1

Implementation of E-CRM in B2B e-business

context for Chinese SMEs

----A Case Study of Xiwang Company

A study submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Science in Information Management

at

The UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

by

Lina Wang

September 2009

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Abstract

Customer is the core element of all business operational activities. E-CRM is the

product of „customer-centric‟ modern management idea and IT technology, which

can improve the core competitiveness. It has been developed rapidly in China.

However, some fails. This article will discuss this topic through the case study of

Company X. The content of the dissertation include:

(1) Theories about e-CRM are provided. Definition of e-CRM, characteristics of

e-CRM, and functions of e-CRM are firstly reviewed. After that, the impacts to

traditional enterprises are given from marketing, competitors, company and

technology. And then strategies and implementation of e-CRM is discussed. At

last the development of e-CRM in China is provided.

(2) Methodology that used to study the research is illustrated. Both inductive and

deductive theories are adopted in the research. Both quantitative and qualitative

research are discussed which are relevant to the methods of data collection

including questionnaire and interview.

(3) Data analysis and findings are provided according to the information from

questionnaire and interview. Discussion is given next to list the major findings

and explanation of the findings. Meanwhile, the limitation of the study and

suggestions for further research are mentioned.

(4) At last, a short conclusion is given to sum up the basic idea of the study.

Recommendations are given to solve the problems existing in the company

according to the findings of the research.

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Acknowledgement

I would like to express my appreciation to the people who assisted me in the

complementation of this research report.

I particularly would like to thank my supervisor Dr Jonathan Foster who guides

me to do the research, answer my questions and give me useful suggestions very

patiently. Without Dr Foster, this research would not have been successfully

completed.

I also would like to thank my family who gave me support through all the

process of the work. Without the support of my father, I could not have got the

relevant information from the company in time. Many thanks also go to my

mother, brother and sister who courage me to complete the work.

I also would like to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Ma who gave me the

opportunity to take a personal interview and answered each question carefully.

Finally, I would like to thank the participants who answered my questionnaires

without their support, the research cannot be completed.

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Contents

Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 2

Acknowledgement .......................................................................................................................... 3

Chapter 1Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 6

1.1 Background to this study ................................................................................................... 6

1.2 Background to Xiwang Company ....................................................................................... 7

1.3 Aim and Objective and Research Questions ..................................................................... 8

1.3.1 Aim of the study ..................................................................................................... 8

1.3.2 Objective of the study ............................................................................................ 8

1.3.3Research Questions ................................................................................................. 8

1.4 Scope of the study ............................................................................................................. 9

1.5 Significance ...................................................................................................................... 10

Chapter 2: Literature Review ......................................................................................................... 11

2.1 The definition of e-CRM .................................................................................................. 11

2.2 Characteristics of e-CRM ................................................................................................. 12

2.3 Functions of e-CRM and the Relevant Implementation Measures ................................. 13

2.4 Impacts of e-CRM on traditional enterprises .................................................................. 15

2.4.1 Impacts from marketing ....................................................................................... 15

2.4.2 Impact from Competitors ..................................................................................... 16

2.4.3 Impacts from the Interior Company ..................................................................... 16

2.4.4 Impacts from technology ..................................................................................... 17

2.5 Strategies for implementing e-CRM ................................................................................ 17

2.6 Implementation of E-CRM in SMEs ................................................................................. 18

2.6.1 Establishing a Rational Program Implementation Goal ........................................ 19

2.6.2 Understanding and Support of the Senior Manager ............................................ 19

2.6.3 Drive E-CRM Program through Business .............................................................. 19

2.6.4 Control Change Effectively ................................................................................... 19

2.6.5 Establishment of Program Implementation Organizational Structure ................. 20

2.7 Advantages of E-CRM Implementation to Organizations ............................................... 20

2.7.1 Customer Satisfaction .......................................................................................... 20

2.7.2 Customer Loyalty.................................................................................................. 22

2.7.3 Customer Retention ............................................................................................. 22

2.8 Advantages to organizational business performance ..................................................... 23

2.9 Customer Value ............................................................................................................... 24

2.9.1 Importance of Customer Value for E-CRM ........................................................... 24

2.9.2 Definition of customer value ................................................................................ 25

2.9.3 Evaluation of Customer Value .............................................................................. 26

2.10 Customer Analysis in e-CRM ......................................................................................... 26

2.10.1 Definite Rewards and Penalties of Project Personnel ........................................ 27

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2.10.2 E-CRM Customer Analysis Basic Flow ................................................................. 27

2.10.3 Customer Classification in E-CRM ...................................................................... 28

2.11 Performance Evaluation of E-CRM System ................................................................... 32

2.12 Development of e-CRM in China ................................................................................... 36

Chapter 3: Methodology ............................................................................................................... 37

3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 37

3.2 Research Theory .............................................................................................................. 37

3.3 Research Design and Strategy ......................................................................................... 39

3.3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 39

3.3.2 Research strategy ................................................................................................. 40

3.4 Methods of Data Collection............................................................................................. 41

3.4.1 Selection of the case ............................................................................................ 42

3.4.2 Survey Sample ...................................................................................................... 42

3.4.3 Secondary Data .................................................................................................... 43

3.4.4 Primary Data ......................................................................................................... 43

3.5 Questionnaire .................................................................................................................. 44

3.6 Data analysis technology ................................................................................................. 51

3.7 Interview ......................................................................................................................... 52

Chapter 4: Data analysis and findings ........................................................................................... 54

4.1 Data analysis and findings from questionnaire ............................................................... 54

4.1.1 Response Rate ...................................................................................................... 54

4.1.2 Demographic details of respondents ................................................................... 54

4.1.3 Psychological/Lifestyle ......................................................................................... 60

4.1.4 Customer satisfaction ........................................................................................... 69

4.1.5 Customer loyalty .................................................................................................. 72

4.2 Data analysis and findings from interview ...................................................................... 76

Chapter 5: Discussion .................................................................................................................... 79

5.1 Major Findings of the study ............................................................................................ 79

5.2 Meaning, Importance and Alternative Explanations of the Findings .............................. 80

5.3 Limitations of the study ................................................................................................... 85

5.4 Suggestions for further research ..................................................................................... 87

5.5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 87

Chapter 6: Conclusion and Recommendation ............................................................................... 89

6.1 Summary ......................................................................................................................... 89

6.2 Recommendation ............................................................................................................ 91

Reference ...................................................................................................................................... 94

Appendix 1 .................................................................................................................................. 102

Appendix 2 .................................................................................................................................. 112

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Chapter 1Introduction

In the information age, differences of products and services have been decreasing.

Customers concern their demands not only for superior quality but also for

responsive service. The effective way that can be provided is through customer

relationship management (Duke et al, 1999).

The paper shall be limited to issue of e-CRM in Chinese SMEs based on the

company. At the second part, background to this study will be given; background to

this company will be illustrated next. Aim, objective and research questions are

provided.

1.1 Background to this study

CRM is the producer of modern management idea that is „customer-centric‟ and

advanced IT technology, which can help improve the core competitive advantage

(Buttle, 2005). In 1999, customer relationship management enters into China market.

In China, CRM market has increased by 58% in 2001; while it has increased to

$ 37,000,000 in 2004 (Chen, 2007). It has got a bright prospect. However, a decline

in CRM demand in large companies exists all over the world. On the contrary, there

is a rapid increase in CRM market of small and medium-sized enterprises (Chen,

2007). Therefore, how to implement e-CRM in SMEs becomes our focus. In

theoretical circles, customer relationship system in large companies have been

largely researched; however, customer relationship system in SMEs has been

identified not enough. In business circles, SME enterpriser attempts to make use of

e-CRM system in order to improve core competitive advantages, however, without

enough theoretical support (Li, 2004). This paper will discuss the area of e-CRM

around theory, problems and strategies in the implementation of e-CRM based on the

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study of one SME-Xiwang Company. The background to this company will be given

next.

1.2 Background to Xiwang Company

The papers are based on the case of Xiwang Group Co., Ltd. This company‟s main

business is corn deeply processing. Till now products have extended to other relevant

products, such as Dextrose Monohydrate, Anhydrous Glucose, Crystalline Fructose,

starch, Corn Gluten Meal, and corn oil and so on. Online shopping is the major

method to sale products. They connect with customers through e-mail, e-business

website, and internet chatting tools. At the beginning of e-commerce, there is

relatively single channel so that it is not conducive to the promotion of their products.

In 2005, they have established their own e-commerce website. All the information is

classified and detailed information is published in the website. Online Consultation

and e-mail connection are provided to help customers contact with them. In order to

improve systematic online sales, ERP and CRM systems are established in 2008. By

this way, they try to satisfy customers demand during each aspect of sales process

and achieve standardization and systematization of sales. E-CRM is at the initial

stage. Many difficulties exist currently, such as some managers‟ questioning,

operational risk, and so on. Their focus now is to know how to standardize business

process optimization, improve advanced and accounts receivables management,

reduce financial risk, and improve delivery speed, interaction rate and timely

availability. Ecommerce is not very perfect in this company. Wholesales are main

customers. CRM was established recently, however, e-commerce and e-CRM are still

at the initial stage. It appears to be important to evaluate and analyze it in order to

implement e-CRM in B2B e-commerce context successfully.

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1.3 Aim and Objective and Research Questions

1.3.1 Aim of the study

This proposal aims to identify key issues relevant to e-CRM and B2B e-commerce,

and determine how to improve it in terms of evaluation of company‟s current efforts

and problems during implementing e-CRM on Xiwang Group Co., Ltd.

1.3.2 Objective of the study

1) To review theoretically what e-CRM is in terms of definition of e-CRM, what

kind of strategy e-CRM needs to be built upon, how to implement it in SMEs,

and development of e-CRM in China.

2) To investigate the implementation of e-CRM in Xiwang Group Co., Ltd from the

view of managers and customers.

3) To identify factors these may influence company‟s e-CRM implementation.

4) To better understand customer values obtained from e-CRM program and e-CRM

success.

5) To test the hypothesis whether customer satisfaction has positive relationship

with customer loyalty.

1.3.3Research Questions

1) What percentage of organizations‟ customers is online shopping customers? And

what are the customers‟ perceptions of company‟s e-CRM program?

2) What factors can help managers to strength the development of e-CRM program

related to customer loyalty and customer satisfaction?

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1.4 Scope of the study

The research shall evaluate the e-CRM features of Xiwang Group CO., Ltd from

both customers‟ perspective and company‟s perspective and evaluate how customer

value from e-CRM efforts relates to customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and

customer retention.

The concepts of e-CRM shall be given to have a basic understanding of e-CRM from

different views, including technology angle and practical angle. And then a fully

understanding of e-CRM is given. After that, it is necessary to illustrate the

characteristics of e-CRM, which involve in convergency, one to one and real time.

Functions are also important to explain because companies can carry out this

program in terms of different functions and make e-CRM efficiency. During the

innovation, traditional enterprises must suffer many impacts from marketing,

competitors, interior company and technology. It is important for them to realize the

problems in order to implement this program better. In the process of implementation

of e-CRM, three strategies should be paid attention, including electronic strategy,

personalization strategy and customization strategy. They can be considered as one of

the standard to evaluate the e-CRM performance. Because the company that we are

studying is a SME, how the e-CRM implement become very important. Customer is

the core of marketing, therefore, customer analysis is important in order to

implement e-CRM. Customers are classified as different groups in terms of different

index. Company can make relevant strategies in terms of different value group. It has

got quite a lot of advantages to organizations to implement e-CRM program. Four

advantages are illustrates, including customer satisfaction, experience, customer

loyalty and customer retention. A hypothesis is concluded: higher customer

satisfaction high customer loyalty customer retention (repeat purchase); low

customer satisfaction low customer loyalty customer loss.

The hypothesis will be tested through the analysis of data from survey. In addition,

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e-CRM has benefits to organizational business performance, including reducing cost

and increase revenue, increase business operational efficiency, and developing new

markets. Whether company has got good performance shall be evaluated through the

evaluation of e-CRM performance. Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is

considered to be tha major index. The methods to evaluate the index are mentioned at

that part. At last, the development of e-CRM in China is given.

1.5 Significance

After many years‟ informatization Construction, small and medium enterprises have

almost completed the basic construction and have the demands of higher level

management application (Wang, 2008). Besides this, owning to the fiercely

competitive market and high homogeneity of products and service, SMEs are forced

to pay attention to individuality demand. Understand the situation of lower and lower

switching cost of products and service, how to make customers to repeat

consumption of provided products and build high customer loyalty become a serious

problem. Therefore, SMEs have to improve competitive advantage through rational

e-CRM.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

2.1 The definition of e-CRM

E-CRM is customer relationship management in the context of e-commerce. The

similarity between CRM and e-CRM is that they both focus on customer care. Brown

(2000) defines CRM to be the management of customer relationships, and it can be

executed through the availability of technologies, including PCs, telecom networks

and especially the Internet, data-mining tools and so on. From the definition, CRM is

described from the view of application systems, and is concentrated on the Internet to

manage customer relationship channels and business functions.

Roger (2000) suggests that e-CRM concludes three application program structures:

online mode, browser enhanced mode and network enhanced mode. The online mode

is fit for an application program that already provides the client and server structure.

The second one enriches the interface and helps to achieve more functions through

the technology built into the browser, such as dynamic HTML technology. However,

Li, H. R. (2004) states that, when dynamic HTLML technology cannot meet the

requirements of the application program with Java technology, it need to use an

operating system and virtual machine that is in network enhanced mode.

However, Liu (2007) defines e-CRM from the practical perspective except for the

view of the application system. She states that e-CRM not only concludes the

expansion of the whole solution to help enterprises win the competition, but also

shows that companies fully depend on the Internet and technology of electronics. The

definitions together give a better and fuller understanding of e-CRM.

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2.2 Characteristics of e-CRM

In the Electronic Age, the rapid growth of e-commerce has become an inevitable

trend. At this stage, the only way in which enterprises can achieve competitive

advantage is not through technology or products, but customer relationships. Buttle

(2005) states that network technology not only improves and enhances the way and

speed of information submission, but also simplifies the firms‟ customer service

process. E-CRM helps companies make use of e-marketing tools to debug their

marketing mix in order to adapt to the special demand of customer segmentation and

satisfy each potential and existing customer. It helps companies to build longtime

profitable relationships with customers. E-CRM has the following characteristics

specifically.

Convergency

Fortin (2006) indicates that it concludes the integration of a holocoenotic

communication channel and advanced Statistical Methods for Data Analysis. The

former makes customers use different channels, such as telephone, fax, website,

email etc. to communicate with companies at the same time. The latter explores

customers‟ relevant resources deeply, which can be considered as a basis for

customer management.

One To One

E-CRM considers each customer as an independent unit (Iyer et al., 2004)..

Therefore, companies trace or analyse single customer behaviour as a unit, in which

way they find customers‟ behaviour or preference. Meanwhile, coping strategies or

marketing programs are provided according to the individual condition of each

customer.

Real Time

However, Jin(2008) stated that customers, in the Internet Age, receive information

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rapidly so that customers‟ preferences are changing constantly. Customers need to

watch changes of customers and adjust their coping strategies immediately, which

can help to grasp first chance and gain clients.

2.3 Functions of e-CRM and the Relevant

Implementation Measures

The functions can be reduced to three factors: informatization of business flow

involved in sales, marketing and customer service; Integrated and automated

processing of communication means including telephone, fax, internet, e-mail etc.;

processing information that is created by the former two functions, and generating

customer intelligence. The functions of CRM software can be concluded into the

following ten elements.

Customer management

Dyche (2004) indicates that customer management involves the generation of

customers‟ essential information, basic activities and history that is relevant to

customers, order input and trace, generation of suggestion letters and sales contracts.

