CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AND

CUSTOMER RETENTION IN Y-TELECOMS

ABDULSALAM GHALEB

A Master’s Project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for
the Degree of Master of Business Administration

The School of Business

Lebanese International University

2018
 II

DECLARATION

I declare that this thesis entitled “Customer Relationship Management and Customer Retention in
Y-Telecoms” is the result of my own research except as cited in the references. The thesis has not
been accepted for any degree and is not concurrently submitted in candidature of any other degree.

Signature : _____________________________

Name of Advisee : _____________________________

Date : _____________________________

I hereby declare that I have read this thesis and in my opinion this thesis is sufficient in terms of
scope and quality for the award of the degree of Master of Business Administration.

Signature : _____________________________

Name of Advisor : _____________________________

Date : _____________________________
 III

ABSTRACT

This study aims to identify Customer Relationship Management (CRM) components (call center,

service center, and data mining) and their role in achieving customer retention through customer

satisfaction in Y-Telecoms. The study used a descriptive analytical method to answer the questions

of the study. The elementary data were gathered via a questionnaire, which was distributed to Y-

Telecoms’ subscribers. The sample size consists of 317 subscribers and the recovery percentage

was 100%. The study showed that there is an effect of CRM system components in achieving

customer retention. Data mining is deemed the highest component of the technological elements

in CRM, which contributed in achieving customer retention. However, the call center is the lowest

component, which requires more work and development. The intervening variable and customer

satisfaction showed no correlation with the dependent variable and customer retention. The

outcomes indicated that there is no considerable difference among respondents’ answers regarding

achieving customer retention through CRM system components because of gender, age,

qualification, profession, line type, charging and income. The call center staff should improve its

communication skills and focus on the significant calls. The study recommends focusing on data

mining process to make better services for clients and employ them in marketing to target

customers individually.

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management (CRM), call center, service center, data mining,

customer satisfaction, customer retention.

 IV

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to God for having bestowed his blessings upon me to complete this study.

Then my gratitude goes to my supervisor Dr. Wail Al-Hakimi for his valuable expertise, constant

support and availability all the time. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Dr. Sharaf

Al-Kibsi and Dr. Mohammed Al-Awlaqi for their valuable advice and helpful remarks.

Special thanks go to Y-Telecoms Company and its customer service manager and call

center supervisors and reps. Without their support, assistance and cooperation this research would

not have been possible. Furthermore, I would like to thank the IT staff in Y-Telecoms for granting

their time to contribute to this study and for offering the necessary information.

Finally, I want to thank my wife and my children for their patience and support during my

whole study.
 V

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
DECLARATION ii
ABSTRACT iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS v
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF FIGURES viii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Research Problem 2
1.3 Research Objectives 3
1.4 Significant of the Study 4
1.5 Definition of Terms 4
1.6 Outline of the Thesis 5
1.7 Overview of Y-Telecoms 6
1.8 Summary 9

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 10

2.1 Introduction 10
2.2 Customer Retention 11
2.2.1 Customer Retention Advantages 11
2.2.2 Factors of Customer Retention 11
2.3 Customer Satisfaction 12
2.4 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 13
2.5 Benefit of Using CRM in Business 15
2.5.1 CRM Elements 16
2.5.2 Steps of CRM Process 19
2.5.3 CRM System Components 20
2.5.3.1 Call center 20
2.5.3.1 Service center 23
2.5.3.1 Data mining 25
2.5.4 CRM and data mining 28
2.6 Customer Satisfaction and Consumer Retention 30
2.7 CRM and Customer Satisfaction 30
2.8 CRM and Customer Retention 31
2.9 The Conceptual Framework 32
2.10 CRM Systems in Y-Telecoms 33
 VI

2.11 Summary 34

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY 35

3.1 Introduction 35
3.2 Data Collection Method 35
3.3 Research Design 35
3.4 Population and Sampling Technique 36
3.5 Survey Instrument 36
3.6 Data Analysis 37
3.6 Study limitations 40
3.8 Summary 40
41
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS 41
4.1 Introduction 41
4.2 Respondents Background 41
4.3 Goodness of Measurements
4.3.1 Validity Analysis 44
4.3.1 Reliability Analysis 45
4.4 Research Objective 45
4.4.1 Research Objective I 45
4.4.2 Research Objective II 49
4.4.3 Research Objective III 50
4.4.4 Research Objective IV 51
4.4.5 Research Objective V 56
4.4.5 Research Objective VI 57
4.5 Summary 58

CHAPTER V FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 59

5.1 Findings 59
5.1.1 The Overall Assessment of Y-Telecoms’
CRM 59
5.1.2 Intervening Effects 62
5.1.3 Contribution to Practice 62
5.2 Conclusion 63
5.3 Recommendations 64
5.4 Direction for Future Research 65

REFERENCES 66
APPENDICES 77
A English Version of Questionnaire 77
B Arabic Version of Questionnaire 78
 VII

LIST OF TABLE

Table 1.1 Definition of Terms. ........................................................................................................4

Table 2.1 Studies Linking Customer Retention with CRM System Components. ........................31

Table 3.1 Data Analysis Techniques. ............................................................................................37

Table 3.2 Content Validity .............................................................................................................38

Table 4.1 Respondents’ Background. ............................................................................................41

Table 4.2 Reliability Analysis of Variables ...................................................................................45

Table 4.3 Call Center Level ...........................................................................................................46

Table 4.4 Service Center Level ......................................................................................................47

Table 4.5 Data Mining Level .........................................................................................................48

Table 4.6 CRM Level ....................................................................................................................49

Table 4.7 Customer Satisfaction Level ..........................................................................................50

Table 4.8 Customer Retention Level .............................................................................................50

Table 4.9 Pearson Correlation Values ...........................................................................................52

Table 4.10 Multiple Regression Test: All Variables. ...................................................................53

Table 4.11 Hypotheses Tests Results.............................................................................................53

Table 4.12 Multiple Regression Test Integrated Variable. ...........................................................55

Table 4.13 T-Test and ANOVA Result of Demographic Variable. ..............................................56

Table 4.14 ANOVA Result of Living ............................................................................................57

 VIII

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Outline of the Thesis ......................................................................................................5

Figure 2.1 Y-Telecoms Company Structuring ................................................................................8

Figure 2.1 CRM Aspects ...............................................................................................................14

Figure 2.2 Technological Components in CRM............................................................................17

Figure 2.3 The Conceptual Framework .........................................................................................33

Figure 4.2 Conceptual Framework (without intervening) .............................................................53

Figure 5.1 Final Model…………………………………………....... ...........................................59

 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

The current business environment is characterized by increasing the efficiency of the

competition to win the battle of getting customers. The competitors who enter the new market

work to weaken the current rival powers by using new ways, which are available due to the

technological revolution and constant changes in the market. Because of this fact, the evolution

of the idea of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems has become a strategy to

maintain a relationship with the clients (Bennington, Cummane, & Conn, 2000). Business

organizations should accelerate in developing their strategic plans to respond to competition

and control their customers to maintain and attract new customers. According to what has

mentioned above, business organizations should adopt a new approach through which they can

address the current competition. One of these approaches is CRM systems, which is considered

one of the primary means to be close to customers.

CRM is a strategy and a set of distinct and technical applications that aim to reduce

costs, increase revenues and open new channels to improve customers’ values and increase

their satisfaction and profitability (Grant & Anderson, 2002). CRM assists companies to build

a plan of action that leads to customer retention. CRM is a customer retention strategy of using

an assortment of marketing campaigns, which leads to customer tying and keeping in touch

with them after the sale is done (Tauni, Khan, Durrani, & Aslam, 2014).

A customer retention approach requires companies to respond to customers’

requirements and concerns by keeping contact channels with them. This method includes

dynamic programs that aim to meet customers’ changeable needs through analyzing customer

satisfaction data and building a long-term relationship with them (Zineldin, 2006). It is
 2

admitted that developing a relationship with customers is the first objective of CRM due to its

capability of delivering an excellent value to the clients and organizations. Therefore, this

objective can be viewed as the essential objective of the organizations that are practicing

strategies and applications of CRM (Nili, 2011).

Telecommunication companies are considered the most sophisticated and growing

sector in Yemen with a dramatically increasing number of mobile phone subscribers reaching

around 13.9 subscribers by the end of 2012 (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2012). The Central

Bureau of Statistics report revealed that the number of mobile phone subscribers has increased

by more than a million subscribers every year since 2010. Therefore, it is necessary to look at

one of those companies, such as Y-Telecoms, which offer these services.

The company is a GSM (Global System for Mobile) operator that started its commercial

operations in November 2007. Y-Telecoms Company launched its first services including calls

and SMS (Short Messages Service) at low prices, with a mission of working towards an

excellent service that reaches and exceeds customer's expectations (Y-Telecoms, 2016).

1.2 Research Problem

A customer is the cause of an organization's continuity, and these days, it is hard to

retain customers because of high competitions in the market (Qadri & Khan, 2014). Malik

(2015) mentioned that acquiring a new customer costs more than five times of keeping an

existing one. Therefore, it is imperative to focus on a long-term relationship with customers to

maintain and prevent competitors from attracting them (Ahmed, 2009).

Traditionally, competitors have been working on acquiring new customers besides the

other firm’s customers, which is expensive and needs more efforts because of required

advertisements and promotions (Malik, 2015). Today, the assortment of products and services

can be accessed by customers, who have the choice to switch to another vendor if they do not
 3

meet their needs smoothly (Nili, 2011). According to the report of National Information Center

(2013), there are four cellular telecommunications companies in Yemen. This number of

mobile companies enables subscribers to move from one operator to another, and this

contributes to reducing subscribers’ loyalty.

These challenges have represented a real problem for Y-Telecom, as churn rates in the first

three months of 2016 were 32%, 35% and 42% respectively (Y-Telecoms, 2016). Therefore,

this study looks at how the company can create a system of activities to retain the existing

customers through increasing the level of customer satisfaction and employing the CRM

systems. The primary objective of this study is to identify the role of CRM components system

in achieving customer retention. The study thus seeks to answer the following questions:

Q1: Is there an intervening role of customer satisfaction in the relationship between

CRM and customer retention?

Q2: What is the role of CRM components system in influencing customer retention

in Y-Telecoms?

Q 3: Are there statistically significant differences between the respondents’

answers in terms of gender, age, academic qualification, line type, charging,

income and occupation?

Q 4: Are there statistically significant differences between the averages of

respondents' answers attributed to their residences?

1.3 Research Objectives

The study tries to examine the role of CRM Systems components in customer retention

through customer satisfaction in Y-Telecoms. The objectives of the study are to:

1. Identify the level of CRM system in Y-Telecoms.

2. Identify the level of customer satisfaction in Y-Telecoms.

 4

3. Identify the level of customer retention in Y-Telecoms.

4. Determine the role of CRM in influencing customer retention in Y-Telecoms.

1.4 Significance of the Study

In previous studies, each element of CRM systems (call center, service support, and

data mining) has been investigated individually. However, in this study, elements of CRM

systems have assembled under one umbrella, which identifies their relationship with customer

satisfaction and retention. This study is useful for telecoms industry because it focuses on CRM

systems practically, and highlights the aspects that need to be improved. Y-Telecoms, as a case

study, will get benefits from this study by knowing the strengths and weaknesses of its current

CRM system.

1.5 Definition of Terms

Table 1.1

Definition of Terms

Term Definition
Call Center “A centralized office used for receiving or transmitting a large
volume of requests by telephone” (White, 2003).

Churn Rate “The number of customers or subscribers who cut ties with your
service or company during a given period” (Almana, Aksoy, &
Alzahrani, 2014).

Data Mining “The process of analyzing data from different perspectives and
summarizing it into useful information” (Wah, Ismail, & Fong,
2011).

Direct Marketing “The process of analyzing data from different perspectives and
summarizing it into information” (Wah, Ismail, & Fong, 2011).

