptual factors, e.g., top management attitude, explicit goal, and so on, which are critical but have been ignored because they could not be covered only by objective measures. In so doing, a more exact diagnosis of CRM performance can be secured. Companies might reinforce the explanatory power of their CRM capabilities and performance by adopting such measures as evaluative factors in their organizational dashboards. 6.3. Limitations and future study We acknowledge that this study is no more a first step toward a theoretically and practically sound CRM assessment tool. To accomplish our ultimate objective, we have to overcome several critical limitations, which should be addressed in future studies. First, the number of samples used in our AHP analysis was relatively small to utilize the weights as a generalized guideline even though some AHP literature (e.g., Wind & Saaty, 1980) states that the sample size is not critical in AHP analysis if the representativeness of the sample is secured. Although we collected the data from reliable CRM experts, more inputs are necessary to create a more generalizable result, such as establishing a set of factor weights specialized for each industry or business type. Second, since ours was a single case study, the external validity of the CRM scorecard could not be ascertained, thus just the lowest feasibility and applicability are demonstrated. To verify the external validity of a CRM scorecard, it is, therefore, necessary to repeat a single case study such as this or conduct multiple cases. Third, this case study did not consider any changes over time. Since there must be a time gap between causes and effects, it would be meaningful to diagnose a corporate CRM strategy longitudinally to examine more accurate causal relationships. Finally, though we strived to pursue a chain of evidence through methodological triangulation, it was impossible to exclude researchers' subjectivities completely owing to the intrinsic attributes of the case study. For instance, during the process of transforming qualitative outcomes from in-depth interviews to quantitative scores, scoring under individual raters' subjective judgments might have influenced the reliability of the results despite the fact that we tried to maintain objectivity using a content analysis technique and clarifying scoring criteria. Therefore, to minimize rater bias, when conducting such an analytical process, it is recommended to involve as many raters as possible and check the reliability based on the value of the inter-rater reliability (Rwg). Besides the research limitations above, we suggest three future research projects. (1) To arrive at empirical generalizations of the causal model in the CRM scorecard, additional research should validate empirically the relationships between the key constructs in the four diagnostic perspectives (infrastructure, process, customer, and organizational performance). (2) Moreover, as experimental knowledge of an organization as absorptive capacity is becoming more important to successful implementation of CRM strategy, it is necessary to include factors to measure CRM-related experimental knowledge such as the company's and people's depth of experience with CRM implementation (e.g., Hart, Hogg, & Banerjee, 2004). (3) Finally, we need to establish a systematic and standardized procedure for diagnosing corporate CRM strategy with a CRM scorecard, which would make possible more efficient evaluation of CRM and allow more objective comparison with other CRM systems.