Contacts management

Contacts management is believed to be another important function by Professor

Kotorov (2002). In order to manage contacts effectively, the following factors should

be completed: the record, storage and retrieval of contacts summary; making traces

for customers, such as time, type, simple description and missions.

Time management

Time management includes calendar, design activity plan, conflict reminding, event

arrangement, and so on (Kotorov, 2002).

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Marketing management

Jin (2008) believe that with e-CRM software, staff can organize and browse

marketing information, generate interim reports of each business, success possibility,

history sales status evaluation and so on; give support for tactics and strategies;

provide a platform like BBS on which customers can write marketing suggestions,

problems with the system.

Telemarketing

Liu (2007) believes that technology staffs use the system to create a phone list and

establish connections with the customers, contacts and business, then allocate

numbers to the salesperson to record the phone details.

Customer service

Professor Osarenkhoe (2007) emphasizes that customer service is an important

function of e-CRM. Company staff enters service items, plan of service programs,

search and trace relevant events, order management and trace, database of problems

and solutions.

Call centre

The main functions of call centres include: Inbound and Outbound Contact Solution;

Internet callback; call centre operation management; telephone transfer; routing,

report statistical analysis; management analysis tools; automatic information transmit

through fax, telephone, e-mail and printer; inhale and exhale dispatch management

(Osarenkhoe, 2007).

Knowledge management

Personalized information is shown on the web sites. According to professors

Kimiloglu and Zarali (2009), documents are attached to contacts, customers and

event summaries. Technology staff can also monitor their competitors‟ websites and

changes in the sites with keywords that the users define.

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Business intelligence

With e-CRM, staff can make predefined query and report, user custom query and

reports. Income that may be brought by potential customers and business can be

viewed in report or diagrammatic form. Potential customers and business pipelines

are analyzed through predefined chart tools. Data is diverted into third-party predict

and plan tools, column and pie chart tools, system status displays and early warning

(Negi, 2005).

Electronic business

Personalization interface, service, web content management, storefront, order and

business processing, sales space expand, customer self-service, analysis and report of

network station operational aspects (Negi, 2005).

2.4 Impacts of e-CRM on traditional enterprises

With the rapid development of e-CRM, many companies find that when customer

demands become the core of business flow, discordances exist in many places of the

business operation. These discordances interfere with the efficiency of e-CRM.

Petrissans (2006) indicates that e-CRM makes organizations change their mode of

thinking from Contact Point. Innovations are occurring at a bewildering rate so that

traditional companies experience huge shocks.

2.4.1 Impacts from marketing

In the past, customers can only listen to product introductions passively. As long as a

unique product image can be built through advertising promotion, the products can

become the hottest commodities. There is no need for companies to consider the

special needs of each customer. Frequent advertisement on television and in

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newspapers can help to build and keep their own brand. However, Taylor and Hunter

(2008) states that the mode has changed that this way cannot achieve

competitiveness efficiently. They suggest that companies can carry out one-to-one

marketing to appointed customer groups who become active. Less cost is spent and

good performance can be achieved.

2.4.2 Impact from Competitors

The American Northeast Air Line used to be a big scale aviation corporation, which

possessed several air routes and fixed assets. However, it declared the company

bankrupt in the 1980s. The bankruptcy is not on account of customer service or other

reasons, but because, when other airline companies adopted a computer information

system that made tourism agents real-time remote inquiry, issue ticks and change

flight schedule, NEA did not do that. They found that they could not compete with

other flight corporations. Their competitors provided a discount for the customers

timely or notified customers when changing flights in order to maintain the rate of

full vacancy. However, NEA still operated with costly long distance calls. It was too

late when they decided to invest in a ticket booking system (Mckay, 2008).

2.4.3 Impacts from the Interior Company

Letaifa et al (2007) believe that not only new type network enterprises like Amazon

but also traditional enterprises are devoted to networked transformations, internet

customers require both information interchange and Products and Services.

Organizations are required to make the business flow to match current customer

information on manufacture, transport and after-sales service. Customers who

communicate with companies through the internet and telephone always have no

patience. Rapid reply to e-mails, instant information enquiring and promptly update

changes are important.

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2.4.4 Impacts from technology

In order to satisfy users while keeping low costs and high efficiency, companies have

attempted many methods, including market segmentation, customer feedback,

designing an adjustable pipeline and applying automatic control technology and so

on. However, till now, no striking effects have been achieved. Osarenkhoe (2007)

believes that the main reason is that the discrepancy is too large. In order to make

products and services entirely suitable for customers, it is necessary to process

continual and rapid one-to-one information interchange. With the development of the

internet and e-commerce, e-CRM is established and develops rapidly. An increasing

number of organizations implement e-CRM.

2.5 Strategies for implementing e-CRM

Electronic strategy plays a significant role in implementing e-CRM. To a great

degree, companies‟ competitive advantage in the context of B to B e-commerce

depends on the degree of understanding of customers and competence regarding

customer demands. In the e-commerce and Internet Economy Age, it is important for

companies to have good relationships with their customers. However, Brochure

(2008) states that owing to the increasing number of enterprises using E-CRM for a

huge client base and huge amount of service, a bottleneck exists during the

communication between customers and companies. Levisual(2002) indicates that the

main channel of e-commerce is network transactions. Each click on emails and web

sites, each deal or search on self-help equipment are all valuable potential

information resources and can be used to serve and find customers.

Another personalization strategy is emphasized by Wu, Z. & Feng, Q. (2005). He

believes that e-CRM helps companies to obtain real-time understanding of customer

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needs, do one-to-one marketing with different customers and support one-to-one

service through the segmentation of customer groups. It aims to encourage customers

to accept products and services in order to achieve sustainable purchases.

However, Wang, Y. Z. & Chang, X. Q.(2006) state that a customization strategy

contains more content than an electronic system personality. It means that companies

can make use of e-marketing tools to budget their marketing mix. In this way,

companies can adapt to the demand of target groups, and even reach the individual

level. The tools contain customized word information and, what is more, it contains

an electronic method and distribution method. Comprehensive and thorough

customers acquire and subsistence analysis can help companies to design different

marketing mixes for different target customers. Internet customization happens to

small target customers or a personal level and may inspire customers or enterprises‟

initiative. The key point is to identify customer demands and make use of automatic

electronic marketing tools to satisfy these demands effectively and efficiently.

E-commerce is essential for companies to survive in the new age. According to the

kinds of e-CRM marketing strategies, companies provide problem support that is

personalized and needed to be answered immediately. By this way, enterprises can

achieve overwhelming competitive advantages that are customer-oriented long-time

customer relationship.

2.6 Implementation of E-CRM in SMEs

E-CRM has been implemented by a large number of companies. However, not all

projects are successful. Researchers have proposed plenty of methods to make

e-CRM work.

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2.6.1 Establishing a Rational Program Implementation Goal

Malhotra (2006) suggests that the implementation of e-CRM needs a definite

perspective plan and recent goals, which is made in terms of not only the in-company

situation and actual management level, but also requirements and challenges from

the external market. There is no exact method that can help enterprises obtain this

goal easily. While making purposes, enterprises should consider in terms of long time

plans and obtain the identification of the in-company service-wide.

2.6.2 Understanding and Support of the Senior Manager

Duke et al (1999) states that it is important to obtain the senior manager‟s

understanding and support, because, during the process of implementing e-CRM,

greater manpower, physical and financial resources are needed, so a lack of

manager‟s support will lead to a shortage of investment.

2.6.3 Drive E-CRM Program through Business

The implementation of e-CRM can be driven by company business. Wang (2008).

Believes that e-CRM system is aimed to establish a set of customer-oriented sales

service systems. IT technology provides technology probability for the

implementation of e-CRM systems. However, the real driving force is rooted in the

business itself.

2.6.4 Control Change Effectively

Inevitably, project implementation may change the operation flow; meanwhile,

influence staff position and responsibilities, even lead to the adjustment of the

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organization‟s structure. How to make relevant departments and staff identify and

accept the change is a serious challenge for team leaders. Reilly & Paper (2009) state

that the implementation of a new program should consider training the service-users

and making external administrative provision, which are used to coordinate the new

progress. All the content should be listed in the scope of change management.

2.6.5 Establishment of Program Implementation

Organizational Structure

Program members consist of internal members and external implementing partners.

Kotler, P. (2006) suggests that training service users and setting out relevant external

management stipulations should be taken into account. He also indicates that project

members should be chosen cautiously, and they should be familiar with a firm‟s

current operation and have the right and authority to project flow. In addition, they

should work full time and participate during the whole project.

2.7 Advantages of E-CRM Implementation to

Organizations

2.7.1 Customer Satisfaction

For companies, they hope that customers keep purchasing and consuming on their

own. Scott (2000) indicate that customer satisfaction plays a major role in the

problem of whether the company can maintain customers. Weinstein and Johnson

(2006) define customer satisfaction to be customers‟ perception of the company‟

products and services. The following factors are the main advantages that many

researchers believe.

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Payment equality

Liu & Wang (2008) believe that increased payment equality causes higher customer

satisfaction. Once customers consider that the price of products or service is equal, it

will influence their assumption about other products or services. Positive

assumptions make customers believe that more products and service purchases will

lead to more personal utility. Less payment can purchase more products.

Customer satisfaction

When people feel more satisfied with products or services, customer satisfaction will

increase. Customers consume in the current company, which means they will lose the

purchase opportunity in other companies. Cochran (2004) states that the different

value between utilities that the customers achieve in the current one and the utilities

that they achieved in other competitive companies defines customer satisfaction. In

the situation of positive value, customers may try to keep the relationship with the

current company. However, Chen (2007) believes that in the situation of negative

value, customers may try to transfer to other companies. While the value is zero,

customers may decide to adopt an attitude of wait and see, in which companies

should attempt to improve the service quality or decrease the prices in order to

increase customer satisfaction.

Experience effect

Fox & Gregory (2005) state that increasing experience helps to improve customer

satisfaction. Usually, customers who have a long time relationship with companies

have positive customer satisfaction and payment equality. Meanwhile, a long term

positive customer perception makes customers have a positive evaluation of

enterprises. However, Meng (2008) states that, when customers have a long term

relationship with companies, it is possible that either the customer satisfaction or

payment equality is positive. In this situation, increasing customer satisfaction and

payment equality will improve customer utility in the company; external company

competitors increasing their service quality will lead to a loss of customers.

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2.7.2 Customer Loyalty

Taylor & Hunter (2002) define customer loyalty to be the inner perception that is

relevant to customers‟ behavioural model and attitude model. He defines customer

loyalty in detail that customers have an attachment to the products and service. It is

expressed through Emotional Loyalty, Behavioural Loyalty and Consciousness

Loyalty. A customer who has high loyalty to the enterprise brand will tend to

purchase the products of this company and take the attention of more loyalty to this

company. He will have a certain loyalty premium that is the degree to which he is

willing to pay more for like products than other companies. Szwarc (2006) believes

that higher customer satisfaction will lead to higher customer loyalty. When

customers have positive payment equality, higher customer satisfaction and more

experience, they may give rise to brand loyalty and prefer to pay the price premium.

On the contrary, when customers have a negative evaluation of the company‟s brand,

they may prefer to buy the competitors‟ products. Therefore, there is a positive

correlation between customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.

2.7.3 Customer Retention

Companies want customers to keep a business relationship with them. Kelley et al.

(2005) indicate that the following three reasons cause customer retention. Firstly, the

products of other companies cannot satisfy the customers‟ special demands or

preferences. Secondly, the conversion cost if customers leave this company for

others. Lastly, the competitors have no capability of providing products with higher

utility. All the reasons above can come down to high customer loyalty. Therefore, a

customer who has high loyalty is more likely to be maintained in the current

company. However, SB Lombardi and Passino (2007) state that not all customers

who have high loyalty can keep a relationship with the company, because the

23

customer‟ purchase behaviour has a certain lifecycle. Once customers have satisfied

themselves with their consumption desire, no matter how high their customer loyalty

is, they will quit. However, on the whole, customer maintain is positively related to

customer loyalty.

To sum up, the client mode can be described as: higher customer satisfaction high

customer loyalty customer retention (repeat purchase); low customer satisfaction

low customer loyalty customer loss.

2.8 Advantages to organizational business performance

Reduce cost and increase revenue

Ranjan & Bhatnagar (2009) state that e-CEM helps sales and marketing process

automation, which leads to the great reduction in selling cost and marketing expenses.

Owing to the high interaction between companies and customers, an accurate client

position is achieved, which makes companies spend less on keeping old customers

and obtaining new customers. Involved in increasing revenue, Raab et al (2008)

believe that the organizational staff have grasped an amount of customer information

and potential demands that helps bring extra new revenue sources. Besides these,

because of the usage of e-CRM, companies have a closer relationship with their

customers, in order that the amount and frequency of orders increases. Fewer

customers will be lost.

Increase business operational efficiency

Dimitriadis & Steven (2008) insist that the usage of e-CRM helps to realize

in-company information sharing and increase business flow automation. By this way,

the time of the business process has greatly declined; the task of the staff has been

simplified as well. Therefore, each business in and out of the company runs

effectively that helps to guarantee that customers achieve the most satisfactory

24

service with the least time and fastest speed.

Develop new markets

E-CRM has the capability to predict and analyze marketing activities and saleroom,

provide the cost of relevant products and services at a different angle, and predict the

change in customer distribution and market demand trend in order to grasp the

market chance effectively (EC-Council, 2006).

2.9 Customer Value

The kinds of benefits have been illustrated in the previous part. However, it needs

people to pay the price. Both the benefits and price have different concepts from

before. Customer value in the Internet Age has changed already.

2.9.1 Importance of Customer Value for E-CRM

In the 21st century, enterprises have changed from the traditional extensive

management style that orientates products and scale into a customer-oriented

intensive management style where a good customer relationship is an important

source for firms to survive and develop. Kevork & Vrechopoulos (2009) indicate that

the core of customer relationship is value. During the whole life cycle of customer

identifying, maintaining and developing, the evaluation of value is always the core

problem. The major feature of e-CRM is the attention to long period value. CRM

emphasizes a long period interactive relationship between enterprises and customers

in order to achieve win-win for the customers and companies.

25

2.9.2 Definition of customer value

Different researchers state the definition of customer value from different

perspectives and try to apply them in practice. Generally, three research guides exist

during the study process.

In the 1990s, creating and transferring excellent customer is paid more attention.

Under the strong market-oriented strategy, this theory matches the environment that

companies appeal for more attention to the market. It emphasize that customer value

has a close relationship with enterprise profitability, performance and competitive

advantage. Anton & Philonenko (2002) state that customer value is the net profit that

refers to the value of product purchase except all costs. Once customers can gain

more net profit from the company products than from the competitors‟ products,

customers will buy the products of this company and feel satisfied. This definition

makes us understand well about how to make good use of the importance of the

customer view and a market-oriented as well as market-driven strategy to develop

and create outstanding customer value.

Another research guide is perceived customer value, which considers customer value

to be subjective and change with different customers (Weinstein and Hohnson, 2006).

For the same product or service, different customers will have different values. The

same customer could cause different expected values under different usage

environments. Fotouhiyepour (2008) states that people have limited their

understanding of customer value into the characteristics of products and services. He

gives a more comprehensive definition as the preference and evaluation of purpose

and intention perception, which are reached for product characteristic, function and

usage result under certain usage environments.

It is similarly important to study customer value for enterprises so that different

customer groups can provide different potential profitability. Fink et al. (2008)

26

indicate that, during the process of companies‟ creating and transferring value to

their customers, customers perceive the differences between gains and loss so that

they give an overall evaluation of the products, services and relationship function.

However, Porter (2006) states that in the context of technology-based service,

customer value is defined as customers are able to make use of the system to

complete their tasks and the overall satisfaction during the usage process.