“A framework designed to standardize the selection, planning,

IT Infrastructure Library delivery and support of IT services to business” (Rouse, 2014b).
(ITIL)
“The purchased credit used to pay for mobile phone services”
 5

(Prepay mobile phone, 2017).

Prepaid “A mobile phone for which the provider provides service based
on a pre-agreement (Postpaid mobile phone, 2016).
Postpaid
“A physical place where customer requests are handled by an
Service Center organization (Sheehan, 2007).

1.6 Outline of the Thesis

This study is divided into five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction, which provides

details about the prevailing situation and the setting of the study, the research problem,

objectives of the study, the importance of the study and an outline of the thesis. Chapter Two

is a literature review, which provides an overview of the relevant published studies concerning

CRM, customer satisfaction, and customer retention. Chapter Three addresses the research

methodology. Chapter Four analyses the data collected through the questionnaire in order to

answer the research questions. Chapter Five is the conclusion, recommendations for companies

and directions for future studies. Figure 1.1 presents the summary of the thesis.

CRM and customer retention in Y-Telecoms.

Research Objectives Significance Outline of

Introduction
Chapter I: problem and questions of the study the Thesis
Introduction
Overview of Y-Telecoms.

Contextual background to CRM,

Chapter II: customer satisfaction, and Review common CRM system in
Literature Review customer retention Y-Telecoms

Chapter III: Research methodology

Provide an overview of
Research and data collection Study limitation
research approaches
Methodology methods

Goodness of measures
Chapter IV: Data analysis to answer
[Validity and Research objectives
Data Analysis the research questions
Reliability]

Chapter V:
Direction of future
Findings and Findings Recommendations
researches
Recommendations

Figure 1.1. Outline of the Thesis

 6

1.7 Overview of Y-Telecoms

Y-Telecom is a GSM operator Company. It started its commercial operations in

November 2007 as the third operator and the fourth in mobile marketing. Y-Telecom

shareholders are more than forty and they are from different Arabic nationalities. In other

telecoms operators, the primary product is minutes of calls and the other value-added services

(VAS) are short messages, TV voting and the Internet services. Y-Telecom implements a

different mix of promotion and different price strategies depending on the various phases of

the company life cycle.

According to Y-Telecoms website, the mission statement of the company says, “We

are working towards service excellence to become among the best GSM operators in Yemen,

aiming to reach and exceed the expectations of our Customers, Shareholders, Vendors, Dealers,

Employees and Community alike.” Y-Telecoms also has a clear vision which is leading a real

market in customer service and building a strong partnership with vendors and dealers to

enhance a continual win-win situation.

Call services for both institutions and individuals include many services such as call

waiting, call barring and voice mail service. Roaming service is a part of call service, which

enables a subscriber to use Y-Telecoms SIM cards while traveling abroad to make calls, send

and receive text messages. VAS (Value Added Services) is another service provided by the

company. This service is optional and activated according to subscribers’ requests such as RBT

(Ring Back Tone), Islamic, Entertainment, and News. Short Message Service (SMS) is a

service to send and receive messages from Y-Telecoms and other mobile networks. The

company provides many other services such as balance transfer services and please-call me

services. The company consists of ten departments under the responsibility of CEO (Chief

Executive Officer). They are as follows:

 7

- HR department is in charge of the company complies with employment or work laws.

Employees are the HR office's inward clients. Thus, HR's commitment to serving its clients is

another task of the department. The HR department is responsible for all issues related to

employees. It is in charge of recruitment, job descriptions, training, salaries, vacations,

bonuses, allowances and employee benefits.

- Finance department is responsible for all financial issues related to the institution. It is

responsible for the budget, financial plans, expenses, and revenues. It conducts the

investigation of how cash is managed and applies the actual procedures for obtaining required

funds.

- Marketing department is one of the departments that rely heavily on CRM to acquire

customers and maintain a relationship with them through advertising and delivering products.

- IT (Information Technology) department is responsible for providing products and services

for both employees (users) and other businesses. It also offers the latest technology to all

users and manages consumer goods such as personal computers and laptops.

- MIS department is responsible for supporting the management and assisting in making a

strategic decision by providing the information resulting from the analysis of the data. MIS

might help a business implement a new offer or service.

- Technical department is the largest departments in the organization. It contains more than

30% of the staff It is considered the backbone of the company. The technical department is

responsible for the infrastructure of the company equipment and tools, programs, secure calls,

SMS and other valuable services for customers with high quality.

- Customer service is responsible for interacting with the company's customers to provide them

with information regarding products and services. It also resolves customer complaints.

- Procurement and Logistics unit is responsible for purchasing and managing contracts with

vendors and contractors. Supplies chain management is under their responsibility.

 8

- Admin department is responsible for daily tasks or duties related operations. Fleet

management, monitoring CCTV (Closed Circuit TV) and manages security guards.

- Sales department is responsible for direct sales and provides the customer with services

products and indirect sales through a third party, such as a partner.

- Quality and planning unit is responsible for the quality plan. It manages the systematic

process to check whether a developed product or service satisfies customers' needs.

Chairman

Excutive CEO
Legal Affairs
Secretary

Customer Quality & HR Marketing Procurem

Sales IT MIS Admin Finance ent Technical
Service Planning
&Logistic

Operation Telephony&C Billing Security VIP GL&Expenses Quality& Personnel Product

Core
Manager C Supervisor Supervisor Guard Supervisor Manager Planning Manager Services Warehous
Network
Manager e
Supervisor
System&Data Network
Direct Sales M&D Fleet Archiving
Center AR Manager Quality Communic
manager Supervisor Maintenance Supervisor Performan O&M
Supervisor Assurance ation&PR
ce&HR
Project Manager
Service Supervisor
Indirect Sales DBA CCTV Training
Support
Manager Supervisor Supervisor Support Transmission
Supervisor
Supervisor

Network&Sec
Sales Support Charging
urity
Supervisor Supervisor Workers
Supervisor Credit Deployment
Supervisor

Engineering

Radio

Figure 1.2. Y-Telecoms company structuring (Y-Telecoms, 2014).

 9

1.8 Summary

The study in this chapter focused on the market situation and the strategy that

competitors follow to obtain the customers. One of these strategies is CRM systems that

facilitate reaching to customers. The chapter also discussed the research problem, which is

about churn rate that Y-Telecoms suffering. The problem summarized in some questions.

The significant of the study is that combined CRM system (call center, service center,

and data mining) under one umbrella in spite of the previous study that examined each

components individually.

The final part of this chapter illustrated the outline of the thesis and Y-Telecoms

structuring, which explain the essential features of the study and hierarchy of the organization.
 10

2 CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

The importance of this study is to determine the role of CRM components system in

the cellular industry, which is characterized by a similarity of services offered and high

competition in retaining existing customers and attracting new ones. Many studies addressed

how CRM is related to call center, service support and data mining individually. Those studies

looked at the relationship of CRM with customer satisfaction and customer retention. This

chapter discusses the theories identified in the literatures regarding the CRM programs and

their role in achieving customer satisfaction, which lead to customer retention.

2.2 Customer Retention

In the past, no attention was paid to customers because it was difficult to find any

replacement of costumers’ sellers. According to Tauni et al. (2014) in today’s market, the high

competitions and variety of competitive ways augment retain customers as protection for the

companies against the escalating competitions.

Customer retention implies maintaining an active and continuous relationship with

clients. Customer retention is the exercise of working to make customers more satisfied with

the objective of developing long-term relationships with them (Singh, 2006). To develop a

long-term relationship with the customers, the organization should activate dynamic programs

for receiving and replying to their complaints. Customers’ data should be analyzed to satisfy

their needs and evolve services to meet their needs (Zineldin, 2006).

In telecommunication industry, losing customers is one of the biggest challenges today.

So the provider in this field realizes that retaining existing customers is better than acquiring
 11

new ones (Almana et al., 2014). According to Nwankwo and Ajemunigbohun (2013), spending

one dollar to retain the customer raises the profits more than spending five dollars on obtaining

a new client. The service provider in telecoms industry could do well if companies care about

their customers.

In telecommunication industry, the average churn rate among mobile users has been

estimated as 2 %, and that is equal to $100 billion annually (Almana et al., 2014). Nwankwo

and Ajemunigbohun (2013) said “The customer retention had been measured by four

dimensions: overall firm satisfaction, positive words of mouth, repeat purchase intentions, and

loyalty to that firm” (p. 2). Finally, customer retention differs in organizations, but they all

concluded that by focusing on customer retention, economic objectives could be achieved (Nili,

2011).

2.2.1 Customer Retention Advantages

CK (2015) stated that the organizations that remained close to their clients succeeded

in protecting their customers against competitors. He added that customer retention could

strengthen the security of the provider and reduce risks of failing. Herrmann (2000) mentioned

that there is a positive relationship between the customer retention and the company success

commercially. The more time that the customer stays with the organization, the greater profit

the company will gain.

2.2.2 Factors of Customer Retention

Many factors such as price, product, distribution, communication and complaint

management affect customer retention positively. Customer retention can be achieved through

different ways with quality services offered to the customers to give greater importance to the

current profitable clients (Ck, 2015).

 12

The first factor that influences the customer retention is the product of high quality. For

instance, the provider shares a product development process with the customer to achieve the

customers’ expectations. In telecommunication industry, coverage and accessibility are the

primary service qualities that should focus on prices to maintain clients (Qadri & Khan, 2014).

Telecommunication industry plays a leading part in the economic system. Free service,

discount, and reward on purchasing entice customers to acquire products (Ck, 2015). Contact

with customers continuously raises the customer’s loyalty toward the organization.

Communication with the client can be through direct emails, SMS, and telephone calls. If a

customer has an interest in certain services and gets these services quickly, he can be happy.

Lack of communication with customers might make them leave the organization and look for

their requirement elsewhere (Raab, Ajami, Gargeya, & Goddard, 2012).

Advertisement and direct delivery are important. Using the internet and different

commercial channels is a kind of customized sales catalogs for sellers. The above factors of

product, price, communication, and distribution, are considered tools of customer commitment.

A telecommunication company should do its best to achieve its goals and increase customer

retention (Ck, 2015).

2.3 Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is one of the main issues concerning a business organization of

all industries (Cheruiyot, 2014). The definition of customer satisfaction is known as a personal

feeling of either joy or disappointment, which is generated from comparing the expectations to

reality (Kumaran, 2015). Kotler (2010) defined customer satisfaction as “customers’

evaluation of a product or service whether that product or service has met customers’ needs

and expectations” (p. 604). Conceptually, satisfaction is related to overall evaluations by which

consumers compare rewards and costs with expectation consequences (Maxham, 2001).
 13

The previous research defined satisfaction as a decision to repurchase a product after

its use (Cheruiyot, 2014). Ali and his colleagues (2010) in the cellular sector of Islamabad

found that friendliness, price reasonability, and call clarity have a strong influence on customer

satisfaction. The organization that succeeds in delivering service quality at a competitive price

will succeed in customer satisfaction (Kumaran, 2015). Customer satisfaction with cellular

mobiles will increase network quality, mobile communications prices, customer care and

personal benefits obtained from services (Gerpott, Rams, & Schindler, 2001).

In sum, customer satisfaction has a significant effect on the company’s profitability.

Increasing customer satisfaction with services or products will increase the chance of

successful business. Satisfied customers are more probable to repurchase products and speak

about services positively (Kumaran, 2015).

2.4 Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM is a new phenomenon that has become increasingly significant since 1990 (Sadek,

Youssef, Ghoneim, & Tantawi, 2012). Many researchers, academics, and professionals in the

field of information technology and marketing have been studying CRM application of

information systems, which have enabled businesses to deal with the increased knowledge

gained from customers (Ghavami & Olyaei, 2006).

