Critical success factors in customer relationship management implementation

Authored By: 

Kamyar kavosh
Faculty of Management and Human Resource Development University Technology Malaysia
Abu Bakar,A.H
Faculty of Management and Human Resource Development University Technology Malaysia 
Melati,A,A.
Faculty of Management and Human Resource Development University Technology Malaysia
Siti Zaleha,A.R
Faculty of Management and Human Resource Development University Technology Malaysia

Schiffman and Kanuk(2004) have explained that a successful marketing relationship is the promise and commitment of the company towards the customers’ long term satisfaction by offering values. It should also be considered that the meaningful exchange of values depends on boundary functions as well as the organization or the company as a whole. Hence, critical values of cultural orientation are vital to the successful implementation of relationships. Reichheld(1996) has explained that during the past marketing period, companies that have the ability to offer the required products and services and having advantages through productivity gains and lower costs could satisfy their customers. The reason that companies could produce massively since customers were happy with those products, but today the goal of mass marketing that focused upon selling what manufacturing produced had lost its effectiveness since more firms entered and market segmentation had changed.

Firms produce according to the customers’ expectations and due to these changes it is preferred that companies concentrate on small customer segments. Hence, close relationship with customers increased (Chatham et al., 2002)since they are not same in their wants and expectations. According to the techniques of customer relationship management, relationship marketing focuses on individual customers. The firm must also be customer centric rather than product focused. Companies that focus upon customers try to serve them in the best manner to satisfy them. It can be done by integrating marketing activities and the business process of the company. They also adopt themselves with changes; hence, they will be more flexible to respond to changes in customers’ needs (Field and Shutler, 1990, Bowen and Hedges, 1993, Conlon, 1999, Prabhaker, 2001, Flint et al., 2002, Bigné et al., 2004).In the present study the researcher is trying to identify the success factors of customer relationship management in automobile industry settings.