2.9.3 Evaluation of Customer Value

Sterne (2008) indicates that the most immediate method to evaluate customer value

is evaluating the profits of particular customers. For one product, the value is

achieved through the same customers‟ purchasing behaviour and their behaviour that

customers recommend the products or service to others.

Most companies may find that customers with different categories may bring more

value, including revenue, profits and recommendation. Xu et al (2003) indicate that

customers can be classified according to statistical information, like age, gender,

employment status, educational status, and business location and so on.

2.10 Customer Analysis in e-CRM

Having illustrated the factors related to e-CRM, customers as the core of the system

should be analyzed according to the previous factors. The process of customer

classification can be provided as follows.

27

2.10.1 Definite Rewards and Penalties of Project Personnel

It is important to make a system of rewards and penalties for project members.

Scullin, S. (2002) advises that it is necessary to have a clear definition of the division

of duty, making clear personal assessment objective. Rewarding outstanding staff

and punishing staffs that cannot complete tasks should be adopted.

2.10.2 E-CRM Customer Analysis Basic Flow

In the context of e-commerce, the distance between enterprises and customers has

shortened greatly so that companies have to face great amounts of customer data.

Meanwhile, the internet has the characteristics of convenience, real-time and

interaction, and provides an effective method for companies to collect detailed

customer data (Sophonthummapharn, 2009). Under this situation, it is important to

identify customers precisely, and differentiate different customers from customer

groups. Customers are divided into a variety of significant levels or catalogues and

are provided with their required products and services so that the limited resources

are allocated rationally.

Lovelock, C. (2001) has surveyed that customers remain a significant influence for

company profit. Once the rate of customer remain increases by 5%, about 25%-85%

of the company‟s average profits will increase. However, Lawfer (2006) states that

28

customers have more choices; customer loyalty is decreasing in the context of

e-commerce. Huge attacks on traditional marketing strategy and customer ideas exist.

Therefore, in terms of the result of customer segmentation, the focus of marketing

should transfer from the development of new customers into existing customers who

have value for enterprises. Analysing the drain trend of these customers, increasing

their satisfaction and attempting to achieve customer loyalty is the second step for

enterprises to manage customers.

Under this internet environment, there is an increasing number of contact points and

communication channels between companies and customers so that firms have more

choices to understand customers‟ preference and purchase behaviour. Companies

have the ability to satisfy customer demand and potential demand, and carry out

increment sales and interselling. In this way, companies can increase their value and

loyalty. Therefore, maximum profit can be achieved, that is the final purpose of

managing customers.

2.10.3 Customer Classification in E-CRM

2.10.3.1 Index Classification method

In order to carry out e-CRM, companies have to classify existing customers, through

which one-to-one customer service system and differentiated marketing is carried out,

in order to guarantee the achievement of the marketing goal. Different classified

methods exist nowadays. Stone and Jacobs (2008) consider income as a major index.

Take a medium sized transport company as an example. This index is based on the

annual transport amount and identifies customers from the traffic volume. For this

company, customers whose annual transportation revenue gross is over 5,000,000

RMB are considered to be large clients; customers who have 1,000,000-5,000,000

RMB are considered to be medium clients; customers who have 500,000-1,000,000

29

RMB are considered to be small clients; and customers who have less than 500,000

RMB are considered to be sporadic clients.

However, Taylor and Hunter (2002) consider financial condition to be more

important. It classifies customers according to international standing creditworthiness.

Four levels are concluded: best, better, good and weak. Except for these, other

companies are classified as disreputable.

2.10.3.2 Type combination classification

Involved in a company‟s real operation, the type of combination classification

method plays a more important role in the practical operation.

Combination of customer loyalty and credit rating

Szwarc (2006) states that four kinds of customers can be classified through

Standing level

Capital recovery

situation in 24

months

Longest payment

cycle /d

Credit rating

A 90%-100% 45 Best

B 90%-75% 75 Better

C 75%-60% 105 Good

D 60%-30% 255 Not good

E 30%-0% >270 Disrepute

Graph 2: Finical condition index

30

combining customer loyalty with credit rating: low credit rating-low loyalty client,

low credit rating-high loyalty client, high credit rating-low loyalty client, and high

credit rating-high loyalty client.

Porter (2006) defines customer loyalty as the confidence level and acceptance level

that clients have for a company‟s products or service.

He believes that the first type of client has no development potential or much higher

development costs. Even though we do not consider the development trouble and

cost, the company has rare guarantees to recover costs. Therefore, little consideration

should be given to this kind of client. The second kind of client can be called „a

dangerous client‟, that is they like the products and service; however, they do not

want to pay the related payment for the products and services. The third kind of

client is the major customers. If companies can develop this kind of client, it will

bring much more benefits for companies. The fourth clients should be the first choice

when companies want to develop customers. Companies should take effective

measures, which may help to inject new power for company development and

maintain the company‟s earnings.

Combination of customer loyalty and customer scale

On the other side, Peenlen (2006) states another kind of classification method; that is,

the combination of customer loyalty and customer scale. Small scale-low loyalty

clients have little value for companies. Not only would plenty of manpower and

physical resources be needed, but also a long time should be spent. What is worse,

the results cannot be satisfactory, while for small scale-low loyalty customers, they

make a contribution to company development. The third type of client, big scale-high

loyalty customers, are the companies‟ first choice, because they have much more

demand for products and services. Besides this, big scale customers have good

demonstration effects. They usually have strong economic power. The last one, big

scale-low loyalty customers, is unsteady. However, fewer extension workers are

31

needed during the early stage of development. The average development cost is

relatively low, which is to the benefit of companies‟ development work in the initial

stage.

Combination of credit rating, customer scale and customer loyalty

A much more detailed classification method is mentioned by Negi (2008). Credit

rating, scale and loyalty are all considered together. Eight types of client exist: 1.

high credit rating-big scale-high loyalty; 2. high credit rating-big scale-low loyalty; 3.

high credit rating-small scale-high loyalty; 4. High credit rating-small scale-low

loyalty; 5. Low credit rating-big scale-high loyalty; 6. Low credit rating-big

scale-low loyalty; 7. Low credit rating-small scale-high loyalty; 8. Low credit

rating-small scale-low loyalty. According to this kind of classification method, it is

much easier to make out rational management methods.

Combination of customer value and customer loyalty

Customer crediting and customer scale belong to customer information. In terms of

the description of customer value above, customer information is one factor of

customer value. Another customer classification method is proposed by Negi (2005)

that is a combination of customer value and customer loyalty. 4 basic categories are

grouped as presented in the following figure:

A refers to high loyalty and high value customers; B refers to low loyalty and high

value customers; C refers to high loyalty and low value customers; and D refers to

low loyalty and low value customers.

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Lawfer (2006) defines best customers are defined as customers with high loyalty and

high value. For these customers, a company can spend cost and resources on

obtaining, maintaining and improving their high value, which is helpful in achieving

more benefits.

Customer classification plays an important role during the operation of companies. In

terms of the different type of customers, companies can take different measures to

manage different client groups.

2.11 Performance Evaluation of E-CRM System

Sheth et al. (2001) states that performance is an important index for organizational

business activities. The acquisition of enterprise performance means not only an

increase in income, profits and performance; but also reduced costs and expenditure,

and the efficiency of business operations. Not only does the number change but also

the relative ratio should be paid attention to to measure performance.

Enterprises establish e-CRM system with huge investment in order to solve the

problems they are facing and achieve competitiveness. Ranjan & Bhatnagar (2009)

considers performance evaluation of e-CRM is defined to be self-criticism and

evaluation for the performance of e-CRM implementation. It covers the initial

conclusion for the implementation of e-CRM, the future prospects of e-CRM in

business operation, and a serious of contingency questions about modification and

perfection.

The CRM system may bring long-term and analyzable true earning. In terms of

Fortin (2006), 10% of returned customers can bring 10% profit for the company;

while an increase of 10% investment that aims to attract new visitors can only help

33

the company to increase the value by 0.7%. Besides this, the cost of developing one

new customer is six times more than keeping one old customer. Therefore, it is not

enough to consider earnings, market share, and new product income as the

measurement criteria. More attention should be paid to customer share, revenue mix,

customer satisfaction, and the time spent on customers and customer participation.

During the performance evaluation of e-CRM, companies should compare the

performance achieved, objectives and performance indicator after e-CRM

implementation not only with past performance and profitability, but also with

possible future performance.

In addition, performance evaluation could facilitate the promotion of e-CRM

implementation. Because after the implementation of e-CRM, enterprises and experts

will evaluate the implementation performance of e-CRM program so that the internal

staff and decision-making level realize the effectiveness of e-CRM. Managers may

support the program; staff may consciously make use of the e-CRM system to

achieve maximum investment return.

Key indicators

Dyche (2004) states that e-CRM is implemented to increase customer satisfaction

and achieve high customer loyalty. Therefore, when evaluating e-CRM performance,

the two key indicators are customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Evaluation of customer satisfaction

Customers compare the perceived feeling to certain products or service with their

expectation, the feeling of pleasure or disappointment formed, which is considered to

be customer satisfaction (Cochran, 2004). Customer satisfaction can be considered to

be a variation between the perceptible effect and expectation. If the former is lower

than the latter, customers may feel dissatisfied; if the former matches the latter,

customers may feel satisfied; if the former is higher than the latter, customers may

34

feel highly satisfied. Companies should try their best to please the customers in order

to achieve high satisfaction, because customers with general satisfaction may switch

product suppliers once they find better or cheaper products. Only customers with

high satisfaction usually do not switch supplier. Customer satisfaction can be

evaluated through the following process.

Firstly, internal research and evaluation should be done for the internal department

and staff in order to analyze and evaluate customers in the company. The tasks that

should be completed include: (1) what is the result about customer satisfaction

self-evaluation in the company, including successful and unsuccessful factors, and

required improvement, and overall evaluation? (2) What factors influence customer

satisfaction from the view of the company? (Li, 2007)

Secondly, an interview survey for customers is indicated by Lawfer (2006). He states

that discussion and interviews for representative clients can be adopted to know

about the factors they think can influence customer satisfaction. Customers‟ opinions

are compared with the companies‟ view to search their commonality. The main

purpose is to excavate new factors that influence customer satisfaction.

Thirdly, Malhotra (2006) states that sample survey is adopted to know the evaluation

of customer satisfaction that customer have of the companies, identifying

representative indicators that influence customer satisfaction and retest the indicator

in order to find out more valuable indicators for the tasks.

However, the process of the second and third steps may not be the fittest methods.

After knowing the basic information of the implementation of this company, surveys

for customers can be done next. After that, the findings of the survey can be sent to

the company for managers to know about the customers‟ opinions.

Finally, a quantitative survey should be done based on the first three processes to

35

identify quantitative criteria and quantitatively measure customer satisfaction.

Extensive surveys for customers are needed (Malhotra, 2006). Through evaluating

the current situation of customer satisfaction, companies‟ advantages and

disadvantages are found.

Through the above four processes, we can basically know about the customer

satisfaction situation of the company. In terms of the importance of each factor and

current customer satisfaction for this company, the factors of customer satisfaction

can be divided into four parts expressed in the coordinated system below:

Strengthen Maintain

Ignore Develop

Figure 3.9 Factors that influence customer satisfaction

For the factors in maintenance distinct where both customer satisfaction and

importance are high, the company should pay attention to maintaining the existing

situation and developing it opportunely to make them become their advantages and

knockout products.

For the factors in intensive distinct where there is high importance and low customer

satisfaction, the company should treat them specially.

For the factors in development distinct, where there is high customer satisfaction and

low importance, the company should make use of the factors‟ advantage and develop

them deeply in order to make them become maintenance distinct.

For the factors in ignore distinct where both importance and satisfaction are low,

imp

ortan

ce

Customer satisfaction

36

there is no need for companies to pay attention and the factors can be ignored (Porter,

2006).

High customer satisfaction may lead high loyalty; low customer satisfaction may

lead to low loyalty. It is very important to evaluate the factors of satisfaction.

2.12 Development of e-CRM in China

Due to the development of network technology, e-CRM has been increasingly

implemented all over the world. However, according to Sampon (2004), it states that

owning to the late adoption of the e-CRM market, the whole market system is not

completed in China in terms of product mix, domain structure, industrial structure

and marketing channel. It reports that the e-CRM market areas mainly focus on

developed areas like Bejing and Shanghai. Industries of High degree in

Informationization like post and telecommunications, and finance are the key fields.

On the contrary, traditional companies that play a major role in Chinese DGP to take

a small percentage of the e-CRM market. Few domestic manufacturers can provide

comprehensive e-CRM. Some can only provide several application modules or

modify them based on some modules in ERP.

Wen (2009) states that along with the popularity and deepening of e-commerce, the

problem of the high abandon rate and low loyalty has directly contradicted the

amount of growth in business transactions. To some extent, the stand or fall of

e-CRM decides whether ecommerce is successful or not.

Fortunately, with the rapid growth of the economy, the Chinese e-CRM market is

developing and expanding, which produces a great commercial opportunity. It has

become the focus of investors, software development firms and users. Kolter, P.

(2006) indicates that China will have an extensive e-CRM market prospect.

37

Chapter 3: Methodology

3.1 Introduction

The literature review of e-CRM has been illustrated in the last chapter. It provides the

foundation of the whole research. The definition of e-CRM, characteristics and

functions of e-CRM, strategies and implementation of e-CRM, advantages of e-CRM,

and performance evaluation is provided. Finally, the development of e-CRM in

China is discussed.

This chapter will present the methods that are used to address the objectives and

solve the problems mentioned before. It is not enough only to use the inductive or

deductive approach. A combination of them should be adopted. This research will

discuss and analyze this topic in terms of both the literature review and the situation

of Xiwang Company. The author will analyze the current situation of e-CRM in this

company, and find out the factors and methods for solving the existing problems.

A small-scale questionnaire survey was designed in terms of the objectives of this

research. E-mail was used to send the questionnaires. In addition, an interview with

the company manager was done to supplement the questionnaire. Thus, both the

quantitative approach and qualitative approach are adopted.

3.2 Research Theory

In order to study the topic effectively, both inductive and deductive approaches were

used as the two broad methods in this paper.

Deductive theory represents the commonest view of the nature of the relationship

between theory and social research (Bryman, A., 2004). For instance, „there is

38

positive correlation between customer loyalty and customer satisfaction‟ is the

general theory. Such theories are presented several times in this paper. Its

characteristic is from general theory to an individual topic, so that a new conclusion

is derived. The advantage is that it applies recursion based on basic discipline with

strict logic. However, because it limited the scope of the research, the role of basic

law cannot be expressed. The deductive approach is usually associated with the

quantitative approach. The process of deduction is described in Figure 4.1. The last

step may be in the opposite direction from deduction. For instance, according to the

data analysis, the findings are not the same as those presented in the literature.

Figure 4.1 The process of deduction (Bryman, A., 2008).

Inductive theory uses the grounded theory approach to analyze the data and generate

theory (Bryman, 2008). In this paper, in terms of the data analysis from the

1. Theory

2. Hypothesis

3. Data Collection

4. Findings

5. Hypotheses confirmed or rejected

6. Revision of theory

39

questionnaire and interviews, some theories may be produced. For instance, some

factors may influence customer satisfaction, such as product quality, customer

service, payment quality, delivery and personal interaction. Through collecting and

analyzing data, certain theories could be formed. It can express the basic law and

common character; however, it may lead to imperfect inductions. Therefore, a

combination of the deductive type and inductive type is applied.

3.3 Research Design and Strategy

3.3.1 Introduction

In the case of Xiwang Company, in order to study the implementation of E-CRM

based on customer value, both the quantitative approach and qualitative approach

were used. All of the methods were aimed at answering the research questions of this

case.