CRM applications assist companies in evaluating customer truthfulness and

profitableness through money, which is paid during a certain period. CRM manages the gained

knowledge that helps organizations to predict customers’ needs and align these requirements

with the business capabilities to deliver the right value (Chen & Popovich, 2003). CRM has

two primary objectives: maintaining customers through satisfying their needs and customer

development through understanding customers deeply and accurately (Abu Ellaban, 2013).
 14

According to Galbreath and Rogers (1999), CRM is defined as business activities that

are performed to determine, qualify, acquire, improve and maintain increasingly loyal and

profitable customers by providing the proper service or product. CRM is used to select

customers at the right time and cost through the right channel. Gupta and Aggarwal (2012)

defined CRM as methods and tools that assist organizations to manage the relationships with

customers in an orderly way. Chen & Popovich (2003) pointed out that some "organizations

consider CRM as a tool specifically designed for one-to-one” (p. 673). According to

Kordalipoor, Shahhosseini, and Hamidi (2015), CRM system consists of three aspects

presented in Figure 2.1 below

Customer

CRM

Relationship Management

Figure 2.1. CRM aspects (Kordalipoor et al., 2015)

CRM facilitates a relationship among enterprises, customer business partners, suppliers

and employees (Ahmed, 2009). CRM is an interactive process, and it is called a two-way

process that employs customers’ information to retain relationships with them (Qadri & Khan,

2014). Methodical approaches toward CRM assist organizations effectively maintain the

increase of different customer touch points or connection channels (Mendoza, Marius, Pérez,

& Grimán, 2007).

CRM is one of the fundamental operations of any organization, and its enforcement

requires funding to merge strategy, marketing, and technology for an investment purpose. It is
 15

the application system or technology used to integrate marketing and sales systems with

information systems to build relationships with clients (Azzam, 2014).

In this study, CRM is defined as a collection of business practices aimed to make an

organization closer to its customers to be able to understand each customer better and make

him/her feel that using information technology is valuable and important to telecommunication

organizations.

2.5 Benefit of Using CRM in Business

The aim of CRM is to improve the relationship with current clients, to find new

potential customers and to gain the previous customers (Peelen, van Montfort, Beltman, &

Klerkx, 2009). Collecting information is one of the essential benefits of CRM system

(Galbreath & Rogers, 1999). CRM helps in providing sales, marketing and offering customer

services with much broader information about customers. CRM also allows organizations to

build beneficial relationships with customers and reduces operational costs (Chen & Popovich,

2003). Here are some key points about CRM:

- CRM makes telecommunication companies know private information about customers. For

example, names, habits, preferences, and expectations will lead to build relationships with

customers and ensure their continuity (Feng Jr & Zhang, 2009).

- CRM system facilitates contact with customers and enables a quick response to customers

based on their requirements, and thus will increase customer satisfaction and loyalty (Azzam,

2014).

- CRM predicts customers repurchases by analyzing their previous orientations (Viljoen,

Bennett, Berndt, & Van Zyl, 2005).

- CRM uses the available technology to deliver information to each client and provide

customized services for each one accordingly (Viljoen et al., 2005).

 16

- CRM is used for a single access point to collect all important information about customers

within the organization in order to increase the efficiency and interaction with customers

(Azzam, 2014).

- Using modern management tools in the CRM system reduces maintenance expenses because

employees can make necessary adjustments in the system easily and quickly (Farooqi &

Raza, 2012).

2.5.1 CRM Elements

CRM is an integration of processes, people, and technology (Chen & Popovich, 2003).

Although a significant portion of CRM is technology, seeing CRM only as a technology is

probably to fail. Therefore, an effective CRM requires a combination and balanced approach

to people, technology, and processes (Sarkindaji, bin Hashim, & Abdullateef, 2013).

CRM application success relies on an integration of systems, technology and operations

processes (Sarkindaji et al., 2014). Technology helps in restructuring a process within the

organization. It enables the seller to deal with large numbers of small buyers at low costs and

build a customer profile, which facilitates responding to customers' specific needs and desires

(Peelen et al., 2009).

According to Chen and Popovich (2003), an organization needs to integrate technology

into business to develop their capability, to analyze the collected data about customers and to

explain behavior pattern of customers. It is important to provide a service value to individual

customers. To integrate technology into the organization, the basic concepts such as data

warehouse, specialized software, automation of processes, technical service support, call

centers and the impact of Internet services should be addressed (Mendoza et al., 2007). Figure

2.1 below illustrates technology components.

 17

Sales Force
Automation

Internet Software for

Influence CRM

Technology

Data
Warehouse
Call Center
and Data
Mining

Help Desk

Figure 2.2. Technological components in CRM (Arab, Selamat, Ibrahim, & Zamani, 2010)

 Sales Force Automation (SFA)

Salesforce automation is defined as an application that records all transactions in a sales

process automatically (Arab et al., 2010). SFA also helps to improve the management process

of sales and facilitates the flow of information between sales representatives, customers and

organizations (Guan, Barker, Faulds, & Gohmann, 2004). According to Guan et al., (2004),

“SFA offers many benefits such as increases in sales effectiveness and efficiency, improved

productivity and enhanced customer relationship management” (p. 103).

 CRM Software

CRM software helps organizations to manage the relationship with customers effectively.

CRM program works over every single corporate office to help fit client-centric thinking in all

parts of a corporation (Arab et al., 2010).

 Helpdesk

Helpdesk is known as service support center (Ivarsson, 2013). According to ITIL-V3, service

support is information and assistance contact point that provides all efficient processes

necessary for categorizing and attempting to resolve problems, incidents and service requests

whether face to face or through the telephone.

 Data Mining
 18

Data mining is the procedure that uses a variety of data examination and data analysis to make

sense of relationships and patterns in data that may be utilized to make accurate forecasts

(Gupta & Aggarwal, 2012).

 Call Center

“A call center is a physical or virtual operation within an organization, in which a managed

group of people spend most of their time doing business by telephone, usually working in a

computer-automated environment” (Rasooli, 2006, p. 10).

The second component in CRM is people. Besides the development of CRM

technologies, companies ought to consider their structure and all organizational resources as

well as the performance of people to define how much the importance of CRM is supported

(Nili, 2011). He also claimed that the objective of CRM is to convert the information related

to the customer into services and products that satisfy the changeable needs of clients to obtain

their trust.

In addition to that, a viable CRM implementation to best serve clients and fulfill their

wants require support and commitment of management and staff (Almotairi, 2008). Since CRM

is to establish a relationship with the clients, two aspects regarding people element should be

taken into account. The first aspect is the customer. To continue a good relationship with the

customer, the organization should focus on value from a customer perspective, needs that

satisfied customers and work toward customer loyalty and retention (Mendoza et al., 2007).

The organization is the second aspect, which includes the culture of knowledge share and

continuous learning from new work structure and data that depends on clients (Almotairi,

2008).

Employees assume an essential part in the achievement of CRM projects. Adapting new

work frameworks, preparing programs for training, changing resistance, readiness to share

knowledge and pushing the employees toward the goal ought to be taken into account
 19

(Almotairi, 2008). Management of the primary objective of CRM requires support and

commitment from top management. Without their support, activities quickly pass away (Chen

& Popovich, 2003).

Processes are the third component in CRM, which consist of Sequence of

interdependent and connected procedures (Ang & Buttle, 2006). Peelen et al., (2009) defined

the process as a logical sequence of activities. The primary processes of relationship with the

client, for example, the services, sales, and marketing ought to be evolved and adjusted to the

new requests of the market. Within the CRM methodology, the development of these processes

is coordinated toward a shared objective, to fulfill and create a long-term association with the

customer (Mendoza et al., 2007). As indicated by Gefen and Ridings (2002) CRM comprises

of three modules. Analytical CRM allows the organization to analyze collected data about

customer practices to generate profiles and classify them accordingly. The organization can

foretell customer trends and suggest products and services based on this information. The

second module is operational CRM, which allows an organization to take care of their

customers through linking the customer interface with company transactions. It also includes

business strategies and automated software tools, which help to provide real-time

synchronization between the front line with the customer and the various activities back in

office. Collaborative CRM is the third module, which enables the organization to make any

information collected from interactions with customers shareable between different

departments, such as sales, service support, and marketing.

2.5.2 Steps of CRM Process

According to Ghavami and Olyaei (2006), the CRM involved four steps. The first step

is segmentation, which profiles the market through describing similarities of needs, behavior,

and preferences among potential customers with the goal of evaluating segment attractiveness
 20

and designing a product to meet that segment’s needs (Pride & Ferrell, 2016). Design

communication strategy is the second step. This can be achieved by establishing different

channels to contact with customers, such as direct mail, email, print advertising, trade shows

and so on, which will help the organization to communicate effectively and meet core

organizational objectives.

The third step is implementing the strategy, as the organization should design strategies

that fit the nature of business then start to apply them. For example, design strategies can be

dividing the customers into different classes such as gold, silver, and platinum to be handled

appropriately. Messages about product and service should be sent in advance. The evaluation

of the result is the fourth step where the result of strategies implemented is evaluated to find

out the extent of their impact on customers positively or negatively. Based on that evaluation,

a segment may be modified, or strategies changed.

2.5.3 CRM System Components

CRM systems are channels or touch points designed to gather information on customers

and connecting between them and the organization. The systems could be the company's call

center, website, live chat, direct mail, and social media. CRM systems can also be customer-

facing staff in the service center and the detailed information on customers' personal

information, purchase record, buying preferences and interest, which could be extracted

through data mining (Rouse, 2014a).

2.5.3.1 Call center

Recently, call centers and contact centers have developed to become the front line of

many organizations (Rasooli, 2006), which are used for building up communication with their

clients directly. Call centers are implementing sophisticated CRM technology (Abdullateef &

Salleh, 2013) and increasingly playing a significant role in CRM (Jaiswal, 2008). The essential
 21

goal of call center operations is client care and accomplishment of large amounts of client

satisfaction (Jaiswal, 2008). All call centers whether in profit or non-profit organization are

struggling to provide an excellent service, and they are working to meet customer requirements

at the lowest cost (Robinson & Morley, 2006). The most recent trend has been to convert call

centers into multiple channel contact centers (So, 2007) and ACD (Automatic Call

Distribution) after receiving the calls by IVR (Interactive Voice Response), which provide a

high potential level of sophisticated electronic management information and calls statistics

(Robinson & Morley, 2006).

According to White (2003), a call center is a physical area where calls are made or

received in high volume for the aim of sales, marketing, client service, technical support,

telemarketing, and other business movements. Furthermore, the application handles incoming

calls efficiently. It receives the calls, answer and direct them to a qualified employee who meets

the caller's needs more closely. If there is no representative available, the calls are put on hold

until the right agent be available.

In this study, the call center is characterized as a telephone service center that is

designed to receive a lot of incoming calls, email, and chats. It processes them through

computerized programs and it transfers them to a qualified person who meets the needs of the

caller. There are two types of call centers, inbound and outbound call centers. Inbound call

centers indicate to centers where the customers' calls are received, while outbound call centers

refer to the centers where calls are made to the customers (White, 2003).

Regarding call center benefit, Fritzgerald (2007) mentioned that a call center offers the

essential benefits for the organization. The first benefit is enhancing customer relation, as

giving clients fast reach to the information they will lead to improving the relationship with

them. It also improves the perception of the company, and thus results in more deals and more

revenues. Secondly, it enables the employee to deal with more clients at the same time and
 22

increase efficiency. Minimize expenses is another benefit, with a call center that has the full

call center application where the same number of representatives can deal with more calls.

A call center makes statistics such as a number of calls that positively resolved every

day from the total calls received at that day. In addition to handling live calls, the call center

can also process emails, web-based queries, fax, web-based queries, webcam conference call,

and other communication channels for the organization (Fritzgerald, 2007).

Rumburg (2014) mentioned that to evaluate call center performance, there are some

measurements: Cost per received call and cost per second of taken time. Metrics to measure

productivity can be realized through measuring agent utilization, which is the rate of time spent

in available situation. The other metric is service level, which is the disconnecting call by the

caller before reaching an agent, calls answered within a certain time- 30 seconds for instance-

and ASA (Average Speed of Answer). This is the total hold up time of callers are in the line

over the number of calls taken.