Two research questions were mentioned:

1) What percentage of the organization‟s customers are online customers? And what

are the customers‟ perceptions of the company‟s e-CRM programme?

2) What factors can help managers to strength the development of the e-CRM

programme related to customer loyalty and customer satisfaction?

Besides these, the background of Xiwang Group should be considered, such as the

levels of customer orders, company scale, and the percentage of electronic business

of the whole business, the managers‟ willingness to implement e-CRM, and so on.

All of this information was connected with the implementation situation of e-CRM in

this company.

40

3.3.2 Research strategy

Quantitative research tends to involve relatively large-scale, representative sets of

data, and is viewed as a gathering of „facts‟. It studies the relationship of one set of

facts with another and focuses on the individuals‟ perceptions of the world (Bryman,

2008). In brief, it emphasizes the quantification in the collection and analysis of data

and embodies a view of social reality as an external, objective reality. Here,

according to the questionnaire for customers, the data is collected. Data here are

considered as „facts‟. The relationship between different data reflects certain social

reality, such as the factors that influence e-CRM success.

However, qualitative research is concerned with collecting and analyzing information

that is chiefly non-numeric. It tends to focus on exploring, in as much detail as

possible, smaller numbers of instances and aims to achieve „depth‟ rather than

„breadth‟. It is process-oriented (Bryman, 2004). Interviews were used in this case

since some information, but it was non-numeric, about e-CRM is mentioned. This

was done when all the findings are completed. The managers‟ thinking was given

after considering the findings.

Some similarities between qualitative and quantitative research are that both of them

may be used to test theory as well as generate hypotheses and theory. Besides,

qualitative data often include quantification, such as more than, less than, most, as

well as specific numbers. Quantitative research approaches data through open-ended

questions.

Without proper qualitative research, quantitative research may lose its orientation.

However, if only qualitative research is emphasized, but quantitative research is

ignored, it must be difficult to master the change in value overall and truly. Therefore,

a combination of these two research strategies, which is defined as mixed

methodology, may help to study the case more precisely and accurately.

41

In terms of purpose of this study, which is identifying the key issues relevant to

e-CRM and B2B e-commerce based on customer value, and determining how to

improve it in terms of evaluating the company‟s current efforts and problems during

the implementation of e-CRM in Xiwang Company, and in order to answer the two

research questions, mixed qualitative and quantitative research was applied. Bryman

(2004) indicates that reliability, replication and validity are three of the most

prominent criteria for the evaluation of social research. He states that reliability is

concerned with the questions of whether the results of the research are repeatable.

The same questionnaire for 100 different customers illustrates whether a variety of

customers observes or explains the same thing in the same way. Besides this, all of

the samples are selected randomly, which enhances the reliability of the survey. The

study results can be repeatable. Therefore, it involves reliability and replication. In

addition, the E-CRM survey can reflect the customers‟ feeling and the facts of

e-CRM implementation while doing business with Xiwang Company. There are three

concepts that should be measured: customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and

customer preference. All the measures really represented the topic of the study. For

instance, the evaluation of the relationship between customer loyalty and customer

satisfaction may reflect the problems when implementing e-CRM. Qualitative

research enhances the depth of the research and makes it more rational.

3.4 Methods of Data Collection

Data collection refers to a process of preparing and collecting data (Robson, 2001).

The purpose of data collection is to obtain information, make decisions about

important issues and pass information on to others. Involved in this paper,

information about e-CRM was obtained from both customers and managers, which

might help to obtain relatively comprehensive information. Two types of data were

used for market studies that are primary data and secondary data. When doing the

42

study, all the data should be current, relevant, accurate, and conceptually correct.

3.4.1 Selection of the case

Xiwang Company, which implements e-CRM, was chosen as the case for this

research for the following reasons. Firstly, customers who did business with this

company online constitute almost 80% of all the customers. In customer-oriented

marketing, it is important to satisfy the customer. Secondly, in 2002, this company

began to carry out information planning. Till 2008, the implantation planning of

e-CRM rose and is now in its initial stage. Some problems and difficulties existed.

For instance, some managers questioned this programme, since not enough senior

managers supported it. Besides this, the company was dissatisfied with the earnings

and profits achieved after the implementation of e-CRM. Although they had

implemented e-CRM, some problems also arise, such as insufficient customer

retention and satisfaction. Xiwang Company is a typical example and it needs to be

studied in order to achieve a competitive advantage and earn more profits.

3.4.2 Survey Sample

If the topic is restricted to one institution, it is necessary to select a sample (Bell, J.,

2005). A sampling survey refers to the process of selecting populations or

organizations from a population who will be studied so that the results of the

sampling research is considered to be the reference for the decision making (Bell,

2005).

Probability-sampling was used in this case, because, through this kind of sampling,

each sampling unit of population had the same chance to be selected as the sample,

and so it is objective and rational. The company has established a set of customer

information systems. All of the contact details could be found from this system.

43

Considering that not all of the respondents were willing to complete the

questionnaire, plenty of copies have been distributed. Appropriately 150 copies of the

questionnaire were delivered to the customers by e-mail. The total target population

is 100.

3.4.3 Secondary Data

Secondary data was collected by the company in person through scheduling and

processing the data. It was collected for certain purpose but not the present problem,

including data provided by commercial and government agencies, the marketing

research company and the company database (Robson, 2001). It can provide an

economic and efficient background. Involved in the study of e-CRM in Xiwang

Company, secondary data was collected from the company website, such as the

company history, main market, products and services, and so on. In this way, I know

that the company is suitable to be studied. Through the report of the company, I knew

that it already had several years of history of e-CRM implementation, and it was still

not perfect. This information might assist with analyzing the topic. The advantage of

secondary data technology was that it saved time and reduced costs. Besides these, it

could help us to know about the research object and market position, which was

considered to be the foundation of obtaining other data. However, because secondary

data can have different sources, such as project reports, study designs, samples and

so on, the researcher did not participate so that it is difficult to evaluate the accuracy

of the data. In addition, secondary data is not current data. The publication time is far

later than the collection time. Market surveys usually need current data. In order to

gather data that are more valuable, the primary data technology was used.

3.4.4 Primary Data

Primary data was gathered by the researcher. Interviews and questionnaires were

44

used to collect the data for this study. The reason for choosing primary data

technology is that it can answer detailed questions that secondary data cannot answer,

such as the level of satisfaction, importance of e-CRM function, and so on. All of

these data should be collected through questionnaires for customers. Data about the

implementation situation of an E-CRM programme and the company‟s attitude

towards this program were collected from an interview with the manager. Data was

collected to suit the purpose and research objective, that is to identify the key issues

related to e-CRM and determine how to improve it. In the questionnaire, several

types of primary data was involved, such as demographics (age, sex, education level,

occupation), business activities, attitudes or opinions (preference, views, feelings),

intentions (planned or anticipated behaviour), behaviour, and so on. Communication

methods were used to collect the data. Primary data was gathered timely and

credibility. It was used as the main technology in this case.

3.5 Questionnaire

In order to identify the problems in implementing e-CRM from the point of view of

the customers, the questionnaire was designed. The quantitative approach was

adopted to collect and analyze data from the questionnaire. An analysis of the data

obtained from the questionnaire was primary research.

Defining the objectives of the survey

Defining the objectives of the survey is important when designing a questionnaire. In

the case of the Xiwang Group Company, the objectives can be listed as follows. In

order to investigate the implementation situation of e-CRM in Xiwang Group Co.,

Ltd, and better understand the relationship between the customer value obtained from

an e-CRM programme and e-CRM success, the questions were designed in two parts

to evaluate them, including customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. All the

questions were relevant to the objectives mentioned above, so it might be better to

45

classify the questions in terms of different focuses, such as the respondents‟ details,

recognition of e-CRM, and application of e-CRM. The questions were simple and

easy to understand. For example, „which of the features do you think is easy to use?‟

The features included the site map, local search engine, payment methods and so on.

Method of implementation

According to the situation, whereby the questionnaire should be sent to China from

the UK, e-mail was considered to be the main channel, which was suitable for an

international survey owing to the popularity of computers. It is cheaper than a postal

survey; quicker than telephone survey. Automatic data collection made the evaluation

free of the impact of the interviewer. An explanation of the questionnaire should be

given, which helps customers to understand the questionnaire‟s purpose and makes

them willing to respond to it. During the process of questionnaire distribution and

return, some disadvantages existed. The lack of a uniform e-mail address directory

made the survey difficult. Some questionnaires were returned later than the expected

period, and some were not even returned. Although some preparation work has been

done in order to complete the questionnaire efficiently, it can only reduce the errors

and cannot remove them totally.

Constructing the questionnaire

Closed questions with a vertical format are the main type of question; 19 out of 25

questions are this kind of question. Take the fifteenth question in section B as an

example:

46

The reason why I chose the vertical format is that it can more clearly distinguish

questions from answers. Through the judicious use of spacing and print variation, it

can not only make answers clearer, but also represent significant considerations.

What is more important, they are probably easier to code, especially when the

questions are pre-coded. Inevitably, a vertical format will take up too much space.

Regarding the answers, both multiple choice and single choice were provided so that

the responders can answer the questions freely. If repliers choose neither of the

answers, they can identify their answer after the choice of „others‟. In addition, a

Likert Scale was used in order to present the degree of agreement. The range of

values were gathered by the answers „strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree,

strongly disagree‟.

If the topic is restricted to one institution, it is necessary to select a sample (Bell, J.,

2005). Considering that not all of the respondents are willing to complete the

questionnaire, plenty of copies should be distributed. An explanation about how to

Closed question with a vertical format

15. In general, how satisfied do you feel with product brand of Xiwang Group

Ltd.?

(please tick the appropriate response)

Superior 1

Very satisfied 2

Average 3

Dissatisfied 4

Poor 5

I don‟t know 6

47

complete the questionnaire should be provided before the questions. Appropriately

150 copies of the questionnaire were delivered to the customers. Because customers

are uncontrolled factors, not all of them are willing to answer the questions. In

addition, it required perhaps 5 days to a week to get the questionnaires back.

Rationale for each question

The primary data that are collected in the questionnaire were grouped into the

following categories, which is helpful for the systematic analysis of the data. After

deciding what kind of data to measure, formulating the objectives of the investigation,

and deciding on a participant group, the questions should be composed. The detailed

reasons for asking these questions are given below each category.

Demographic Data

Demographic data on the participants was gathered at the beginning of the

questionnaire. Questions 1-5 were designed to ask for demographic information

about the participants. Question 1 is about gender; Question 2 is about age group;

Question 3 is about educational status; Question 4 is about business location; and

question 5 is about employment status.

Demographic data was designed at the beginning of the questionnaire because

background information is easier to be answered and can ease the respondent into the

questionnaire. People usually like to answer questions with which they are familiar.

In addition, it is used to see the differences or similarities between difficult groups.

For instance, if the group of participants from one province is noticeably less

satisfied with the customer service or products, the company should consider

whether they have provided fair service or products to the customers in this group.

Similarly, responses from those from different age groups, educational status, or

employment status may be different owning to the diversity of their characteristics.

Psychological/Lifestyle

48

Activities, Interests and Personality Traits are asked in this part. Questions 6 to 14

were designed about lifestyle.

Question 6 was designed to determine the time period of being a customer of this

company. Different customers from different time periods may have different

feelings about and loyalties to the company, which involves the customer

classification of e-CRM. Through the analysis of the data from each group, it can be

used to test the hypothesis in the literature review; that is, that customer loyalty has a

positive relationship with customer satisfaction.

Question 7 was designed to explore the customers‟ usage of the internet, which can

be considered to be one factor influencing customer satisfaction. Generally, the

longer the customers have been on the internet, the more skillfully they can do online

shopping. Different groups of customers can be divided in terms of their internet

usage because the capability of internet usage can influence their usage situation of

e-CRM. What is more, customers who do not use the internet cannot give any

suggestions about the efficiency of e-CRM program.

Question 8 was designed to ask how many times the customers have ordered goods

from this company in the past year. Respondents can be grouped in terms of the

number of times they have ordered goods from the company. The more times they

order goods, the more attention should be paid. Companies can adopt different

strategies towards different customer groups.

Question 9 was designed to explore the characteristic of the customers. This question

is relevant to Question 10 that was designed to learn the average value of each order.

Question 9 decides whether the trade is B to B or B to C business. Both Questions 9

and 10 were used to classify the customers in terms of scales, as mentioned with

reference to customer classification in the literature review. It is one index of

customer classification, by which customers are grouped into large client, medium

49

client, small client and sporadic client. Through the analysis of customer scale,

together with customer loyalty and credit rating, the company could achieve data

from each group and find out their views about e-CRM service in order to know

whether each group is satisfied and the problems of each group.

Question 11 was designed to ask about the longest payment cycle of customers, in

terms of which customers were ranked into different credit ratings. As mentioned in

the literature review, five levels were grouped. The data from each level was

gathered. This question was used to test the hypothesis about the relationship

between credit rating and customer satisfaction. In addition, it can help the company

to find out the problems of the customers at each level and adopt appropriate

strategies to solve these problems.

Question 12 was designed to ask how the customers know about this company. This

problem can reflect the behaviour or preferences that customers have regarding using

the internet to access business information. They may trust the information retrieval

channel, which one more participants have chosen. The company can adjust their

publicity strategy according to the results of this question.

Question 13 was designed to ask about the frequency with which the company

contacts the customers. Communication between the customer and company plays a

role in the implementation of e-CRM. It is considered to be one factor that influences

customer satisfaction. The participants from each group may have different types of

customer satisfaction and loyalty. It is more efficient to test in terms of groups.

Question 14 was about the communication tool. Participants with different

communication tools may have different levels of satisfaction. This question was

relevant to the question below that is designed to test the degree of importance that

customers feel about communication. The factual communication situation can be

compared with the customers‟ feelings about the communication tools. Customer

50

satisfaction and customer loyalty must have some relationship between them.

The following question asked about the customers‟ preference about the

communication mode. Comparing this question with the last one, we can learn

whether the company has provided customers with their favourite mode. Customers

can be divided into different groups in terms of the degree of whether their

preference matches with what they have been provided.

Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is tested by questions 16, 17 and 18.

Question 16 was designed to ask about the degree of satisfaction that the participants

feel towards the products and service on the whole. The participants gave their

overall feeling about the company‟s products and services from their own perspective.

This is the most direct method for gathering the customers‟ perspective.

Question 17 was designed to ask about the importance of the factors that influence

the customer‟s decision making. I listed the factors as follows: product quality,

customer service, price, delivery, payment, technology support, and personal

interaction. Through the analysis of the data, the company can test their

implementation situation of each factor and take appropriate measures to solve the

existing problems.

Question 18 was designed to ask each factor‟s degree of satisfaction. Customer

satisfaction may have a positive relationship with customer loyalty. However, it may

not decide customer loyalty itself. We know that the purpose of the company‟s

operations is to achieve more earnings and reduce costs. Other elements should be

considered together with customer satisfaction. This question can be analyzed with

customers‟ background information, including age, sex, occupation, educational

status, usage of the internet and so on.

51

Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty is tested through questions 19-22.

Question 19 was designed to ask whether customers will keep doing business with

Xiwang Company. It reflected the customers‟ intention regarding planned or

anticipated behaviour. This is one factor that reflects customer loyalty. Participants

can be grouped according to this factor. For those who strongly agree to keep doing

business with this company, the company can find out the reason why they behave

like this and maintain the advantages. On the contrary, for those who strongly

disagree to continue doing business, the company needs to find out the reasons for

this and solve these problems.

Question 20 was designed to test another element that reflects customer loyalty.

Recommending the company will bring more profits for the company and develop

new markets.

Question 21 was designed to ask whether the participants have absolutely customer

loyalty. Generally, for customers, they focus on the utility and then decide whether to

trade or not. However, as a customer who has to do business with one company, he

may not switch to a more valuable company owning to some reason, such as the high

switching cost, absolutely loyalty to the existing brand or some other reason. It is

necessary to gather the data and analyze it.

Question 22 was designed to test the hypothesis that customer satisfaction has a

positive relationship with customer loyalty.

3.6 Data analysis technology

SPSS software was used to analyze the data from the questionnaires (. However,

because it is a new method for the researcher, only some simple functions were used

52

according to the survey demand. All of the data were entered into the system. The

descriptive statistics, pie chart and bar chart were the major form for the survey of

this questionnaire.

Besides this, SPSS was used to help the author to learn which the most valuable

customers were. Customers were identified through the use of SPSS Forecasting

analysis technology. It helps us to do customer classification.

3.7 Interview

As mentioned above, a questionnaire is a small-scale survey that emphasizes

understanding the participants‟ opinions, attitudes and interests, and the reflection on

the research questions. Although it covered a wide range of questions, it involved

few in-depth questions. In addition, data from the companies were gathered to

compare with those from the customers. The company and customers may have

different views of this topic. It is important for companies to find out the core

problems that lead to these differences.

Semi-structured interviews were adopted to gather the data. Relevant questions were

firstly designed and then sent to the interviewees. In this case, the interviewee was

the manager of an import and export department. Before the interview, I contacted

the manager and communicated with him. Because we are in two different countries,

we agreed that I would send the questions to him by e-mail and he would answer

them as soon as possible. In this way, detailed answers can be gathered.

The questions involved in the implementation situation of e-CRM any problems that

they wanted to solve through the use of e-CRM, whether he supported this

programme, the problems, conflicts or difficulties they encountered during the

process of e-CRM, whether he thinks customer classification is necessary, what does

53

he think of customer satisfaction, what is the situation regarding customer loyalty,

whether this company has evaluated e-CRM performance, and what about the result,

the changes in earnings and profits compared with before e-CRM was implemented,

and a prediction of the possible earnings.

Because the implementation of e-CRM in this company is at the initial stage, they are

willing to cooperate with this survey. In addition, owning to the good personal

relationship between the interviewer and interviewee, the results of this survey will

be valuable and considered as a supplementation to the questionnaire.

54

Chapter 4: Data analysis and findings

In the previous chapters, the main methods have been discussed in order to research

this area of e-CRM: questionnaire survey and interview. The reasons why choose

relevant questions of questionnaire and interview were given.

This chapter will present the data gathered from the questionnaire and interview, and

findings from the research.

4.1 Data analysis and findings from questionnaire

In terms of literature review and background of Xiwang Company, questionnaire was

designed into different factors in order to achieve the objective of this research and

solve the research problems: demographic data, psychological/life style, customer

satisfaction, customer loyalty, and implementation. The author will analyze the data

in terms of the category that was classified above.

4.1.1 Response Rate

As mentioned in the chapter of methodology, our target population is 100. In order to

get the target, the structured questionnaires were distributed to175 customers via

e-mail. According to the statistics of the survey, questionnaires were sent to 175

customers; finally I received 108 returns before the deadline that the author decided

during the research process. It means that the valid response rate is 61.7%.

4.1.2 Demographic details of respondents

Demographic details were gathered through the analysis of gender, age group,

55

educational status, business location and employment status, which involve in

questions 1-5.

Gender

The question was designed to represent the gender of respondents. It can be seen

from Table1 that in the valid 108 respondents, 60 is male that is 55.6%; the number

of females is 48 that take 44.4% of the valid respondents. Male respondents are

slightly more than females.

Table 1: Gender of respondents

Gender

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid Male 60 34.3 55.6 55.6

Female 48 27.4 44.4 100.0

Total 108 61.7 100.0

Missing System 67 38.3

Total 175 100.0

56

Age group

Question 2 was designed to gather data about age group. Considering that age may

influence the demand of products and service. People from different age group may

focus different factors. Besides these, it is related to the employment status. For

example, generally, participants aged from 20 to 29 may be new workers. It can be

seen from Figure1 that people from 30-39 take the most percentage that is 37%.

Following is people aged 40-49, who take 26.9%. 17 respondents are aged from

20-29, the percentage of which is 15.7%. The least two age group is below 20, and

above 50 age people.

Table 2: Age group of respondents

Age

group

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid Below 20 13 7.4 12.0 12.0

20-29 17 9.7 15.7 27.8

30-39 40 22.9 37.0 64.8

40-49 29 16.6 26.9 91.7

50 and above 9 5.1 8.3 100.0

Total 108 61.7 100.0

Missing System 67 38.3

Total 175 100.0

Average

57

Educational status

Question 3 was designed to ask the educational status of respondents. Considering

that customers may have different educational status, which may influence the usage

of internet, we categorize them based on 5 grades of educational levels: primary

education, secondary education, postsecondary education, university education, and

postgraduate education and above masters.

Table 3: Educational status of respondents

Table 3 shows the educational status of the 108 valid respondents. Respondents of

post secondary education take nearly half of the 108 respondents that is 49.1%.

People of this level of education usually have working skills; however, they are short

of theoretical knowledge. According to the education system in China, they can work

earlier than university education students. The age they begin to work is about 20

years old. People with university education take the second largest number of the

respondents. 41 out of 108 is university education that is 38%. Primary education,

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid Primary education 1 .6 .9 .9

Secondary education 8 4.6 7.4 8.3

Post Secondary

education 53 30.3 49.1 57.4

University education 41 23.4 38.0 95.4

Postgraduate education

Above masters

5

0

2.9

0

4.6

0

100.0

Total 108 61.7 100.0

Missing System 67 38.3

Total 175 100.0

58

secondary education and above masters respectively take less than 10 percentage, in

which, people with above masters take the least, that is 4.6%.

Business location

Question 4 was designed to gather information about business location. As shown in

Table 4 that in the 108 respondents, 75% of business locate in China Mainland that is

81 customers are working in China mainland. The left 25% comes from Taiwan and

Hong Kong.

Table 4: Is your business located in China Mainland?

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid Yes 81 46.3 75.0 75.0

No 27 15.4 25.0 100.0

Total 108 61.7 100.0

Missing System 67 38.3

Total 175 100.0

Figure 1 Business Location

Business Location

Shandong Qingdao

Shandong Yantai

Shanghai

Jiangsu

Hebei

Taiwan

Hong Kong

59

Figure 1 shows the location of the respondents‟ business. Slightly more than half of

the businesses locate in Shandong Province, including Qingdao City and Yantai City.

The former is slightly more than the latter one. Taiwan and Hong Kong takes almost

the same percentage, which is nearly 12.5% respectively. Shanghai takes the least

percentage, which is less than 5%. Others like Jiangsu Province and Hebei Province

take 17% totally.

Employment Status

Question 5 was designed to gather the data of employment. It can be seen from Table

5 that 88.9% respondents are full time workers; only 11.1% respondents are part time

workers. Considering the characteristic of full time worker and part time worker, the

former is more valuable customers.

Table 5: Employment status of respondents

Employment Status

Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid Full Time

employment 96 54.9 88.9 88.9

Part Time

employment 12 6.9 11.1 100.0

Total 108 61.7 100.0

Missing System 67 38.3

Total 175 100.0

60

4.1.3 Psychological/Lifestyle

Psychological information was gathered through the following factors: time of being

a customer of Xiwang Company; usage of Internet; times customers order goods

from company; type of customer; average value of each order; longest payment cycle;

the mode that customers know about this company; frequency that company connects

with respondents; communication tools; and customer preference.

Time of being the customer of Xiwang Company

Question 6 was designed to gather the information of the time of being the customer.

In terms of the factor, company can separate customers into different category: old

customers and new customer. It can be obviously seen from Figure 2 that customers

with over 5 year‟s business take the largest percentage of the respondents. Customers

with 4-5 years‟ business take the second largest percentage. Therefore it is significant

to pay attention to these two groups of customers. It can be analysed that old

customers are the major client of this company.

Table 6 shows the detailed data of the survey. The amount of customers with over 5

years‟ business is 49, which is 45.4% of the valid data. The amount of customers

with 4 to 5 years‟ business is 43, which is 39.8%. The last two groups are 8

respondents respectively, which is only 4.6%.

Figure 2: How long have you been a customer of Xiwang Company?

61

Table 6: How long have you been a customer of Xiwang Company?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid No more than 1 year 8 4.6 7.4 7.4

2-3 years 8 4.6 7.4 14.8

4-5 years 43 24.6 39.8 54.6

over 5 years 49 28.0 45.4 100.0

Total 108 61.7 100.0

Missing System 67 38.3

Total 175 100.0

Usage of Internet

Question 7 was designed to gather data of Internet usage. It can be seen from Figure

3 that respondents who have more than 5 years experience of Internet takes more

than half of all valid respondents. People who have 3-5 years‟ experience of using

Internet take the second largest percentage, which is near 40%. The data above

shows that internet is widely used in business circles for several years. It has been

used for most of the customers to do business. It is significant for companies to study

electronic business in order to achieve competitive advantage.

Figure 3: Usage of Internet

62

Times of ordering products

Question 8 was designed to collect data about times of ordering goods from Xiwang

Company in the past one year. Customers who have ordered 6-10 times take the

largest percentage of all the valid respondents. The percentage is 60%. This part of

customers should be considered to be valuable customers. The strategies that are

taken on them should be kept. On the contrary, company should study the customers

who never or only have once order and find out the problem and try to solve them.

Customers with 11-15 timers ordering may be considered to be the sample of doing

business. According to literature review, different groups can be classified into

different value distinct and take relevant strategy.

Figure 4: Frequency of ordering products

63

The type of customers

Question 9 was designed to test the type of customers. It can be seen obviously from

Figure 5 that all the respondents are wholesalers. This tests the fact that the

characteristic of this company is business to business model.

Figure 5: the type of respondents

64

Average value of each order

Question 10 was designed to gather data about average value of each order.

Figure 6: Average value of each order (RMB)

Figure 6 shows that nearly half of the respondents have ordered products valued

300,000-400,000. Respondents with each order valued 400,000-500,000 RMB take

more than 10% of all respondents. These two parts are considered to be medium

client by the company. Through survey, we find that the standard mentioned in the

literature review is not suitable for Xiwang Group. Therefore, in order to analyze it

appropriately, while doing the questionnaire, the standard of customer scale was got

from this company. The former two groups are considered to be medium client, who

take nearly 65 percentages. The large client, which group is valued above 500,000

RMB, takes nearly 8% of the respondents. Small scaled client is valued

200,000-300,000 RMB, who takes 21%. Respondents who choose the value less than

200,000 RMB is considered to be sporadic client. The percentage is about 6%.

65

Longest payment cycle

Question 11 was designed to gather data about longest payment cycle. In term of

literature review and the real situation of this company, I decided to separate

customers into the following 5 levels of credit rating.

Table 7: Longest payment cycle

Table 7 shows that customers with advance payment are classified as best credit

rating customers, who take 12.1% of the valid respondents that is 13 people;

customers with less than 1 month payment are considered to be better credit rating

customers, who take 12.1% that is 13 people; customers with 1-2 months payment

are considered to be good credit rating customers, who take 20.6% that is 22 people;

customers with 2-3 months payment is considered to be not good credit rating

customers, who take 44.9% that is 48 people; customers who pay with more than 3

months are considered to be disrepute credit rating customers, who take 10.3% that is

11 people.

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid Advance payment 13 7.4 12.1 12.1

Less than 1 month 13 7.4 12.1 24.3

1-2 months 22 12.6 20.6 44.9

2-3 months 48 27.4 44.9 89.7

>3 months 11 6.3 10.3 100.0

Total 107 61.1 100.0

Missing System 68 38.9

Total 175 100.0

66

Connection between customers and company

This factor was analyzed through data collection of questions 12, 13, 14 and 15.

Question 12 was designed to gather data about the mode that customers know about

the company. It can be seen from Figure 7 that websites take half of the respondents;

Exhibition and trade fair take the second largest percentage, which is 30%. The least

percentage is newspaper.

Question 13 was designed to gather the frequency that company connects with

respondents. In Figure 8, the two choices „every six month‟ and „each year‟ take the

largest and secondary largest percentage, which is around 36% respectively. The

respondents who choose „never‟ take about 16%. This is one problem that company

should consider.

Figure 7: The mode that

customers know about this

company

Figure 8: Frequency that

company connects with

respondents

67

Question 14 was designed to know about the mode that Company contact with

customers, which is relevant to the first characteristic in literature review. Customers

have the right the use different channels to communicate with companies. In terms of

Table 8, E-mail is most widely used among the following modes. More than half of

respondents are contacted via e-mail. Face and face is least used, the percentage of

which is only 1.9%. Respondents are also contacted via other mode, like online

consultation and fax that are totally 2.6%; and MSN takes 15%. Among them, the

respondents who specify MSN also choose e-mail or telephone.

Table 8: Which kind(s) of mode does Xiwang Company contact with you?

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid E-mail 57 32.6 52.8 52.8

Letter 5 2.9 4.6 57.4

Telephone 25 14.3 23.1 80.6

Face to Face 2 1.1 1.9 82.4

Others 19 10.9 17.6 100.0

Total 108 61.7 100.0

Missing System 67 38.3

Total 175 100.0

68

Customers Preference

Question 15 was designed to test customers‟ preference. Table 9 shows that „personal

contact‟ is the customers‟ most preferred mode for company to contact with them. 52

participants, the percentage of which is 48.1%, prefer this mode the best. 45.2% of

the respondents most prefer „telephone‟, which take the secondary largest percentage

(45.4%). E-mail takes 32.4% as the third largest percentage of the most preferred

mode. On the contrary, text message is the least preferred mode that takes 19.4%.

Company should consider the finding of customers‟ preference together with the

current contact mode. If the company is using the mode, which customers most

prefer, it will satisfy customers in the largest degree. Therefore, data from question

15 can be compared with question 14.

Table 9: Customers preference

preference Most

preferred(1)

Preferred

(2)

Neutral

(3)

Less

preferred(4)

Least

preferred(5)

Max Min

N % N % N % N % N % % %

Telephone 49 45.4 28 25.9 36 33.3 3 2.8 0 0 45.4 0

E-mail 35 32.4 37 34.3 54 50 4 3.7 0 0 50 0

Fax 5 4.6 19 17.6 29 26.9 7 6.5 3 2.8 26.9 2.8

Text message 0 0 8 7.4 48 44.4 5 4.6 21 19.4 44.4 0

MSN 28 25.9 45 41.7 58 53.7 0 0 0 0 53.7 0

Personal

contact

52 48.1 25 23.1 47 43.5 2 1.9 0 0 48.1 0

Total 169 26.1 162 25 272 42 21 3.2 24 3.7 ------ -----

69

4.1.4 Customer satisfaction

General feeling of the brand

Customer satisfaction is tested through questions 16 to 18. Question 16 was designed

to test the degree of satisfaction in the whole. Figure 9 shows that 37% of

respondents feel average of the product brand. 32% feel very satisfied with brand.

The feeling of „poor‟ is chosen by least customers, the percentage of which is 5%.

About 7% of respondents feel very superior. It reflects that brand cannot perfectly

satisfy customers. Company should consider the reasons and take measures to

improve brand.

Figure 9: satisfaction of brand

6.00----I don’t know

70

Importance of factors that influence purchasing behavior

Question 17 was designed to test the importance of factors that influence purchase

decision. In terms of Figure 10, respondents generally consider product quality,

customer service, price, delivery, payment, technology support and personal

interaction as important factors. The importance of the seven factors is tested

according to respondents‟ choices. Traditional decision making factors like product

quality and price are still important for customers‟ purchasing behavior. However,

nowadays, service and personal interaction are considered slightly important than

product price. Delivery and payment are considered almost the same as price.