Quality measurement is a metric that can be captured through client satisfaction, which

is the rate of clients who are either happy or very happy with their call center experience. This

can be performed by conducting the electronic survey through IVR, follow-up outbound calls,

and monitoring Email surveys. Agent metrics can be through agent schedule adherence, annual

agent turnover, agent occupancy, daily agent absenteeism, new agent training hours, and agent

job satisfaction, or annual agent training hours.

According to Klenke (2002), new trends in the call center industry start to appear, and

organizations should consider the significant trend because they will help in determining the

best structure of work. Some of these challenges are represented by the growth of non-call

transactions such as email and web-based transactions. These technologies and new skills in

call centers require a structure that can react to the challenge. Twenty-four hours seven days

availability is a new trend that increases operations cost. New methods to decrease the call
 23

center operation cost is required. The speed of service in term of growing email speed of answer

to be as same as telephone response is the customers’ expectation.

Organizations should work on email response to approach the phone speed of answer.

Besides fast response to customers, resolving their issues in one contact is important to increase

the quality of service. The priorities of the call center will increase when the organization

focuses on building relationships with the customers. Automating the front line's system and

forcing customers to self-service will save money and encourage more interaction to maximize

relationships.

2.5.3.2 Service center

Service center is another name for help desk or service desk (Sheehan, 2007). It has

become a key player in providing high levels of service and better products to customers. The

service center does the service on-site by handling the customer complaints about the services

and products (Azzam, 2014). The service center is responsible for giving end users high service

quality. Moreover, the center needs to communicate with customer timely for any information

updated and collects feedback (Tang & Todo, 2013). Service support is the contact point

between the organization and its customers, whether they are internal "staff" or external

"clients".

In the ITSM (IT Service Management), the service center is the single point of contact

between the service provider and the users (Service desk, 2017). It is known as a place to visit

or telephone number to call when one needs information about the services or products

(Sheehan, 2007). In this study, the service center is defined as a reachable place or point,

through which customers can solve a technical problem or get information about the products

and services provided.

Service support is divided into several levels that help an organization to organize their

resources more professionally (Kumaran, 2015). Tang and Todo (2013) pointed out that there
 24

are five levels of support starting from level zero support or self-service solutions, which users

can access by themselves depending on the Web pages over the internet.

Level one support filters help desk calls and provide basic support and troubleshooting,

such as password reset. The shift in the hierarchy of the front line to facilitate the solution of

the problem is the next level followed by problem analysis up to professional networking at

the third level. Level four, which is not a commonly used term, refers to people outside the

organization, whom issues can be escalated to.

A strong service support consists of several integrated components. Each element

relates to the others in some way and together these components enable the service center to

satisfy customers. The four elements of a successful service center are people, processes,

technology, and information (Knapp, 2014).

Regarding standard aspect for best service center, ITIL version_3, the best practice

framework in the service management section, clarified that service support should include

Knowledge management through collecting all information related to the business through a

system that helps to share and discover information about previous incidents or problem. Then

problem management is the capability of tracking all problem and managing their lifecycle to

protect and reduce the impact of incident that cannot be avoided.

The third aspect is access management that keeps user accounts along with password

resets, and grants authorized users the right to use a service. However, it also prevents non-

authorized users from access. The service catalog is another aspect, which is a list available

products and services provided with pricing information and detailed service descriptions.

Customer service is a measurable activity that helps to see the impact of changing to

the support processes. A list of key service support metrics to ensure that the service center

team is doing the best it can to help the customers. These metrics are a number of calls/Email

received and answers. Call abandon rate is to know the reason behind the unreached to the
 25

service support. A number of problems have been solved from the first contact and a number

of challenges have been addressed through the first level of technical support. Time to deal

with the problem and the waiting time in the queue precedes a response and average call costs

(Knapp, 2014).

The goal of any business is to make money. This objective is possible if the organization

realizes customer’s expectation and understands their needs (Mendoza et al., 2017). Reaching

to customer’s expectation can be achieved through listening to the customer, and their issues,

not just hearing the words but understanding the tone of voice because knowing the customer's

problem is relevant to the customer. Responding to all customers' needs and fixing their issues

are sometimes hard to meet. However, there is always something that can be done to deal with

their needs (Wilkin, 2009).

Working to meet the customer's expectation is another area, as the organization should

build their decision based on how it affects the relationship with their customers and people in

the company. It is important to deal with clients gently as the employee should show the

customer that he cares about the issue and that he will take responsibility to resolve it.

Complaint made by customers against an employee should be taken into account. It is

important to inform the customers about the new update, features, and potential upcoming

issues (Wilkin, 2009).

2.5.3.3 Data mining

Data is a key part of the business advancement and business intelligence. An immense

of data is amassed inside the data frameworks of private and public organizations (Camilovic,

2008). Despite the fact that these data can be assembled and stored in a structured and organized

way, but these data are not valuable for the basic management decision. They should be handled

utilizing analytical extraction and scientific and factual instruments to be able to change data

into information that can be used by chiefs (Abu Ellaban, 2013).

 26

The reason for data mining is to reveal unobserved patterns and trends and make

precision-based forecasts through higher levels of systematic and analytical refinement (Jenabi

& Mirroshandel, 2014). Many hidden problems are revealed during data analysis, which helps

in avoiding problems that might occur in the future (Luan, 2002).

Data mining techniques have an essential role in better CRM (Jenabi & Mirroshandel,

2014). Companies such as telephone service providers can employ data mining to establish a

churn analysis that helps to predict about clients who are probably to stay as a subscriber and

who are probably to move to competitors (Seifert, 2006).

According to Shaw, Subramaniam, Tan and Welge (2001), “data mining is the process

of searching and analyzing data in order to find implicit, but potentially useful information” (p.

128). It is the process of finding significant new relationships, trends, and patterns by screening

the extensive data stored in repositories utilizing mathematical techniques besides pattern

recognition technologies.

Data mining refers to as the process of finding out accurate and profound

understanding, interesting and new patterns, as well as descriptive, comprehensible and

predictive models from large-scale data (Camilovic, 2008). It is a high innovation with the

remarkable potential to assist organizations in concentrating on the most vital information in

their data (Thearling, 1999).

In this study, data mining is defined as the use of different techniques, such as

algorithms, statistical techniques, machine learning, and database management systems to

analyze immense data and to find the models and patterns of new and valuable information

related to the areas of decision support, forecasting, and estimation.

Data Mining is a method to discover information in enormous data and helps

organizations and firms to make decisions based on scientific calculations through aggregating,

gathering, examining and accessing to organization data (Ranjan, 2007). It utilizes an

 27

assortment of instruments such reporting tools, processing tools for data analysis and other

tools like system for decision support.

According to Abu Ellaban (2013), the reasons behind the interest of business in using

data mining is the rapid increase in technological means, such as computers, storage devices,

networking, and communications, as well as statistical analysis programs. The second reason

is the quickened growth in data. A huge size of the databases urges enterprises to search for

new techniques and instruments to transform that data into helpful information. Increasing the

level of rivalry in various fields is another reason behind using data mining where industries

such as banking and telecommunications utilize data mining to improve their performance and

raise profitability. The increment in the reliance of managers on information helps in making

crucial decisions and different uses of data mining in many areas like marketing, CRM, and

network management. This forms another benefit that pushes the organizations to use data

mining.

Data mining process depend on two factors to accomplish an aim or a purpose. First,

an explicit formulation of the problem needs to be solved, which makes it easy access to the

relevant data (Seifert, 2006). Ngai, Xiu, and Chau (2009) and Linoff and Berry (2011)

mentioned many techniques used in data mining depending on the goal of mining. The

following are some of the techniques used.

Association is one of data mining techniques, which intends to establish connections

between things existing together in a given record. The typical example is figuring out what

things go together in a shopping basket at the grocery store. This technique helps in decision-

making regarding pricing, sales, and marketing strategies. In addition, this method enables the

organization to know the customers who purchase a range of products associated with other

products (such as papers and pens) helping in setting appropriate pricing and discounts.
 28

The second technique is a classification that is one of the most conventional learning

models in data mining. It aims to build a growth model to forecast the behavior of the customer

in the future through classification databases to various predefined categories in view of

specific criteria. An example of classification is characterizing applicants for credit as high,

low, or medium risk.

The other technique is clustering. This technique works on the division of the numbers

of the heterogeneous population into homogeneous groups based on similarities. For example,

the market is divided into groups based on similarities in the people's purchasing habits then

building advertising accordingly. Unlike classification, there are no predefined clusters.

Forecasting is also a data mining technique that helps to estimate the future worth in

the light of a record's patterns. Predicting the number of clients into the future, or equally, the

number of stops on a given day in the future is an interesting application of this technique.

Regression technique is the way toward utilizing the estimation of one of a couple of

related variables to predict the value of the second. This technique helps in the discovery of

patterns that can produce reasonable predictions regarding future activities. Any expected

future value is based on the recorded patterns. Uses of regression include curve fitting, and

testing logical theories about connections between factors. Finally, sequence discovery

techniques, is the technique used to determine patterns changing over time. It aims to model

the conditions of procedure creating the arrangement or extracting, and to report deviation and

patterns after some time.

2.5.4 CRM and data mining

Data mining innovation is considered one of the analytical CRM dimensions (Abu

Ellaban, 2013). To manage the relationship with the customer, an organization needs to extract

the right information about its customers from their old data and organize that information for
 29

proper analysis and action. Then, it converts that data into products better matched to

customers’ needs (Why Data mining in CRM, 2011).

Data mining assists to entice and maintain gainful customers from analyzing the

customer’s behavior, which could be estimated with an accepted degree of certainty. The

finding procedure of data mining helps in recognizing new clients, separating the clients and

discovering most ideal approaches to communicate with the clients (Ngai et al., 2009). Data

mining systems, like classification and segmentation, assist in accomplishing these objectives.

Data mining is the process to provide an organization with information that enables them to

create value for the client, which is frequently referred to as CRM (Kadiyala & Srivastava,

2011).

Gupta and Aggarwal (2012), Nejad, Nejad, and Karami (2012) put some steps to build

a good model of CRM system. The first of these steps is to define the business problem to

create a suitable model for each CRM application based on business objectives (Nejad et al,

2012). Depending upon the goals, it builds a different model. The second step is to establish a

marketing database based on operational databases and corporate data warehouse. Usually, this

data needs to be rearranged to get the required form. The third step is to explore the data by

understanding it before building a good predictive model. Graphing and visualization are the

most valuable tools to assist in the preparation and analysis of useful data. Making data ready

for modeling is the fourth step. Preparation data includes identifying factors on which to

establish the model, the construction of new predictions based on the raw data, and the selection

of a sample from prepared data on which to establish the model. This can identify variables

according to the requirements of the algorithm, which will be built upon the model.

In the step of building the model, the aim is to find alternate models to explore the most

helpful one in resolving the business problem. After the model has been built, it should be

evaluated by checking the accuracy. Then, the model should be deployed to monitor the results.
 30

2.6 Customer Satisfaction and Consumer Retention

Ghavami and Olyael (2006) pointed out that consumer retention is the consequence of

loyalty. Customer loyalty comes after the customer is satisfied with the company's products or

services. Fornell (1992) acknowledged satisfaction program facilitates retention of customers.

Some studies applied to mobile phone industry (Díaz, 2017; Ali, et al., 2010; Feng and Zhang,

2009; Gerpott et al., 2001) ensure the importance of customer satisfaction and switching

barriers through their impact on customer loyalty as determinants of customer retention.

On the other side, Christopher (1996), Gierl (1993), and Reichheld (1993) figured out

that customer satisfaction has a straightforward role in customer retention when other factors

are considered. Moreover, Qadri and Khan (2014) found that the customer satisfaction is close

to zero, which means it is not needful for the customer retention.