Personal interaction helps customers have a good mood to purchase. It is the basic of

customer service. Payment and delivery decide whether customers have a safe and

trustful environment of purchasing.

Figure 10: Importance of factors that influence purchasing behavior

0 20 40 60 80 100

Product quality

Customer Service

Price

Delivery

payment

Technology support

Personal interaction

Impotance of factors that influence purchasing behavior

Impotance of factors that influence purchasing behavior

71

Satisfaction of the factors

Question 18 was designed to evaluate the satisfaction of each factor that influence

purchasing behavior. As it can be seen from Figure 11, the percentage of satisfaction

of each subsection factor is presented. Customers feel least satisfied with post-sale

service. Customers are not satisfied with the waiting time, the percentage of which is

only 35.5%. Real time is one characteristic of e-CRM; however, it cannot satisfy

customers. It reflects that e-CRM is not well implemented in some degree. They are

also not satisfied with problem solving. In addition, post-sale service and sale service

cannot satisfy customer as well, which take 52.5% and 49.2% respectively. From the

finding of Figure 10, we know that customer service take the most important part in

the purchasing behavior process. Customers feel most satisfied with payment safety

and payment speed. Customer service is an important function of e-CRM, which can

be used to test whether e-CRM is well implemented. Overall, customer satisfaction is

not high.

68.2

52.5

42

70.5

89

65.5

84

62

49.2

35.5

54.2

92.5

71 73.5

Figure 11: Customer satisfaction of each detailed factor

Pro

du

ct perfo

rman

ce

Pro

du

ct utility

Pre

-sale service

Sale service

Pro

blem

solvin

g

Waitin

g time

Price

Disco

un

t

Paymen

t too

l

Paymen

t safety

Co

mm

un

ication

too

l

Delivery sp

eed

Package con

ditio

n

On

e-to-o

ne C

om

mu

nicatio

n

72

4.1.5 Customer loyalty

Customer loyalty is tested through the Questions 19-22. Combination of the data

collection of these four questions decides customer loyalty.

Question 19 was designed to test whether respondents will keep doing with Xiwang

Company, which reflects the transactional loyalty. From Figure 12, Most of the

respondents, the percentage of which is about 30%, have not decided whether they

will keep doing business with this company or not. These respondents have relatively

more possibility to keep doing business. About 13% of respondents will strongly

agree to keep doing business with this company. Combining the finding with data

from Figure 9, it can be seen that respondents who feel most satisfied are almost the

same people.

Figure 12: Will you keep doing business with Xiwang Company?

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Figure 13: Will you recommend Xiwang Company to others?

Question 20 was designed to test whether respondents will recommend Xiwang

Company to others, which reflects the emotional loyalty. Figure 13 shows that

almost half of the respondents have not decided whether they will recommend this

company to others. It illustrates that people who keep indifferent attitude. The

number of respondents who adopt this attitude increases. Respondents who strongly

agree to recommend Xiwang to others is about 8%, which is almost the same as the

data from Figure 12 and Figure 9.

Question 21 was designed to test the switching situation, which reflects emotional

loyalty. It can be seen from Figure 14 that slightly more than half of the respondents

are undecided whether ignoring other companies even if they have got high utility

products. 7.5% of the respondents strongly agree to ignore others‟ activities.

Figure 14: Will you ignore other companies even if they take promotion strategies or

provide products with high utility?

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Strongly agree Agree Undecided Disagree Strongly disagree

Pe

rce

nta

ge

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10

20

30

40

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Strongly agree Agree Undecided Disagree Strongly disagree

Pe

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Figure 15: Relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty

Considering findings from Figure 9, Figure 12, Figure 13 and Figure 14, they have

got some common points and certain trend, which is identified in Figure 15. Only the

respondents who is feel superior with this company almost keep the same, which is

10%. Those customers who are the most valuable customers for company have

absolutely loyalty to the company. The other level of customer satisfaction has no

direct relationship with customer loyalty. It can be conclude that only over very

satisfied customers that are customers with superior attitude is with high loyalty.

However, it cannot be concluded that they have positive relationship.

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Figure 16: Will you transfer your business to other companies if Xiwang can not

satisfy you?

Question23 was designed to test the relationship between customer satisfaction and

customer loyalty when Xiwang Company cannot satisfy customers. From Figure 16,

it can be seen that more than 40% of respondents will strongly agree to transfer to

other companies. 37% agree to transfer to others. More than three quarters of the

respondents will choose to switch. Only less than 5% strongly disagree to switch. It

means that customer satisfaction has influence on customer loyalty. However, it still

cannot prove the positive relationship between them. Therefore, the hypothesis in

literature review „Customer satisfaction has positive relationship with customer

loyalty‟ cannot be proved.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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40

45

Strongly agree Agree Undecided Disagree Strongly disagree

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4.2 Data analysis and findings from interview

In this part, the responses of interview will be analyzed in order to gather information

from the view of company. The content of interview involved in the field of e-CRM

program in Xiwang Company.

The situation of e-CRM in the Company

From the answer of the first question that is „Please simply introduce the

implementation situation of e-CRM.‟, we can see that the company is at the initial

stage of implementation. There must be some imperfections, which should be found

out and corrected. It is a valuable case to be studied.

Reasons why carry out e-CRM program/Function of e-CRM

From the answer of this question, we can see that the current objectives for this

company involves in the following functions e-CRM: customer management,

contacts management, electronic business, customer service. The ultimate aim is to

increase sales achievement and reduce sales cost. However, the manager indicates

that they haven‟t reached the re-set target.

Manager support

From the answer we can only see that this manager support the implementation of

e-CRM.

Knowledge of e-CRM

The manager considers the implantation of e-CRM is based upon both technology

and practical business.

Implementation of E-CRM

Question 5 is designed to gather information about conflicts, problems or impacts

during the implementation of e-CRM. It can be seen that lack of senior manager

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support and resistance of relevant interior personnel. He emphasized that it is always

human being who decide the result but not only technology. Another point that can

be found is that the traditional organizational cultural resists the implementation of

e-CRM.

Customer classification

He believes that customer classification is very important. They mainly take two

kinds of customer classification methods: customer segmentation in terms of

characteristics including location, age group, income, working position, educational

status, lifestyle, and customer behavior and so on; segmentation based upon customer

value. He emphasized that their focus is to keep high value customers.

Problem solving

It can be seen that they respect the recommendations of customers and will give

relevant solving methods.

Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty

Because e-CRM is carried out recently, there are still some problems. Therefore, he

indicates that the situation of the two factors is just average.

Evaluation of e-CRM performance

They haven‟t evaluated the performance of e-CRM. However, a plan has been made

that is evaluating the performance half a year.

Factors that influence customer satisfaction

From the answers, we can see that 4 out of 5 answers are about product. Another

answer is customer service. More factors should be considered.

Changes of achievements and earnings after e-CRM implementation and

possible achievements in future

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Sales have increased and cost has reduced. Profits will increase 20% when the

program enters into mature period.

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Chapter 5: Discussion

In the chapter of literature review, the main areas of this research are discussed,

including basic concepts of e-CRM, implementation of e-CRM, advantages of

e-CRM implementation to organization and organizational business performance,

performance evaluation, and the development of e-CRM in China. Important factors

like customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer value are given and

discussed. Customer classification as a significant method in the implementation of

e-CRM is discussed. According to the main factors that are discussed in the literature

review, questionnaire and interview are designed to gather information from both

customers and company, which can help reach research objective and solve research

problems. Data analysis and findings are provided in the previous chapter. This

chapter will explain the meaning and importance of the results through the following

elements: major findings of this study, explaining the meaning, importance and

alternative explanations of the results, limitation of the study, suggestions for further

research, and at last a short conclusion.

5.1 Major Findings of the study

Combining the data analysis and background of Xiwang Company , we can get the

following major findings.

With respect to functions of e-CRM, our findings confirm that customer service

function is not effectively developed in Xiwang Company in the view of

customers.

With respect to strategies in the implementation of e-CRM, our findings discover that

personalization strategy, which involves in the characteristics of „one to one‟ and

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„real time‟, is not taken successfully by Xiwang Company.

With respect to implementation of e-CRM in SMEs, our findings suggest that

Xiwang Company is lack of senior manager support and the capability to adjust

change.

With respect to the main factors that influence customer purchasing behavior or

e-CRM performance evaluation, our findings suggest that customer loyalty is not

high in terms of the analysis of questionnaire data; customer satisfaction cannot be

proved to have positive relationship with customer loyalty. Customer retain is major

index to measure customer loyalty. Only customers who feel over very satisfied

(superior) have high customer loyalty to this company. These customers are

classified as most valuable customers. As such, the original hypothesis was not

supported by this sample.

It is important to note that these results are consistent across all evaluated ages and

genders.

5.2 Meaning, Importance and Alternative Explanations

of the Findings

Functions of e-CRM

Involved in the functions of e-CRM, our findings discover that customer service

function is not effectively developed in Xiwang Company in customers‟ perspective.

Before a company want to carry out a program, which can be costly, they must

consider it carefully. Functions are one of the essential elements (Buttle, 2005). They

have to consider whether these functions are necessary and meaningful for them to

achieve benefits; or whether these functions can satisfy their demand. No company

wants to invest one program that cannot achieve the basic function. Therefore it

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becomes significant to test whether this program has got the basic function as what

they believe it has before implementing it. Besides this, the implementation

performance of one program is not only relevant to technology, but also relevant to

human beings, like customers, program members and other company staffs (Chen,

2007). In this study, the author chooses to do questionnaires for customers to test it.

Because the core of e-CRM is customer, customers‟ opinion should be considered to

be the first and most important indicator to test it.

Through the statistical data and findings, we found that the degree of satisfaction to

customer service is the lowest part in the factors that influence customer purchasing

behavior. Pre-sale service, sale service and post-sale service are all tested. We

consider this problem from two points. The findings of Figure 10 in previous chapter

discover that customer service that takes about 90% is one of the most important

factors that influence customers‟ purchasing behavior. However, a finding from

Figure 11, which shows the satisfaction of each factor, suggests that customers feel

least satisfied with customer service, including pre-sale service, sale service and

problem solving. Customer service, which customers consider as one of the most

important reason for decision making of purchase, however, is tested to be the least

satisfied factor. If Company cannot improve customer service, not only the

investment of e-CRM becomes meaningless, but also operating revenue might

decline. This phenomenon should be taken into account.

According to the literature review, the implementation of e-CRM should help

improve customer service. However, the result shows that customers still feel

unsatisfied with customer service. Why the hypothesis cannot be supported? We will

consider it from the following points. Firstly, maybe customer service has been

improved but not too much that makes it still cannot satisfy customer demand. This

can be proved by the interview for managers. He indicated that customer service has

improved after implementing e-CRM. Secondly, although the results of e-CRM are

relevant to technology, it is more relevant to program members. As mentioned in the

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findings of interview, since the implementation of e-CRM, some staffs cannot adjust

the changes. They still had the opinion that „this is my customer.‟ but not „whether

customers need me‟. Some of them still resist the program. Besides these, the

demographic factors of sample influence the findings of the research (Robson, 2001).

Respondents who have high educational status and longer time usage of internet feel

slightly higher satisfied than those who have low educational status and shorter time

usage of internet.

Strategies in the implementation of e-CRM

Involved in strategies in the implementation of e-CRM, our findings confirm that

personalization strategy, which involves in the characteristics of „one to one‟ and

„real time‟, is not taken successfully by Xiwang Company.

Personalization is one of the major strategies in the implementation of e-CRM, which

is helpful for companies to obtain real-time understanding of customer demand and

do one-to one marketing with different customers (Fotouhiyepour, 2008). It is important

to test whether this strategy is effectively taken, because customer has become the

core of whole marketing. According to the findings from Figure 10, personal

interaction is almost the same as customer service for customers to do purchasing

decision. Compared with the findings from Figure 11, customers are not so satisfied

with communication tool and one-to-one communication, the percentage of which is

the only slightly more than customer service. Personalization is relevant to customer

classification. Company can make different and personalized strategies in terms of

different segmentation. It is important for companies to understand the real demand

of certain customers, customer segmentations that companies should try to attract,

customer segmentation which should be paid attention to maintain, and how to cater

for customer‟s demands. The findings are important for company to consider this

point and make relevant solution.

E-CRM system can help record each business transaction of each customer into

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database, which help to do sophisticated business. More customer call can be dealt

with by organizational call center. However, personalization strategy is not well

carried out. The alternative reason why it is unsuccessful is not software itself, but

the incompatibility of real personalization and standardization. For instance, call

center of e-CRM system deal with amount of customers‟ incoming phone. However,

customers may feel tired of the sales letters with their names but no relevant

information. Besides this, customers have to communicate with computers such as

“If you want to communicate with sales department, please press 1; if you want to

communicate to manufacture department, please press 2.” No matter how urgent

things customers have, they cannot get any help except going step by step. E-CRM

goes to the opposite side, which is lack of personalization.

Implementation of e-CRM

Involved in implementation of e-CRM in SMEs, our findings confirm that Xiwang

Company is lack of senior manager support and the capability to control change.

This finding was got from the interview for manager. It is essential to get the

agreement of all managers. Without manager support, it cannot be fully implemented.

Once they are facing the challenges that come from new things, they cannot take

positive strategy to adjust the changes. It is important for company to realize the

problem and try to find out the solution.

Other previous similar studies have raised the problem that senior manager support is

important to implementation of e-CRM. The CEO of Shenzhen Dongjin

Communication Company, Li Jiangru support to implement e-CRM

(Changingmind.org). Before they carried out the program, 60% e-CRM has been

implemented unsuccessfully. He believed that one key reason was lack of senior

manager support and understanding. He made policy to support it as a result many

resistances disappeared. Till now they have implemented e-CRM efficiently.

The alternative explanations for the findings may be that they have not find out

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enough evidence. They might believe that it has risk to implement the program. They

might consider whether it is worthy of investment, can it help bring increase in

revenue and profits. In addition, quite a lot of e-CRM programs are implemented

unsuccessfully in China, which is believed to be the reason they do not support it. On

the other hand, the company cannot adjust the changes immediately. This is relevant

to the organizational culture. Many staffs and managers are used to do business in the

usual way that is trying to find customers who need their products. The force of habit

resists the implementation of e-CRM.

Relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty

Our findings confirm that customer satisfaction cannot be proved to be positive

relationship with customer loyalty. Customer retain is major index to measure

customer loyalty. Only customers who feel superior have high customer loyalty.

It is important for companies to change their opinion that once customer satisfaction,

customer loyalty must be high. Company should consider that customer satisfaction

may not have direct relationship with customer purchasing behavior. Our finding that

customers who have high customer satisfaction might still purchase products from

other companies and may switch suppliers owning to lower price. Many companies

still believe that customer satisfaction decides customer loyalty. This finding can be

considered to be a warning to these companies.

The findings are at opposite side of hypothesis. Firstly, customer satisfaction may

reflect the confidence that customers have fro previous purchasing; however, this

cannot guarantee they will not choose other companies. Similar finding has been

confirmed in the bank credit card market. Most banks have similar products and

service; however, customers who feel average are possible to be not loyal (Fang,

2005). Secondly, the cost of switching may be too high, especially for these

products with high barrier.

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Solution of research problem

1) What percentage of organizations‟ customers is online shopping customers? And

what are the customers‟ perceptions of company‟s e-CRM program?

The first part of the question is answered in the interview of manager. He indicates

that the percentage of customers who are doing online shopping is about 80% of all

the customers. The second part of the question can be analyzed from data findings of

questionnaire that customers are not very satisfied with this company, especially on

customer service and personalization.

2) What factors can help managers to strength the development of e-CRM program

related to customer loyalty and customer satisfaction?