2.7 CRM and Customer Satisfaction

In the previous sections, some studies that support the technology parts of CRM have

been provided. Zaheeruddin (2015) concluded that all organizations look for enhancing

customer satisfaction. The essential goal of call center operations is caring the customer and

the accomplishment of high points of customer satisfaction (Jaiswal, 2008). Call center

representatives affect the perception of clients with regard to customer satisfaction (White,

2003; Bennington et al., 2000). According to Saadat and Nas (2013), the service center

contributes to the customer satisfaction. Physical environment and quality of services also have

a positive effect on the satisfaction of clients at the service center (Azzam, 2014). Availability

of service center improves customer satisfaction with existing quick response and issue

resolved at first time (Sheehan, 2007). Some other studies such as Abu Ellaban (2013),

Camilovic (2008), and Nejad et al., (2012) concentrated on the role of data mining techniques

in establishing the CRM through the satisfaction of the customer.

 31

2.8 CRM and Customer Retention

The main strategic role of CRM is to deal with an organization's relationships with

clients through phases of the client's lifecycle: customer obtaining and customer maintaining

(Ang & Buttle, 2006). Regarding the CRM elements, this study examined the customer

retention. Some literature concentrate on the relationship between the call center and customer

retention (Keiningham, Aksoy, Andreassen, Cooil, & Wahren, 2006; Afèche, Araghi, & Baron,

2015; Dean, 2002). Moreover, studies focus on the effects of the service center and customer

retention (Ennew & Binks, 1996; Saadat & Nas, 2013; Ghusain, 2014). The studies that showed

interest in the relationship between data mining and customer retention are Chitra & Subashini

(2011); Chu, Tsai, & Ho (2007); Lin & Xu (2009).

Many reviews have been directed to look at the CRM value and how its influence on

organizational outcomes. One of the CRM results is the customer retention. Table 2.1 shows

some studies that are linking CRM components system to customer retention.

Table 2.1

Studies Linking Customer Retention with CRM System Components

CRM Components Author Title

Keiningham et al. “Call center satisfaction and customer
(2006) retention in a co-branded service context.”
Call Recording for Customer Retention and
Mitel (2014)
Superior Service
Customer Acquisition, Retention, and
Call Center
Afèche et al. Queueing-Related Service Quality: Optimal
(2015) Advertising, Staffing, and Priorities for a
Call Center

“Service quality in call centers: implications

Dean (2002) for customer loyalty.”
Zaheeruddin “Customer Retention Management and
Service Center
(2015) Strategies with Reference to Ford Motors.”
 32

Saadat & Nas “Impact of customer relationship on

(2013) customer loyalty in Cellular industry.”
Parasuraman, Positive Service Encounter: A Tool for
Zeithaml, & Berry Customer Loyalty and Retention in Retail
(1985) outlet
“The Impact of Customer Relationship
Azzam (2014) Management on Customer Satisfaction in
the Banking Industry.”

Mehregan &
“Customer Retention Based on the Number
Samizadeh (2012)
Data Mining of Purchase: A Data Mining Approach.”
Chitra & “Customer Retention in Banking Sector
Subashini (2011) using Predictive Data Mining Technique.”

Ng & Liu (2000) Customer Retention via Data Mining

“Toward a hybrid data mining model for
Chu et al. (2007)
customer retention.”

“A Novel Model for Global Customer

Lin & Xu (2009)
Retention Using Data Mining Technology.”

2.9 The Conceptual Framework

Based on the above prior literature, theoretical framework is built. The frame will help to

collect the data and get a better understanding of CRM in business. Figure 2.3 illustrates the

conceptual framework employed by this study.

 33

Independent Variables Intervening Variable Dependent Variable

Call Center
(CC)

Customer Customer
Service Satisfaction Retention
CRM
Center (SC) (CS) (CR)

Data Mining
(DM)

Figure 2.3. Conceptual Framework.

Based on the above conceptual framework; the following hypotheses were developed

to examine the relationships between the variables:

H1: Call center has significant impact on customer satisfaction.

H2: Service center has significant impact on customer satisfaction.
H3: Data mining has significant impact on customer satisfaction.
H4: Customer satisfaction has significant impact on customer retention.
H5: Call center has significant impact on customer retention.
H6: Service center has significant impact on customer retention.
H7: Data mining has significant impact on customer retention.

2.10 CRM Systems in Y-Telecoms

Y-Telecoms started to use CRM since the beginning of their services. The company

worked to develop it on an ongoing basis. They began to use CRM more in service support to

help customer than in sales and management related to marketing. The service center also is

known as the point of sales (POS) and the call centers are the main parts in CRM of Y-

Telecoms, as the employee receives customer’s requests or complaints and helps him

immediately or forwards them to the concerned section to get support.

Marketing and Sales also contact the customers from Marketing and Sales departments

through two types of contact; the first one relates to the target new customers by launching
 34

campaigns with special offers. The second type relates to the existing customers by contact

with them through SMS and direct calls to improve and maintain a long-term relationship.

Management uses data mining, the main component in CRM, to extract reports such as the

volume of sales report, revenue report, zone activity, problems, performance indicators and

others to take the right decision accordingly.

2.11 Summary

In this chapter, the study focuses mainly on the business-to-customer relationship. This

chapter addressed customer retention as one of the main objectives that organizations seek to

achieve. Many studies and research in telecoms industry found that the provider could do well

if they care about current customers’ needs even if no new customers are obtained. The chapter

also presented some advantage of customer retention as well as the factors influencing it.

Customer satisfaction is an intervening variable between customer retention and CRM.

Some previous studies mentioned in this chapter proved that customer retention is the result of

customer satisfaction, and some other studies said it is not enough to achieve customer

retention.

The previous studies mentioned in this chapter unanimously agree that the overall

objectives of CRM are to discover new clients and retain, and attract former customers back.

Moreover, it reduces the cost of customer service and marketing. Some studies found that

fruitful CRM implementation requires a coordinated and adjusted way to deal with people,

technology, and processes' components. Figure 2.2 showed the component of technology

aspect. The final part of these lines illustrated the technological part of CRM system

components: call center, service center, and data mining, which have been addressed in this

study.
 35

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

The methodology considers how to achieve the objectives of the research. In this

chapter, the researcher describes the approach taken, the population and sampling, as well as

the instrument used after measuring its validity and reliability. The chapter also includes data

collection method and data analysis method.

3.2 Data Collection Method

Parahoo (2006) indicated that quantitative data were gathered to characterize and depict

traits, practices, and population’s activities. Two options to get information meet the objectives

of the research questions: primary and secondary data (Peighambari, 2007). Kotler and

Armstrong (2010) declared that secondary data is the information gathered from past reviews

for some purpose. The data could be taken from researches, articles, and books. The primary

data is gathered for certain study. For example, the information can be collected through

observations and questionnaires (Peighambari, 2007). For this study, the survey process was

conducted through Y-Telecoms’ call center. The call center’s agent puts forward the

questionnaire to the customer chosen randomly by the system after he/she reaches the call

center for the service request.

3.3 Research Design

The research design of a study summarizes the essential approach that analysts use to

answer their study questions (Parahoo, 2006). This research is designed to use quantitative

methods for data collection. In quantitative research, the case that is studied can be measured.
 36

The quantitative research uses a deductive approach (Soiferman, 2010), which is interested in

“developing a hypothesis (or hypotheses) based on existing theory, and then designing a

research strategy to test the hypothesis.” (Wilson, 2010, p. 7). The framework of this study has

three independent variables: Call Center, Service center, and data mining as a CRM

components and one dependent variable, which is customer retention, and customer

satisfaction as an intervening variable. It is proposed that CRM components have an impact on

customer retention through customer satisfaction in Y-Telecoms. The statistical application

Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 has been used.

3.4 Population and Sampling Technique

According to the problem of the study and its objectives, the population of this study

consists of all Y-Telecom’s subscribers that are 700000 subscribers. To obtain the subset that

represent the whole set is known as sampling technique, random sampling was used to select

the required subset. This technique is completely based on random selection, instead of any

reason or system and a presented number of the total population is chosen randomly. The

recommended sample size is 384 when the margin of error accepted is 5% and confidence level

is 95% (Sample-size, 2006). The sample was selected by using random sampling technique.

When the caller reaches the call center for a service request, the questionnaire is presented to

him/her after he is provided with the required service. Due to time limitation, only 317 surveys

out of 384 have been managed.

3.5 Survey Instrument

In this study, a questionnaire has been prepared to gather the data. A questionnaire is a

technique for data gathering that requests respondents to give a verbal or written response to a

composed arrangement of inquiries (Parahoo, 2006). A certified translator has translated the
 37

questionnaire into Arabic. Appendix A contains the questionnaire with its source or reference

and its Arabic version in Appendix B. A pre-test was carried out to examine the fitness of the

questionnaire. Thirty respondents were selected for this test. The questionnaire consists of four

sections. The first section contains personal data (Gender, Age, Qualification, Residence,

Subscription type, Charging, Income, and Occupation). The second section contains CRM

system components, call center (five questions), service center (five questions), and data

mining (three questions). The third section examines the customer satisfaction (four questions),

and the last part measures the customer retention (six questions).

All constructs were measured with multiple items on a five Likert scale. The

respondents were requested to rate the degree to which each variable is present. The

interpretation results of Likert scale is as follows: “Scores of 1 to 2.32 indicate a low

level, Scores of 2.33 to 3.65 indicate medium level, and scores of 3.66 to 5 indicate high level”

(Doshi, 2016, p. 110).

3.6 Data Analysis

Data analysis is a significant process in the study (Abu Ellaban, 2013). This study

employed a quantitative method, which emphasizes objective measurements and the statistical

analysis of data collected through questionnaires. The descriptive technique to analyze the

received data by utilizing SPSS version 22 has been used. Table 3.1 shows the techniques used

in analyzing the data.

Table 3.1

Data Analysis Techniques

Research objective Data Analysis Techniques

1. Identify Level of CRM system in Y-Telecoms Descriptive “Mean, Standard Deviation”

 38

2. Level of customer satisfaction in Y-Telecoms Descriptive “Mean, Standard Deviation”

3. Level of customer retention in Y-Telecoms Descriptive “Mean, Standard Deviation”

4. Determine the role of CRM in influencing

customer retention in Y-Telecoms. Correlation and Regression

5. Determine the significant differences between

the respondents’ answers according to gender,

age, academic qualification, Line Type,

Charging, Income, and Occupation. Independent T-test and ANOVA

6. Determine if there are statistically significant

between the averages of respondents' answers

attributed to place living. ANOVA

Validity is defined as the extent to which a construct measures is proposed to measure

(Nili, 2011). This study proceeded using questionnaire employed by previous studies (refer to

Appendix A). According to Sekaran (2003), a panel of expert judges can be used to examine

the content validity of the instruments. In this study, an academic professor, service experts in

customer service industry and customer service manager in Y-Telecoms reviewed the

questionnaire. The content validity was based on previous related studies as shown in Table

Table 3.2.

Content Validity

Variable of the study Previous Studies

Keiningham et al. (2006); Van Dun,

CRM Call Center Bloemer, & Henseler (2011); Agarwal,

Singh, & Thakur (2013)

 39

Malik (2015); Parasuraman et al. (1985);

Service Center
Saadat & Nas (2013)

Data Mining Azzam (2014); Ghusain (2014)

Feng Jr & Zhang (2009); Qadri & Khan

Customer Satisfaction
(2014); Maxham (2001)

Roberts (2011), Ghavami & Olyaei (2006).

Customer Retention
(2014); Peighambari (2007)

A pilot test for the questionnaire was conducted to 30 respondents. The importance of

the pretest was to ensure that the questionnaire is appropriate for the survey. The variables are

interrelated and show inter-consistency because value above 0.7 is acceptable. Therefore, the

instrument is ready to use. As defined by Wangondu (2013), “Reliability instrument

consistently yields the same results when used repeatedly from the same sample drawn from a

population” (p. 31). The consistency indicated how the items measuring the concept remain

consistent as a set. To check reliability, Cronbach’s alpha (α) is used. Wangondu (2013)

described Cronbach’s alpha (α) and considered the coefficient, which exceeded the minimum

0.7 and indicated that the instrument was reliable.

As indicated by Robinson and Shaver (1973), if the value of Cronbach’s alpha (α) is

greater than 0.7 it implies high reliability. However, if the value is smaller than 0.3., it means

low reliability. Meanwhile, Petersen (1994) considered the level of coefficient between 0.5 and

0.6 as acceptable. In this study, a value of 0.6 or higher was set as the level of internal

consistency that indicated reliability.

 40

3.7 Study Limitations

There were several limitations to this study. First, the study is limited to one firm (Y-

Telecoms). The other limitation is related to the respondents who apologized contributing to

this study. Data gathering obstacles is another limitation, where some difficulty appeared

during questionnaire to explain the meaning of question through the phone and to get the

answer. Therefore, the process consumed more time, cost and efforts.

3.8 Summary

This chapter addressed the research methodology used for this study. The conceptual

framework, which helps better understand the subject of study, was drawn. The chapter also

addressed how the level of customer retention, customer satisfaction, and CRM is calculated.

Different tools such as the definition of population, sample choosing, methods of data

gathering, which were utilized to execute the research methodology, have been explained in

details.

The chapter also includes obstacles appeared while conducting this study such as time

limitation. The descriptive technique to analyze the collected data by utilizing SPSS version

22 has been used. The results are represented through tables and essays. The chapter has

explained in detail each of the validity and reliability. A pilot test has been carried out to check

the suitability of the questionnaire.

 41

CHAPTER IV

DATA ANALYSIS

4.1 Introduction

Analyzing data is considered the most critical parts of any study (Nili, 2011). This

chapter includes analysis of the data collected after converting them to value information using

the statistical test. The demography components, including gender, age, academic

qualification, occupation, place of residence, subscription type, number of charging per month

and income, are treated. Moreover, the objectives of the study are measured.

4.2 Respondents Background

In this part, variables related to the respondents such as gender, age, and level of

education have been studied. Frequency tables and graphical methods represented the results

obtained.

Table 4.1

Respondents’ Background

Frequency Percentage
Male 255 80.40%

Gender Female 62 19.60%

Total 317 100%

Less than 20 12 3.80%

20 and less than 30 years 161 50.80%

Age 30 and less than 40 years 74 23.30%

40 and less than 50 years 70 22.10%

Total 317 100%

 42

High-school or less 141 44.50%

` Qualification Bachelor 129 40.70%

Diploma 29 9.10%

Master or above 18 5.70%

Total 317 100%

Al-Amana 84 26.50%

Aden 63 19.90%

Living Hudaida 45 14.20%

Sana'a 29 9.10%

Dhamar 24 7.60%

Ibb 20 6.30%

Taiz 16 5%

Mukalla 8 2.50%

Beyda 8 2.50%

Amera 6 1.90%

Mahweet 5 1.60%

Hajja 5 1.60%

Dalea 4 1.30%

Total 317 100%

Line-Type Prepaid 295 93.10%

Postpaid 22 6.90%

Total 317 100%

50000 YR or less 56 17.70%
Income More than 50000 and less than
238 75.10%
100000 YR
 43

More than 100000 YR 23 7.30%

Total 317 100%

Private sector employee 187 59%

Public sector employee 62 19.60%

Occupation Other 40 12.60%
Unemployment 28 8.80%

Total 317 100%

Table 4.1 shows the frequencies of respondents' background. It indicates that 80.4% of

the study sample is male, while the rest 19.6% is females. Regarding age, 3.8% of the

respondents are less than 20 years old; 50.8% are between 20 to 30 years old; 23.3% are

between 30 to 40 years old; and 22.1% are between 40 to 50 years old. This indicates that

77.9% of Y-Telecoms’ subscribers are less than 40 years old. Therefore, the company should

focus on youth marketing and think of new ways to keep them happy and attract new

subscribers.

As it can be shown in the table above, 44.5% of the respondents have high school or

less; 9.1% have a diploma; 40.7% have Bachelor degree; and 5.7% have Master degree (MSc)

and above. These results indicate that the use of mobile is not limited to a particular

qualification; everyone needs a means of communication with others.

It is clear that 26.5% of the study sample lives in Al-Amana (Capital Sana'a), whereas

9.1% live in Sana'a Governorate; 19.9% live in Aden; and 14.2% live in Hudaida. In other

regions, the percentages of the study sample range from 7.6% in Dhamar to 1.3% in Dalea

Governorate as shown in Table 4.4. The high proportion of the study sample is in Sana'a

(Capital and Governorate), which is 35.6% attributed to company activity in Sana'a and the

presence of its headquarters. 19.9% in Aden is explained by the good coverage and low cost

compared to other providers, whereas 14.2% in Hudaida is attributed to the low cost that the
 44

company provided to their subscribers comparing to competitors. The lowest was Dalea City

by 1.2%. This is because the company does not have enough activity to attract more

subscribers.

Regarding the subscription type, prepaid is 93.1% whereas postpaid is 6.9%. The high

percentage of prepaid is attributed to the subscriber's ability to use it within a defined budget.

A number of charging times is evident at 4.6, 96.5% of study sample charging their line once

a month and 1.9% charging twice a month whereas 1.6% charges more than twice a month.

The income of study sample per month is 4.7. 17.7% of the study sample earns 50000

YR or less; 75.1% earns more than 50000 YR and less than 100000 YR. The category that

makes more than 100000 YR represents 7.3% of the study sample.

The table also explains that 19.6% of respondents work in public sector; 59% work in

the private sector; 8.8% of them are out of work; and 12.6% might have their own business.

4.3 Goodness of Measurements

It is important to make sure that the tool we have developed to measure a particular

concept is measuring the variable accurately.

4.3.1 Validity Analysis

This research was conducted using a questionnaire as a data collection instrument. The

variable items have been taken from past studies and modified by taking the common variables

between the studies that addressed these components. (Refer to chapter 3). Content validity test

has been conducted to assure that the measure includes sufficient coverage of the investigated

questions (Test Validity). A pre-test was conducted to ensure the research validity and more

validation of the research questionnaire (see Table 4.2).

 45

4.3.2 Reliability Analysis

The reliabilities for each item and all domains in the model were assessed by calculating

Cronbach's alpha coefficients (α). The Cronbach's alpha for all measurement in Table 4.2

shows above 0.7, which is a good indication that the questionnaire was a reliable instrument

for measuring variances of the study.

Table 4.2

Reliability Analysis of Variables

Pilot Final
Number Cronbach’s Cronbach’s
Components
of Items Alpha 30 Alpha 317
respondents respondents

Call Center 0.847 0.856

5

Service
0.853 0.852
CRM 5
Support Center

Data Mining 0.835 0.806

3

0.78 0.881
4
Customer Satisfaction
0.784 0.841
Customer Retention 5

4.4 Research Objectives

4.4.1 Research Objective I

The first objective of this study is to identify the level of CRM in Y-Telecoms, which

is represented as an independent variable and consists of three components: call center (5

items), service support (5 items) and data mining (3 items). Mean and standard deviation were

utilized to measure the level of CRM through the CRM system components.
 46

Table 4.3 reveals the result of means and standard deviation for a call center.

Respondents have a tendency to see a greater degree of agreement on the measurement of

courteous element "call center's agent is very courteous”, which has a mean score of 4.48. They

tend to perceive lower level by call handling "Handled my call quickly", which has a mean

score of 3.46. The low score of the call-handling variable comparing to courteous may be due

to the limited number of channels allocated to reach the call center. In the evaluation of

courteous, a low standard deviation was found, which indicates that there is a high similarity

in the respondents’ responses. Regarding call handling, the standard deviation indicates that

there are many variations in the respondents’ responses.

The average mean of all of the five statements is 3.93, which shows the high level of

the call center as a system component of CRM in Y-Telecoms.

Table 4.3

Call Center Level

Statements Mean Standard Deviation

The employee is very courteous 4.48 0.727

The employee asks me whether my question has

3.94 0.790
been answered.
Handled. My call quickly 3.94 0.790

The information I receive is consistent, even when

3.84 0.796
I talk to another employee.
Providing service at promised time 3.46 1.020

Average of means 3.93

Table 4.4 shows the means of respondents’ perception of the service center. The

respondents show agreement for handle complaints: “Employees handle my complaints

immediately." scored the highest average mean of 3.84. However, knowledgeability "The
 47

employees have the knowledge to answer my questions" and friendly staff “The employees are

friendly" have a little score with 3.46. The respondents showed their perception with average

mean scored of 3.56 and 3.51 for attention and flexibility respectively. The standard deviation

shows that there is acceptance uniformity in the respondents’ responses to handle complaints

with a score of 0.796. The standard deviation for the statement of attention, flexibility,

knowledgeability and friendly staff are high and score 1.007, 1.008, 1.020 and 1.020

respectively, which means that there is a considerable measure of variety in the responses' of

respondents.

It is noticed that the average mean for all statement of all service centers is 3.57, which

is above the medium. The company should increase efforts to improve the service at the service

center by improving the processes and training the front line staff.

Table 4.4

Service Center Level

Statements Mean Standard Deviation

Employees handle my complaints immediately. 3.84 0.796

Employees are never too busy to answer requests. 3.56 1.007

Find flexibility in meeting your needs. 3.51 1.008

The employees have the knowledge to answer my

3.46 1.020
questions.
The employees are friendly 3.46 1.020

Average of means 3.57

Regarding data mining, Table 4.5 shows acceptance for accessibility: “Reaching all

previous and current information regarding your participation if requested." with an average

mean of 3.54, which is below the medium level. However, direct marketing, "Direct contact
 48

for marketing purpose" has a medium score of 3.24, which indicates weak marketing activities

that target the individual customer.

Table 4.5 revealed that the standard deviation for the statement of accessibility, offers,

and direct marketing scored 1.014, 1.027, and 1.213 respectively. This shows that there is a lot

of variation in the answer of respondents. The result of means for the domain of data mining is

3.43, which indicates a medium level. The company should increase its efforts to extract the

information related to the subscribers and make them more organized to be reachable once

required, which intensifies individual marketing. Moreover, it should study the behavior of

subscribers from the available data and make appropriate offers accordingly.

Table 4.5

Data Mining Level

Statements Mean Standard Deviation

Reaching all previous and current information

3.54 1.014
regarding your participation if requested.
Offers suitable for your need. 3.52 1.027

3.24 1.213
Direct contact for marketing purpose.
Average of means 3.43

Table 4.6 illustrates the overall level of CRM in Y-Telecoms as average mean scored

3.64, which is acceptable but needs more efforts to improve.

The respondents show agreement for the call center in Y-Telecoms and score the

highest average mean of 3.93. However, data mining has a low score of 3.43, which indicates

a lack of interest in this part of CRM. The average mean of the service center is 3.56, which is

above the medium level.

 49

Table 4.6

CRM Level

Variances Mean Standard Deviation

Call Center 3.93 0.601

Service Center 3.57 0.667

Data Mining 3.43 0.937

Average of means 3.64

4.4.2 Research Objective II

The second objective of this research is to identify the customer satisfaction level in Y-

Telecoms. Table 4.7 showed the result of means and standard deviation for the level of

customer satisfaction. Respondents have a tendency to see a greater degree of agreement on

the statement of comfortable: "I am comfortable with the relationship with this operator” with

a mean score of 3.94. However, the statement of quality offered: "I am satisfied with the overall

service quality provided by this operator” have a little score of 3.49, which may be due to poor

coverage in some zones. The statement of frontline employees, “I am satisfied with the

performance of e frontline employees of this operator” has a score of 3.54, which is below the

required level. The company needs to do more to raise the efficiency of frontline staff.

The standard deviation for the statement of comfort and competence is somewhat high

with an average score of 0.790 and 0.796 respectively. The statement of frontline employees

and quality offered scored a high standard deviation of 1.089 and 1.020 respectively, which

implies that there is a considerable measure of variety in the responses of respondents. The

company should study the reasons behind these high variances. The overall average of

customer satisfaction in Y-Telecoms scored 3.69, which is high.