Through the questionnaire survey and interview survey, the findings confirm that

managers should develop e-CRM from the following factors: personal interaction,

product quality, customer service, delivery, and payment. Among theses factors,

customer service, personal interaction and product quality are the most important

factors.

5.3 Limitations of the study

Through the study of e-CRM, researchers can have systematic and comprehensive

understanding about the area. However, some limitations still exist and should be

illustrated. They are concluded as following.

Sample population of questionnaire is not big enough. Only 108 respondents

answered the questionnaire and be valuable. There are a large amount of

customers from all over the world. However, owning to time limitation and

research cost, it is difficult to survey more people.

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In order to research more precisely, only agriculture department of one company

is studied. Because different industry have different characteristics, the study

results may be not suitable for other industries, like steel, telecommunications

industry and so on.

Limitations of technology exist in the study. SPSS is used to analyze data.

However, because the researcher is not familiar with this software, some more

efficient functions cannot be used in the study, which limit the diversity of

research results. For instance, this software has the function of customer

classification and can used to make relevant strategies for researchers according

to the analysis of findings. Deeper study should be provided if all the functions

of this software are used.

It is difficult to judge the accuracy of demographic information. People feel

worried that the personal information might be abused by others. Usually, some

do not want to reveal exact personal information. However, for researcher, it is

important to gather user information. Although some sensitive information, like

detailed address, telephone number and so on, has been avoided in the survey,

we cannot make sure that all the information is accurate.

It is difficult to make sure whether the content of interview is fully accurate.

Managers always want to tell others that their company has good performance.

There might be personal bias when they were answering questions.

The opinion of company staffs is not given in the study. Staffs are the people

who operate the program according to managers‟ order. Their opinion should

have been involved in the study.

Only customers in China are studied in the study. Foreign clients, such as

customers from Europe, Asia, Africa and America, should be surveyed.

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5.4 Suggestions for further research

Although the study has attempted to answer important questions which have been

mentioned in Chapter 1, other questions related to the subject may remain

unanswered. Some suggestions will be given for further study.

Research object should cover all the customers of the company. For example, in

the study, object concludes company managers, company staffs, customers from

both China and other countries.

Sample population should be large enough to be studied.

In order to gather more valuable information, questions should be designed to

avoid sensitive field.

It is also important to choose an efficient technology tool to do data analysis. It

will be better if the researchers know how to adopt all the functions that are

necessary of the study.

5.5 Conclusion

E-CRM is significant for companies to create customer value. In the study, some

points should be noticed. Firstly, customer service and personalization are two most

important factors that influence purchasing behavior. However, both the two features

are not implemented successfully. Secondly, it is important for managers to support

the program. Company should make measures to adjust the changes of marketing

environment. Thirdly, customer satisfaction is not proved to have positive

relationship with customer loyalty. Only customers with superior satisfaction are

high loyalty. It is important to maintain these customers.

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In addition, the paper points the limitations of this study in terms of sample, survey

content and technology. The author states that: (1) sample population is not enough.

(2) It is difficult to make sure the accuracy of answer content. (3) Data analysis tool

is not used skillfully. (4) Not all research objects are covered.

In terms of the limitations, some suggestions for further study are provided. (1)

Research object should cover all the customers of the company. (2) Sample

population should be large enough to be studied. (3) Questions should be designed to

avoid sensitive field. (4) An efficient technology tool is important. It is also

important whether the researcher can use it sinfully.

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Chapter 6: Conclusion and Recommendation

6.1 Summary

This dissertation is discussed through the following parts: literature review,

methodology, data analysis and findings, and discussion. A short conclusion will be

given following.

E-CRM involves not only technology but also business practice. It has the following

three characteristics: convergency, one to one, and real time. Customer management,

contacts management, time management, marketing management, telemarketing,

customer service, call center, knowledge management, business intelligence and

electronic business are the ten functions of e-CRM. E-CRM, as the product of

informatization, suffers some impacts from marketing, competitors, interior company,

and technology. Three strategies including electronic strategy, personalization, and

customization can be taken to implement e-CRM. Specially, SMEs are suggested to

implement e-CRM through the following methods: establish rational program

implementation goal; understanding and support of senior manager; drive e-CRM

program through business; control change effectively; establishment of program

implementation organizational structure. Through the implementation of e-CRM,

companies can achieve quite a lot of advantages: customer satisfaction, payment

equality, customer satisfaction, experience effect and customer loyalty. In terms of

business performance, it can help reduce cost and increase revenue, increase business

operational efficiency and develop new market. Customer is the core of marketing.

Therefore, customer analysis is important to implement e-CRM successfully.

Through customer classification, customers can be classified into different value

groups. For instance, in terms of order value, customers can be classified to be large

client, medium client, small client and sporadic client. Company can pay attention to

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the large client, because they can help company create most value. In terms of

combination of customer loyalty and credit rating, four types of customers are

classified: low credit rating-low loyalty client, low credit rating-high loyalty client,

high credit rating-low loyalty client, high credit rating-high loyalty client. In terms of

the combination of customer loyalty and customer scale, customers are divided into

small scale-low loyalty client; small scale-high loyalty client; big scale-small client,

and big scale-high loyalty clients. And in terms of combination of credit rating,

customer scale and customer loyalty, a more detailed classification is given. At last,

performance evaluation is a important process in the implementation of e-CRM,

which can help company to have a plan and evaluate whether it will be helpful for

this company. Finally, a positive market prospect of e-CRM is provided.

In terms of methodology, both inductive and deductive methods were used to do the

study. Questionnaire is designed to gather information from customers, which is

relevant to quantitative research; interview is designed to gather information from

company, which is relevant to qualitative research. In addition, the reason why

choose Xiwang Company as the case is given that Xiwang Company is at the

initial stage of e-CRM, and the managers have positive willing to implement e-CRM

efficiently. This study will be valuable for them to develop the implementation of

e-CRM.

Through the analysis of data and findings, some problems are discovered. Customer

service and personalization are two factors that the company should pay attention to

improve. During the process of implementation of e-CRM, Xiwang Company is lack

of manager support and the capability to adjust changes. Besides, company should

pay attention to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

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6.2 Recommendation

The ultimate purpose of a company is to increase revenue and reduce cost. Customer

value, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction is directly related to the profits of

business operation. Therefore, it is important to improve customer value, customer

satisfaction and customer loyalty.

How to improve customer value?

Customer classification plays an important role in the value creation process.

Firstly, company can analyze the situation of customers‟ profit contribution in terms

of transaction record. In order to improve customer value creation, the first thing that

the company need to know is that how much is the profit contribution since the first

transaction. E-CRM system can deal with the information and do analysis of profit

contribution automatically. Technology staffs can compare the historical record

between different customers. Through this kind of compare, managers can take

customized schedule.

Secondly, managers can classify customers in terms of profit contribution. When

client base is too big, company cannot take care of each customer equally. Therefore,

customer classification becomes important. For these customers who can bring more

value, company can give them special care. For example, company can give them

discount or decrease delivery time.

Thirdly, high profit products should be popularized and low profit products should be

resisted to produce and sale. In order to reduce risk, a company will produce and sell

diversity of products. Meanwhile,

How to improve customer satisfaction?

Customer satisfaction plays an important role in increasing quantity of order, which

can help improve profitability. In order to improve customer satisfaction, it is

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important to provide sound service during the whole purchase process.

On one hand, waiting time can influence customer satisfaction that is confirmed by

findings of the study. When customers call to inquire about the execution of purchase

orders, how to decrease waiting time should be considered; and when customers are

inquiring, how to make staffs provide perfect one-to-one service are the main

problems when e-CRM is implemented. For example, when customers call to inquire

the execution of orders, customer information can be searched in terms of telephone

number record in e-CRM system. When customers want to know the delivery

situation, business personnel can respond them rapidly but not ask customers to

search it themselves. By this way, customers may feel that personnel are servicing

him.

On the other hand, post-sale service system should be improved. Company can

improve customers‟ treatment efficiency through improve post-service system. By

e-CRM, the situation and quality of dealing with customer complaint can be tracked

efficiently.

How to improve customer loyalty?

It is not enough only to achieve customer satisfaction. Customer loyalty should also

be improved.

Through the function of transaction management of e-CRM, salesperson can be

arranged to revisit customers; besides this, greetings can be automatically sent to

customers on holidays. Customers may feel the care from company. Customer

preference can also be recorded. Therefore, when they are doing business with

customers, they can do business according to the way customers prefer.

Implementation of e-CRM

The problems that currently exist in the company are lack of senior manager support

93

and capability to adjust changes.

In order to solve these problems, performance evaluation is important, which can

compare the profits and revenue before and after the use of e-CRM program; and

predict the further performance. Mangers may consider it carefully in terms of the

evaluation results.

In order to adjust the changes immediately, training business personnel become

necessary. It includes training skills and knowledge. E- CRM is not familiar by all

staffs. Understanding e-CRM is the first step. After knowing what it is, staffs can be

trained to use it. Their opinion may change by this way.

To sum up, company should improve customer value, customer satisfaction, and

customer loyalty in order to achieve competitiveness advantages, increase revenue

and reduce cost.

Word count: 18,943

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Appendix 1

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you very much for filling this questionnaire. It is designed to investigate the

situation of e-CRM in Xiwang Company from the perspective of customers. The aim

of the questionnaire is to find out the factors that influence customers‟ purchasing

behavior and investigate customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in order to

provide better service to customers and satisfy customer demands.

This questionnaire is carried out in partial complementation for the awards of

Masters Degree in information management department in Sheffield University.

This questionnaire adopts the non-tangible method that all the information is used to

complete task and be used for data statistics and analysis. No personal information

will be exposed, please choose appropriate answer based on your experience.

Thank you.

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Questionnaire for Customers

Section A: Personal background information about customers

We respect your personal privacy.

1. Gender

Male

Female

2. Age group

Below 20

20-29

30-39

40-49

50 and above

3. Educational status

Primary education

Secondary education

Post Secondary education

University education

Postgraduate education

Above masters

4. Is your business located in China Mainland?

Yes (If yes, please specify the city and province) _____________________

No (If no, please specify it) ______________________

5. Employment status

Full time employment

Part time employment

6. How long have you been a customer of Xiwang Group Co. Ltd.?

No more than 1 year

2-3 years

4-5 years

Over 5 years

7. How long have you been on the internet?

Less than 1 year

1-2 years

3-5 years

More than 5 years

8. In the past one year, how many times have you ordered from Xiwang Group

Ltd.?

Never

Once

2-5 times

6-10 times

11-15 times

16-20

104

Over 20 times

9. Which type of customer are you?

Wholesaler

Retailer

10. What is the average value (RMB) of each order?

Less than 200,000

200,000-300,000

30,000-40,000

40,000-50,000

Above 50,000

11. Your longest payment cycle?

Advance payment

Less than 1 month

1 month-2 months

2 months-3 months

>3 month

Others___________________________

12. How do you know about Xiwang Group Ltd?

TV advertisement

Friends

Exhibition & trade fair

Press/newspaper

Websites

Others________________________

13. How often does Xiwang Group connect with you?

Each month

Every six month

Each year

Never

14. Which kind(s) of mode does Xiwang Group contact with you?

E-mail

Letter

Telephone

Face to face

Others_________________________

15. Which contact mode do you prefer?

(Please circle the appropriate box to indicate your degree.

Where: 1=most preferred, 2= preferred, 3= neutral, 4= less preferred,

5= least preferred)

Telephone 1 2 3 4 5

Email 1 2 3 4 5

Fax 1 2 3 4 5

Text message 1 2 3 4 5

MSN 1 2 3 4 5

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Personal contact 1 2 3 4 5

Section B Customer satisfaction

16. In general, how satisfied do you feel with product brand of Xiwang Group Ltd.?

Superior

Very satisfied

Average

Unsatisfied

Poor

I don‟t know

17. How important are the following factors that may influence your purchase

decision? (Please circle the appropriate box to indicate your degree.

Where: 1=very important, 2= quite important, 3= neither important/ unimportant,

4= not very important, 5= not important at all)

Product quality 1 2 3 4 5

Customer service 1 2 3 4 5

price 1 2 3 4 5

delivery 1 2 3 4 5

Payment 1 2 3 4 5

Technology support 1 2 3 4 5

Personal interaction

(i.e. communication tools)

1 2 3 4 5

18. How satisfied do you consider with the following factors?

(Where 1= Superior, 2= Very satisfied, 3= Average, 4= Unsatisfied, 5= Poor)

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Product quality

Pre-sale and sale

Customer service

Post-sale Customer

service

Price

Payment equality

Delivery

Personal interaction

Section C: Customer loyalty

19. Will you keep doing business with Xiwang Group Ltd.?

Strongly agree

Agree

Undecided

Disagree

Strongly disagree

20. Do you recommend Xiwang Group Ltd. to others?

Strongly agree

Agree

Undecided

Disagree

Strongly disagree

Switching: Customer retention/loss

21. Will you ignore other companies even if they take promotion strategies or

provide products with high utility?

Strongly agree

Agree

Undecided

Disagree

Strongly disagree

a. Product performance 1 2 3 4 5

b. Product utility 1 2 3 4 5

a. Pre-sale service 1 2 3 4 5

b. Sale service 1 2 3 4 5

Post purchase service

a. Problem solving

b. Waiting time

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

5

5

a. Price 1 2 3 4 5

b. Discount 1 2 3 4 5

a. Payment tool

b. Payment safety

a. delivery speed 1 2 3 4 5

b. package condition 1 2 3 4 5

a. communication tool

b. one-to-one

communication

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

5

5

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22. Will you transfer your business to other companies if Xiwang can not satisfy

you?

Strongly agree

Agree

Undecided

Disagree

Strongly disagree

23. If you have any problem or recommendation, please write below.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

_____

Thank you for your answering!

108

Interview the manager

Interviewer: Wang Sale manager: Mr. Ma

Wang: Good morning. I am a postgraduate student in Sheffield University. My

dissertation is e-CRM in SMEs based on the case study of Xiwang Company. I

would like to get some detailed information about e-CRM of this company.

Ma: Ok. I am pleased to answer your questions.

Wang: Could you please simply introduce the situation of e-CRM implementation in

the company?

Ma: Well. We began to carry out informatization in 2002 and realize the

informatization of financial management, based on which, we carried out the

informatization of supplying, marketing and warehouse management. Last year,

proposal for carrying out e-CRM was raised with managers‟ attention. Now, the

system is at the initial stage.

Wang: Could you tell me what problems do you hope e-CRM solve? How about the

performance?

Ma: Ok. Four problems we hope that e-CRM can help us solve four problems. Firstly,

we hope it can help control the purchasing process of pre-sale, on-sale and post-sale.

Secondly, we hope that e-CRM can help manage the important business data

including client, contacts and contracts. Thirdly, we hope that e-CRM can improve

the core commercial activities including customer tracking, refining core customers

and recovery of account receivable. Finally, it can help us increase sales and decrease

cost. Currently the company is at the initial stage that we haven‟t achieved re-set

target.

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Wang: well. Do you support the implementation of e-CRM?

Ma: Sure. I support it.

Wang: Which one do you think can push forward e-CRM, technology or business?

Ma: I think the implementation of e-CRM needs both the tools from technology and

the rational operation from business.

Wang: What problems or difficulties have you met during the implementation of

e-CRM? If yes, what have you done to solve them?

Ma: Currently we are at the initial sage of e-CRM. There are quite a lot of difficulties.

First of all, some managers question the system that they wonder whether it can

achieve the expection of company and how long can we recovery the investment.

Many companies have impractical expection that e-CRM can not only improve the

operation status but also solve all the existing problems. However, they ignore one

point that the factor which decide the result is not technology but personnel in the

company. Secondly, implementation risk exists. E-CRM is a kind of management

innovation. All the time, sales men are used to have the idea „this is my customer‟.

However, they need change their idea into „Whether customers need me?‟ The

resistance from relevant personnel made it difficult to implement e-CRM. This kind

of resistance in fact is the power of habit. The process of innovation is the challenge

to tradition and remodel for new habit.

Wang: Do you think customer classification is important?

Ma: Yes. It is very important. The aim of customer classification is to accurately

identify who are our customers, what real demand they need, which customers

110

companies should try to attract, and which customers should be considered to be the

most important clients to maintain.

We have classified customers and still improve it regularly. According to the

practical situation of our customers, we mainly adopt two kinds of customer

classification. Firstly, we classify customer in terms of customer characteristics

including geographic factors, psychological factors, and behaviors. Secondly, we

segment customers in terms of customer value. Different customers can bring

different value for company. Therefore, we classify customers into different value

level, including large client, important client, common client, and small client in

order to focus on customer high value customers in terms of „20% customers can

bring 80% profits for company.‟

Wang: Will you change implementation methods according to customers‟

suggestion?

Ma: Our implementation mode is made together with software partner according to

group decision-making of senior managers. We are pleased to listen to good

suggestion and take relevant measures.

Wang: How do you think about customer satisfaction? How about the situation of

customer loyalty?

Ma: Aimed to deal with customers‟ suggestions and problems, we specially establish

customer service department with special hotline service. Currently customers are

satisfied with our company. Customer loyalty is basically ok.

Wang: Have you evaluated e-CRM performance?

Ma: The Company is at the initial stage and hasn‟t established the performance

111

evaluation. However, we have made relevant assess plan, which indicates that it will

be evaluated every half year.

Wang: Which factors do you think can influence customer satisfaction?

Ma: I think that product quality, customer expected quality, product value, brand

quality and brand impression are the major factors that can influence customer

satisfaction.

Wang: The last question I want to know is that whether profits and revenue have

changed before and after the implementation of e-CRM. How about the further

possible accomplished profits?

Ma: After the implementation of e-CRM, amount of amount is increased. According

to the customer information that is provided via e-CRM system, we know exactly

customer demand. More and more products are sold successfully so that sales income

is increased and marketing cost is reduced.

We predict that when e-CRM becomes mature, company will improve customer

satisfaction greatly and decrease cost in a large degree. Profit margin will increase by

about 20%.

Wang: That‟s all the questions. Thank you for your answering.

112

Appendix 2

Chinese Version

尊敬的女士/先生：

大家好!非常感谢您在百忙之中抽出时间来填写这份问卷。这份

问卷主要是为了从客户的角度调查西王集团有限公司在实行电子客

户关系管理中的情况。研究的目的是为了找出影响客户关系管理实

施的因素，并且调查该公司的客户满意度和客户忠诚度情况。以便

发现问题，然后更好的从客户的角度出发，去满足客户的需求。

该问卷是为了协助完成一份英国谢菲尔德大学信息管理学院研

究生论文。

该问卷采用不记名的方式，所有的信息只为了完成作业，作为

样本用于数据统计和分析。 不会涉及个人隐私的任何暴露和侵害，

请您放心做答。

谢谢！

113

电子客户关系管理问卷调查-----客户问卷

第一部分: 客户基本信息

1 性别

男

女

2 年龄段

20 以下

20-29

30-39

40-49

50 和 50 岁以上

3 教育背景

小学教育

中学教育

大专教育

大学教育

研究生教育

研究生以上

4 您的企业是否在中国？

是 (如果是，请指出所在省和城市) _____________________

否 (如果不是，请写在后面) ______________________

5 工作状态

全职

打工

6 您已经是西王集团的客户多久?

不到 1 年

2-3 年

4-5 年

超过 5 年

7 您已经接触网络多久?

少于 1 年

1-2 年

3-5 年

超过 5 年

8 在过去的一年中，您从西王集团订购过多少次货物？

__从没 __一次 ___2-5 次 ___ 6-10 次

__11-15 次 ___16-20 ___超过 20 次

9 您属于哪一类型的客户?

批发商

零售商

其他 ___________________

10 每次订单的平均价值是多少（RMB）?

少于 200,000

200,000-300,000

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300,000-400,000

400,000-500,000

大于 500,000

11 您最长的支付周期是多长?

提前预付

少于 1 个月

1 个月-两个月

两个月-三个月

>三个月

12 你怎么知道西王集团的？

电视广告

朋友

产品展销会

印刷品/报纸

网站

其他__________________

13 公司多久和您联系一次?

每个月

每六个月

每年

从不

14 西王集团用那种方式联系您?

电子邮件

寄信

电话

见面

其他______________________

15 您最喜欢哪种联系方式?

(请圈出您的答案。

注: 1=最喜欢的, 2= 喜欢的, 3= 一般, 4=不太喜欢, 5= 最不喜欢)

电话 1 2 3 4 5

邮件 1 2 3 4 5

传真 1 2 3 4 5

文本信息 1 2 3 4 5

MSN/OICQ 1 2 3 4 5

人员互动 1 2 3 4 5

其他：__________________________

115

第二部分 客户满意度

16 总体来说，您对西王的产品满意度如何?

出众的

非常满意

一般

不满意

很差

不知道

17 影响您购买决策的下面这些因素中，您的满意度如何?

(请圈出您的答案

注： 1=非常重要 2= 相当重要, 3= 重要, 4= 不是非常重要, 5= 根本就不重

要)

产品质量 1 2 3 4 5

客户服务

(例如：客服交流)

1 2 3 4 5

价格 1 2 3 4 5

货物发送 1 2 3 4 5

支付方式 1 2 3 4 5

技术支持 1 2 3 4 5

人员互动

(例如：购买过程中的交流)

1 2 3 4 5

18 您对下面的因素的满意度如何？

(注： 1= 出众的 2= 非常满意, 3= 一般, 4= 不满意, 5= 很差, 6= 不知

道)

西王集团

c. 产品性能 1 2 3 4 5 6

d. 产品实用性 1 2 3 4 5 6

c. 售前服务 1 2 3 4 5 6

d. 售中服务 1 2 3 4 5 6

e. 售后服务 1 2 3 4 5 6

c. 价格 1 2 3 4 5 6

d. 折扣 1 2 3 4 5 6

c. 运送速度 1 2 3 4 5 6

d. 包装情况 1 2 3 4 5 6

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第三部分 客户忠诚度

19 你会与西王集团一直维持贸易往来吗?

一定会

可能会

可能不会

一定不会

不知道

20 你会把西王集团介绍给其他人吗?

一定会

可能会

可能不会

一定不会

不知道

客户保留/流失

21 你会忽略其他公司吗，即使他们提供高性能的产品或服务?

一定会忽略

可能会忽略

可能不会忽略

一定不会忽略

不知道

22 如果西王集团不能满足你的需求，你会转向与其他公司贸易吗?

一定会

可能会

可能不会

一定不会

不知道

23 如果您有什么意见或建议,请写在下面

_____________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

_

_____________________________________________________________________________-

谢谢.

c. 线上交流 1 2 3 4 5 6

117

西王集团电子客户关系管理调查

一、 请简单介绍一下公司实行 e-CRM 的情况。

公司早在 2002年就着手信息化规划，并于当年实现财务管理信息化，

在此基础上又实施了供应、销售及仓库管理信息化，与北京用友软

件公司签订长期合作协议，初步形成了财务-供应链系统的建设；去

年以来在公司领导的密切关注下，针对 CRM 系统的建设提出实施方

案，并在用友软件的协助下，现在系统已处在运行初期。

二、 您希望 CRM 帮助您解决什么问题？绩效如何？

1、掌控企业的售前、售中、售后完整的销售过程

2、管理企业的客户、联系人、合同等重要的商业数据

3、促进客户跟踪、热点客户提取、应收款回收等核心商务活动

4、达到：提升销售业绩，降低销售成本的综合效果

CRM 绩效评价集中在两个方面：一方面对 CRM 实施过程进行评价，

评价的结果经过分析后，再反馈给企业实现实施过程的评价与控制；

另一方面对 CRM 实施产生的效果进行综合评价。目前，公司 CRM 系

统正处于运行初期，还未达到系统设立的预期目标。

三、你是否支持 CRM 项目？为什么？

我们支持 CRM 项目。

通过合理有效地实施 CRM 项目可以为企业带来以下好处：

1、提高销售额。利用 CRM 系统提供的多渠道的客户信息，确切了

解客户的需求，增加销售的成功几率，进而提高销售收入。

2、增加利润率。 由于对客户的更多了解，业务人员能够有效地抓

住客户的兴趣点，有效进行销售，避免盲目的以价格让利取得交易

成功，从而提高销售利润。

3、提高客户满意程度。CRM 系统提供给客户多种形式的沟通渠道，

同时又确保各类沟通方式中数据的一致性与连贯性，利用这些数据，

销售部门可以对客户要求做出迅速而正确的反应，让用户在对购买

118

产品满意的同时也认可并愿意保持与企业的有效沟通关系。

4、降低市场销售成本。由于对客户进行了具体甄别和群组分类，并

对其特性进行分析。使市场推广和销售策略的制定与执行避免了盲

目性，节省时间和资金。

四、您认为推动 CRM 项目的是技术还是业务？

有效推动 CRM 项目的实施既有技术方面的手段又需要业务方面

的合理运作。

五、在执行 CRM 的过程中，有没有遇到什么困难，冲突或者问题？

如果有，是怎么解决的？

CRM 项目建设是一个系统工程，在项目规划时期我们就预见到了一

些困难或难点，目前我们企业正处于 CRM 建设初期，这样那样的难

点还是比较多，举例说明如下：

难点 1：部分领导提出质疑，CRM 投资回报是否能达到企业的

期望，在多长时间可以收回？很多企业对实施 CRM 抱有不切实际的

期望，以为实施 CRM 系统后不但能够改善企业的经营状况，而且能

够解决企业的所有问题。CRM 系统只是使客户获得了一种持续提升

的管理水平和盈利的能力，但能否转换成企业效益以及多长时间转

换成企业效益则与企业的产品、团队能力有很大关系。实际上有一

点永远不会变：决定结果的永远是企业里的“人”，而不仅仅是技术

工具！

难点 2：CRM 实施风险

CRM 实施实际上是一种管理变革！CRM 的贯彻与实施，主要目

的就是改变企业营销人员、经理人员、支持服务人员做事的习惯和

方法。比如说，营销人员一直以来习惯的“这是我的客户”，这种态

度就需要转变为“客户是否需要我”。推广 CRM 的困难与其说来自

技术和管理，不如说来自身系统中的“有关人员的抵制”。这种抵制

其实就是习惯的势力。变革过程是对传统的挑战，更是对习惯的重

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新塑造。因此说，形成一个习惯的过程，就是变革的过程；而所形

成的良好习惯，才是组织最强大的竞争力。

六、您觉得客户细分有必要吗？为什么？你们是否对客户进行细分？

如果有，是怎么样细分的？

客户细分在企业管理中是非常有必要的。客户细分的目的，就

是要更精确地回答谁是我们的客户，客户到底有哪些实际需要，企

业应该去吸引哪些客户，应该重点保持哪些客户，应该如何迎合重

点客户的需求等重要问题，进而使 CRM 真正成为业务获得成功、扩

大产品销量的助推器。

通过对客户进行分类，合理分配资源制定有针对性的营销方案，

不断地对执行的方案进行评估，及时对方案进行调整，形成一个闭

环的营销方案跟踪体系，最终实现营销的精细化管理。

我们已经对客户进行了细分并在不断完善之中。

根据企业自身客户实际情况，我们主要采用了以下二种细分方

法：

1、客户特征细分。一般客户的需求主要是由其社会和经济背景

决定的，因此对客户的特征细分，也即是对其社会和经济背景所关

联的要素进行细分。这些要素包括地理（如居住地、行政区、区域

规模等）、社会（如年龄范围、性别 、经济收入、工作行业、职位、

受教育程度 、宗教信仰 、家庭成员数量等）、心理（如个性、生活

型态等）和消费行为（如置业情况、购买动机类型、品牌忠诚度、

对产品的态度等）等要素。

2、客户价值区间细分。不同客户给企业带来的价值并不相同，

有的客户可以连续不断地为企业创造价值和利益，因此企业需要为

不同客户规定不同的价值。在经过基本特征的细分之后，需要对客

户进行高价值到低价值的区间分隔，分为大客户、重要客户、普通

客户、小客户等，以便根据"20%的客户为项目带来 80%的利润"的原

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理重点锁定高价值客户。客户价值区间的变量包括：客户响应力、

客户销售收入、客户利润贡献、忠诚度、推荐成交量等等。。

七、您会根据客户的建议，改变实施方式吗？

我们的实施方式是经过高层领导集体决策，并与软件合作方共

同来制定的，在实施过程中我们欢迎广大客户提出好的建议，针对

好的合理的建议，我们会提出相应的吸收措施。

八、您觉得客户对您的服务是否满意？贵公司的客户忠诚度情况如

何？

针对如何处理好客户的意见问题，我们成立了专门的客户服务

部门，设立了专门的热线来支持客户的反馈意见，目前为止客户对

我们的服务是满意的。

我公司的客户忠诚度是比较高的。

我们深刻地认识到只要客户是牢固的，企业利润的大幅度上升

就是必然的。客户忠诚度是至关重要的。

1、我们加强了与客户的对话和互动；

2、建立了客户关系流程：最终用户——分析所有的客户接触点

和机会，以增加互动。让客户教你怎样去迎合他们的要求，怎样服

务客户并与他们沟通，给他们多种选择。跟踪客户的选择和行为方

式，以避免使客户两次回答同样的问题；整合所有的媒介关系，包

括销售人员，电话服务中心，邮寄及互联网。中间商——寻求增值

服务，使分销商更有效率、利润更高，或者对客户更有价值。对最

终用户的服务可以减少分销商的工作量。

3. 进行了客户评估分析，定期计算客户持有率和流失率。计算

并评估客户终生价值或客户终生利润率。而客户占有率表明了公司

的业务构成。一旦确定了基准线，就能够确定现阶段客户忠诚度和

客户保留努力的结果。

九、贵公司有没有进行过 CRM 绩效评价？如果有，结果如何？包括

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成功的，不成功的和急需改进的方面。

我公司 CRM 系统运行现处于初期阶段，暂时还没有进行绩效评

价，我们制定了相关的评价计划，计划运行每半年进行一次评价。

现阶段我们将在如何优化规范业务运作流程；改善预支和应收

帐款管理，降低资金风险，提高配送速度、互动交流率、供货及时

率等方面进一步完善，以期达到最优化。

十、您觉得影响客户满意度的因素有哪些？

影响客户满意度的因素主要有以下几个方面:

1、产品本身质量

产品本身质量是指产品的实际性能和性价比.

2、客户预期质量

预期质量指产品在使用过程和相关的销售支持是不是能达到预

期的效果和过去服务质量的印象.

3、产品价值

产品的本身质量,预期效果,企业服务质量决定产品实际价值.是指

用户对产品（服务）性价比的评价

4、企业品牌服务质量

品牌服务质量反映了用户对近期实际感受的服务质量的评价

5、品牌印象

品牌印象指企业（或品牌）在客户心目中的形象，品牌印象能

影响用户预期、满意度及忠诚度.

十一、企业实施 CRM 后，业绩和盈利水平有什么具体变化？并预测

未来可能实现的业绩？

企业实施 CRM 后，首先销售额得到了提高。利用 CRM 系统提

供的多渠道的客户信息，确切了解客户的需求，增加销售的成功几

率，进而提高销售收入。提高了利润率和客户满意程度。降低了市

场销售成本。

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预计 CRM 系统运行进入成熟期后，企业将大大提高客户满意程

度，较大程度地降低市场销售成本，利润率将大致提高 20%左右。