 50

Table 4.7

Customer Satisfaction Level

Statements Mean Standard Deviation

I am comfortable with the relationship with this operator 3.94 0.790

I am satisfied with the professional competence of this 3.84 0.796

operator.
I am satisfied with the performance of the frontline
3.54 1.089
employees of this operator.
I am satisfied with the overall service quality offered by
3.46 1.020
this operator.
Average of means 3.69

4.4.3 Research Objective III

The third objective of this research is to identify the level of customer retention Y-

Telecoms. Table 4.8 reveals the result of means and standard deviation. The respondents show

their perception of charges, complaints, talk positively, first choice and continuity with mean

scores of 3.56, 3.54, 3.52, 3.52 and 3.51 respectively. The overall customer retention has an

average mean score of 3.53, which is just above the medium level. The company needs to do

more to enhance the customer retention. Regarding standard deviation, it shows that there a

considerable measure of variety in the responses of respondents, which is somewhat high and

requires the company to exert more effort to gain customers loyalty.

Table 4.8

Customer Retention Level

Statements Mean Standard Deviation

3.56 1.007
I am happy with the low charges of the calls.
3.54 1.014
Process of Complaints simple.
 51

The company tries to establish a long-term

3.52 1.027
relationship with you.
If I needed mobile services now, my mobile operator
3.52 1.027
would be my first choice.
I plan to continue my relationship with my mobile
3.51 1.008
operators in future.
Average of means 3.53

4.4.4 Research Objective IV

Determine the role of CRM in influencing customer retention in Y-Telecoms.

RQ1: Is there an intervening role of customer satisfaction in the relationship between CRM

and customer retention?

This research question examines if there is a significant relationship between the

variables, and analyzes the nature of this relationship. According to Nili (2011), Pearson’s

correlation is the most common measure of correlation between variables, and its value ranges

between -1 and +1. A positive value reflects a positive association, and a negative value implies

an inverse association.

Table 4.9 revealed a significant and positive correlation between each of the CRM

system components (call center, service center, and data mining) and customer retention. The

value of correlation for call center and service center is 0.215** and 0.406** respectively, which

indicates a low correlation.

The correlation of data mining is high with a score of 0.791**. For the intervening

variable shown in figure 4.1, the result in Table 4.9 shows that there is no significant correlation

(p-value<0.05) between customer retention and customer satisfaction. Therefore, customer

satisfaction does not play an intervening role in predicting the customer retention.
 52

In general, it can be said that there is a statistically significant relationship between

CRM system components and customer retention, and there is no role for the intervening

variable.

Table 4.9

Pearson Correlation Values

Variable CC SC DM CS

Call Center (CC) Pearson Correlation

Sig. (2-tailed)
Service Center (SC) Pearson Correlation 0.548**

Sig. (2-tailed) 0.000

Data Mining (DM) Pearson Correlation 0.037 0.126*

Sig. (2-tailed) 0.506 0.025

Customer Satisfaction (CS) Pearson Correlation 0.517** 0.765** 0.045

Sig. (2-tailed) 0.000 0.000 0.421

Customer Retention (CR) Pearson Correlation 0.215** 0.406** 0.791** 0.017

Sig. (2-tailed) 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.759

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)

RQ2: What is the role of CRM system components in influencing customer retention in Y-

Telecoms?

Figure 4.2 shows the research model without the intervening variable. Multiple

regression is a statistical process for predicting the relationships among variables.

 53

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

Call Center (CC)

Service Center Customer

CRM Retention (CR)
(SC)

Data Mining
(DM)

Figure 4.2. Conceptual Framework (without intervening).

The outcome of the multiple regressions appears in Table 4.10. The coefficients R²=

0.720 and (p-value < 0.01) and adjusted coefficient determination R² = 0.718, which means all

variables (call center, service center, and data mining) significantly contribute to the prediction.

This indicates that 71.8% of the variance in customer retention was explained by this model.

The Beta = 0.023 for call center means that it has very low contribution with 2.3% in customer

retention, and it has no significant value due to the p-value< 0.05. However, data mining with

Beta = 0.752 has higher effect with 75.2% than the service support that is 29.8%.

The last row in Table 4.10 illustrated the result of the complete regression model. It

showed the regression between all integrated variables as an independent agent to predict the

variance of the independent variable. The adjusted coefficient of determination is R²= 0.301

with p-value< 0.01. Thus, this model is predicting 30% of the variance in customer retention.

In addition, Table 4.11 illustrates the results of the hypotheses developed in chapter two.

Table 4.10

Multiple Regression Test all Variables

 54

adjusted p-
Predictors a b R R² Beta t
R² value

Call Center 0.041 0.023 0.65 0.516

Service
0.355 0.298 8.284 0.000
Center →CR -0.094 0.849 0.72 0.718

Data
0.638 0.752 24.955 0.000
Mining

CRM →CR -1.102 0.794 0.549 0.301 0.300 0.675 17.643 0.000

Table 4.11

Hypotheses Tests Results

Hypotheses Beta t p-value Results

H1: Call center has significant impact on customer satisfaction. 0.138 3.251 0.001 Accepted
H2: Service center has significant impact on customer satisfaction. 0.699 16.35 0.000 Accepted
H3: Data mining has significant impact on customer satisfaction. -0.079 -2.197 0.029 Accepted
H4: Customer satisfaction has significant impact on customer retention. 0.017 0.307 0.759 Rejected
H5: Call center has significant impact on customer retention. 0.023 0.65 0.516 Rejected
H6: Service center has significant impact on customer retention. 0.298 8.284 0.000 Accepted
H7: Data mining has significant impact on customer retention. 0.752 24.955 0.000 Accepted

As shown in Table 4.9, the intervening variable has no correlation with customer

retention. The new conceptual framework shown in figure 4.2 has been examined and Table

4.11 is explained the hypotheses test results. Both of call center and service center provide the

same services or products to the customer. The call center communicates by voice, whereas

service center provides them face to face (refer to chapter 2). They have a good correlation (see

Table 4.9). Therefore, the non-significance prediction of the call center p-value< 0.05 (=0.516)

can be handled by combining the two variables, call center and service center under one
 55

variable named customer service center (CSC). The multiple regressions were applied again to

estimate the relationships among new variables “customer service center” and customer

retention.

Table 4.12 shows a significant level of p-value< 0.01 and t=9.638. The adjusted coefficient

determination R²=0.709 means that customer service center and data mining significantly

contribute to the prediction. It also indicates that the model clarified 70.9% of the variance in

customer retention. It can be seen that the Beta = 0.294 for customer service center affects with

29.4% in customer retention. However, the data mining rate of Beta = 0.752 has high effect

with 75.2%.

Table 4.12

Multiple Regression Test Integrated Variable

p-
Predictors a b R R² adjusted R² Beta t
value

Customer

Service 0.474 0.294 9.638 0.000

Center →CR -0.495 0.843 0.711 0.709

Data
0.645 0.761 24.92 0.000
Mining

CRM →CR -0.852 1.208 0.838 0.703 0.702 0.838 27.274 0.000

The last row in Table 4.12 showed the complete result of the regression model. It

showed the regression between all integrated variables as an independent agent (customer

service center and data mining) to predict the variance of the dependent variable. The adjusted

coefficient of determination of the model is R²= 0.702 with p-value< 0.01. Thus, this model is

predicting 70.2% of the variance on customer retention.

 56

4.4.5 Research Objective V

The fifth research objective is to identify if there are statistically significant

differences among the averages of respondents' answers attributed to demographics variables.

Independent t-test was carried out to identify if there are significant differences among the

averages of respondents' answers attributed to gender. However, one-way ANOVA was

conducted to identify if there are significant differences among the averages of respondents'

answers attributed to other demographics variables, such as age, academic qualification, line

type, charging, income, and occupation.

Table 4.13 shows that there are no statistically significant differences among

respondents. As a result, it can be said that all respondents have a positive attitude toward the

components of CRM, which are represented by call center, service center, and data mining.

The respondents get benefit from using CRM system components in the organization through

the quality of services provided, the flexibility and speed of delivery of services.

Table 4.13

T-Test and ANOVA Result of Demographic Variable

Variable Test Test result (T)/F p-value

Gender Independent t-test 1.677 0.097

Age ANOVA 1.046 0.372

Qualification ANOVA 0.841 0.472

Line Type ANOVA 0.213 0.645

Charging ANOVA 2.171 0.116

Income ANOVA 0.378 0.685

Occupation ANOVA 0.481 0.696

 57

4.4.6 Research Objective VI

The sixth objective of the study is determining if there are statistically significant

differences at the level of (0.05) among respondents' answers, which is attributed to living

place. Table 4.14 showed the result of ANOVA test. It can be noted that the p-value> 0.05 for

call center, service center, customer retention and CRM mean that there are no significant

differences among average respondents' answers attributed to living. However, the p-value<

0.05 for the service center has a score of 3.68 recorded for Hudaida governorate, which implies

that there is a significant difference among average respondents' answers regarding service

center.

Table 4.13

ANOVA Result of Living

Domain CC SC DM CRM CR

Capital 4.09 3.50 3.54 3.66 3.65

Sana'a 3.97 3.64 3.48 3.58 3.66
Aden 4.11 3.53 3.4 3.7 3.5
Taiz 4.09 3.68 3.54 3.68 3.63
Dhamar 4.03 3.53 3.15 3.63 3.30
Hudaida 4.09 3.68 3.56 3.67 3.50
Mean Ibb 4.00 3.29 3.52 3.57 3.43
Mukalla 4.18 3.60 3.67 3.78 3.60
Mahweet 4.04 2.10 4.13 3.62 3.72
Hajja 4.00 1.50 2.93 3.66 3.08
Dalea 3.85 2.40 3.50 3.60 3.60
Beyda 4.08 3.50 2.83 3.39 3.33
Amera 3.90 2.30 3.50 3.58 3.73
F-test
0.667 2.846 1.189 0.364 0.844
p-value
0.783 0.003 * 0.29 0.975 0.605
* Significant at the 0.05 level
 58

4.5 Summary

This chapter reviewed and discussed the findings of the research. Enhancing knowledge

about CRM and its effects on customer retention in Y-Telecoms was the primary objective of

this study. The CRM system components were found to be very important for customer

retention in Y-Telecoms. Significant differences were found among the respondents when they

evaluated the CRM system components.

The most important effects of CRM system component was data mining, service center

and then the call center with the lowest significance. This study showed that a combination of

call center and service center under the name of “customer service center” has an effective

CRM that will grow customer retention through the individual use of them.

The findings revealed that CRM system components have a significant effect on

customer retention. Practical implications were provided including theoretical implications and

managerial implications.
 59

CHAPTER V

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Findings

In this section of the study’s review and discussion of the significant findings for each

question are presented. The rationale is to ensure that the results are accurate and relevant to

the research. Three hundred and seventeen respondents participated in the survey. The

findings gathered in this research are an effort to provide answers to the research questions

and achieve the objectives of the study.

The analyzed data showed no relationship between customer satisfaction and

customer retention, it also revealed that call center has very low contribution (2.3%) to

customer retention comparing to the others variables. Sine both of call center and of service

center provide the same services with different methods the final model illustrates in figure

5.1.

Customer
Service Center
(CSC)
Customer
CRM Retention
(CR)
Data Mining
(DM)

Figure 5.1. Final Model

5.1.1 The Overall Assessment of Y-Telecoms’ CRM

This study found that Y-Telecoms respondents demonstrated an agreement that the call

center, as CRM components, has no contributed to predict a customer retention, which supports

the findings of previous scholars (Keiningham et al., 2006) whereas disagreed with (White,

2003; Agarwal et al., 2013). It is emphasized that the call center is one of the essential contact
 60

points with customers. Keiningham and others (2006) mentioned the importance of reducing

access time to get response and method of response. White (2003) said that greetings, endings,

communication skills and speaking clearly should be taken into account. He added that short

response time is the primary reason for customer satisfaction. Agarwal et al. (2013) pointed

out that greeting, voice quality, showing empathy, and honesty represent 35% of the total

performance of the call center. The study also differed from Bettesworth (2010) study, which

indicated that there was no relationship between two-way communications and CRM.

This study found that the service center as the second component of CRM came out

with results that consistent with the finding of Ivarsson (2013) study, which found that the two

key elements of services center are staff professionalism and problem-solving time, and that

these elements directly affect customer satisfaction. White (2003) indicated that service center

staff should be assessed from the customer's point of view: knowledge, problem-solving skills,

initiative, follow-up and giving importance to the customer's need without wasting his time.

Saadat and Nas (2013) and Malik (2015) found that the agents’ knowledge and solving

customers’ problems with flexibility are the main characteristics of the service center in cellular

industry in Pakistan. Rootman (2006) found a positive relationship between staff knowledge

and CRM. Moreover, Sheehan (2007) found that the basic criteria for service center support

relate to the number of problems resolved from the first time and the time of problem

resolution.

In this study, it was also found that the result of data mining was consistent with many

previous studies. Abu Ellaban (2013) found that data mining is used to assist the enterprise in

solving business problems and providing suitable products to customers through appropriate

offers. Gupta and Aggarwal (2012) pointed out the importance of data mining in obtaining

customer information, analyzing customer's behavior and targeting individually to meet their

need. He also referred to the importance of data mining in developing business relationships
 61

between the organization and the customer by giving customers more incentives that increase

their level of loyalty. This result is also consistent with the study carried out by Ranjan (2007).

Many studies have been able to prove that through data mining, attractive offers can be

provided to the customers based on the products they are familiar with. They have also proved

that data mining is responsible for understanding the customers' behavior and communicating

with them to provide flexible and advanced services (Jenabi & Mirroshandel, 2014; Camilovic,

2008; Lin and Xu, 2009; Mehregan & Samizadeh, 2012). Moreover, this study confirms the

findings in previous data mining studies, which pointed out that providing the customer with

easy access to necessary customer information on time, will increase the customer satisfaction

and loyalty (Linoff & Berry, 2011; Farooqi & Raza, 2012).

In general, the results can be summarized that the components of CRM mentioned in

this study have contributed to the customer retention. As one of the CRM system components,

the call center showed a very low relation to customer retention. The relative weight of call

center was 78.6%, which reflects the level of its role, which is attributed to the communication

skills and kindness of the call center staff. The service center also showed a strong relation to

customer retention, which disagrees the findings of the previous study by Ali and others (2010)

whereas agreeing with a study conducted with Azzam (2014). The relative weight 71.4% is

attributed to the knowledge of staff about services delivery, solving problems within acceptable

time and flexibility in meeting the customers’ needs. The relation of data mining with customer

retention is consistent with Ng & Liu (2000) and Chu, et al., (2007) studies. The relative weight

rate of 68.6% is described as a medium relationship. This decrease in data mining relative

weight compared to the two previous components is attributed to the limited offers and weak

individual marketing, which target each customer alone.

 62

5.1.2 Intervening Effects

The results indicated that the customer satisfaction has a correlation with two

components of CRM: the call center and the service center. These results are consistent with

the finding by Bennington, Cummane, and Conn (2000), which indicated that customers have

little high satisfaction levels with call center services. Moreover, Jaiswal (2008) indicated that

the customer orientation in assessing service performance is behind the customer satisfaction

in most call centers. Azzam (2014) pointed out that the service center, as physical environment,

employee’s behavior and solving customer problems in the service industry, is an important

part of CRM, which can leave a good impression on customers, and finally affects their

satisfaction positively. However, there is no correlation with data mining, which supports the

study carried out by Baumann, Elliott, and Burton (2012). They found that the customer

satisfaction cannot always be realized through data mining.

The result revealed that the customer satisfaction has no significant relationship with

customer retention. This result supports the findings by Reichheld (1993), Gierl (1993) (1993)

and Christopher (1996), who figured out that the customer satisfaction has almost nothing to

do with raising the customer retention when other factors are considered. Moreover, this result

is similar to the result of Qadri and Khan (2014), who found that the customer satisfaction is

close to zero, and this means it is not needful for the customer retention.

5.1.3 Contribution to Practice

The theoretical objective of this study was to measure the influence of CRM on

customer retention based on the review of existing literature. This study showed the benefits

that might be gained through an efficient CRM implementation. Call center, service center, and

data mining affect customer retention positively. Proper implementation of CRM will increase

customer retention. Customer satisfaction also has no relationship with customer retention.
 63

Whereas call center showed a slight significance, the CRM system components represented by

the service center and data mining have a significant impact on customer retention. The results

of this study showed that a combination of call center and service center has an effective CRM

that will grow customer retention through using them individually.

The findings of this study will help Y-Telecoms distinguish the CRM factors, which

should be emphasized when call center, service center, and data mining characteristics are used

to increase customer retention. As supported by call center, service center, and data mining

characteristics to improve customer retention, the CRM should focus on these factors: quality,

delivery, the speed of service and flexibility.

This study also has several managerial implications. The management should understand

the suitable conditions to deploy CRM application to enhance customer retention. The results

also showed the importance of customer retention in realizing the benefits of CRM

applications, which can be helpful to managers assessing or executing CRM applications.

Organizations with greater relation and collaboration with clients are more probable to take

advantage of CRM applications regarding customer retention. To increase companies and staff

contributions to successful CRM, training programs with CRM system components are

essential for employees who interact with customers daily, particularly the call center and

service center staff who regularly interact with customers. The programs should convey the

importance and nature of a CRM orientation. Preparing programs to train staff is crucial

because clients’ expectations are always changing.

5.2 Conclusions

After reviewing the results of the analysis, the study showed that there was an

agreement among the respondents on the contribution of CRM system components in achieving

customer retention. As one of the CRM system components, the all center showed a slight
 64

significant impact on customer retention. However, service center and data mining showed

medium and high significant impact respectively. Regarding intervening the variable of

“customer satisfaction”, the study showed that there was no correlation with customer

satisfaction. The study also revealed that there were no statistically significant variances among

respondents' answers about achieving customer retention through CRM system components

due to age, gender, academic qualification, profession, line type, charging, income and place

of residence.

5.3 Recommendations

The study recommends a continuous improvement of the call center representatives in

communication skills through training courses and workshops. The time the caller stays in the

queue or waiting room before answering his call should be minimized. It is also necessary to

update IVR (Interactive Voice Response) announcement periodically to prevent monotony and

boredom when the caller listens to them in waiting situations. It is also recommended to expand

the existence telephony system with redundancy to hold more callers simultaneously and

grantee continuity in case of failure.

Activating the latest feature such as customer call back and customer request follows

up. The study also recommends conducting a survey to know the positive and negative sides

of the operation, which will lead to enhancing the positive and fixing the negative. Rotation

policy for call center staff to work in another department is necessary, as a regular job needs to

be constantly renewed. The company should consider the coordination between frontline

employees and back office to achieve customer request timely and from the first time.

Customer service should contact the customer after his request or problem is fulfilled.

The study also recommends updating customer data on a regular basis and expanding

customer data to include the most accurate details to be used later to deliver products and
 65

services that meet their requirements. Moreover, the company should work on analyzing the

customer data to provide more services and products that satisfy the needs of the customer. The

company should also employ these data in direct marketing campaigns. The customer data

should be utilized to develop a customer reward policy such as rewarding repurchase

customers. It is also necessary to find out the suitable mechanisms for customers care through

a periodic survey to see the problems they face and the services they want to work on.

Regarding customer retention, the study recommends focusing on meeting the

customer’s expectation in terms of price and quality by offering more benefits to them. The

study further recommends increasing customer retention. It is important to manage customer

needs continuously. In this regard, the study suggests taking care of the customer in both call

center and service center to receive complaints and suggestions, which should be analyzed to

make the necessary actions. Lastly, the study recommends working on customer loyalty

through a loyalty program, because the loyal customer will stay with the company and increase

its profits.

5.4 Direction for Future Research

Based on this study and the outcomes that have been gained, several directions for

future of CRM role can be suggested. Since the Internet is one of the customer touch points,

testing the impact of the Internet on customer retention can be a subject for future research.

Another topic for future research could be the role of data mining in supporting marketing

programs for telecoms.

CRM consists of three elements: people, process, and technology. Therefore, future

studies could focus on the role of human and process elements in achieving customer retention.

Further studies should also focus more on the effectiveness of using CRM to increase sales and

reduce the cost.

 66

REFERENCES

Abdullateef, A. O., & Salleh, S. M. (2013). Does customer relationship management

influence call center quality performance? An empirical industry analysis. Total
Quality Management & Business Excellence, 24(9/10), 1035-1045.

Abu Ellaban, M. A. (2013). The role of data mining technology in building marketing and
customer relationship management (CRM) for telecommunication industry.
(Unpublished Master thesis), Islamic University, Gaza. Retrieved April 24, 2017,
from http://library.iugaza.edu.ps/thesis/107764.pdf

Afèche, P., Araghi, M., & Baron, O. (2015). Customer acquisition, retention, and queueing-
related service quality: Optimal advertising, staffing, and priorities for a call center.
Paper submitted to M&SOM.

Agarwal, S., Singh, D., & Thakur, K. (2013). Impact of service Quality dimensions towards
customer satisfaction in Indian call centers. Pacific Business Review International,
6(1), 51-64.

Ahmed, T. (2009). Electronic customer relationship management in online banking.

(Unpublished Master thesis). Lulea University of technology, Iran. Retrieved March
21, 2017, from
http://www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:1018049/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Ali, J. F., Ali, I., ur Rehman, K., Yilmaz, A. K., Safwan, N., & Afzal, H. (2010).
Determinants of consumer retention in cellular industry of Pakistan. African Journal
of Business Management, 4(12), 2402-2408. Retrieved from
http://www.academicjournals.org/AJBM

Almana, A. M., Aksoy, M. S., & Alzahrani, R. (2014). A survey on data mining techniques in
customer churn analysis for telecom industry. Journal of Engineering Research and
Applications, 4(5), 165-171.

Almotairi, M. (2008). CRM success factors taxonomy. Paper presented at the European and
Mediterranean conference on information systems 2008 (EMCIS2008). Dubai.
Retrieved from
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.598.8210&rep=rep1&type
=pdf
 67

Ang, L., & Buttle, F. (2006). Customer retention management processes: A quantitative
study. European journal of marketing, 40(1/2), 83-99.

Arab, F., Selamat, H., Ibrahim, S., & Zamani, M. (2010). A survey of success factors for
CRM. Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science
2010, Vol II, pp. 20-22. San Francisco.

Azzam, A. (2014). The impact of customer relationship management on customer satisfaction

in the banking industry: A Case of Jordan. European Journal of Business and
Management, 6(32), 99-112.

Baumann, C., Elliott, G., & Burton, S. (2012). Modeling customer satisfaction and loyalty:
survey data versus data mining. Journal of services marketing, 26(3), 148-157.

Bennington, L., Cummane, J., & Conn, P. (2000). Customer satisfaction and call centers: an
Australian study. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 11(2), 162-
173.

Bettesworth, F. (2010). Factors influencing performance of call center agents: A study of a

south african outsourced call center. (Doctoral dissertation) University of Pretoria,
South Africa. Retrieved from https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/23840

Camilovic, D. (2008). Data mining and CRM in telecommunications. Serbian Journal of

Management, 3(1), 61-72.

Central Bureau of Statistics. (2012). Government: 14 million mobile subscribers in Yemen.

Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http://www.almotamar.net/news/108952.htm

Chen, I. J., & Popovich, K. (2003). Understanding customer relationship management (CRM)
People, process, and technology. Business process management journal, 9(5), 672-
688.

Cheruiyot, B. K. (2014). The effects of customer relationship management practices in

enhancing customer satisfaction in the telecommunication industry. (Doctoral
dissertation, Kisii University). Retrieved from
http://41.89.196.6:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/186

Chitra, K., & Subashini, B. (2011). Customer retention in banking sector using predictive
data mining technique. Paper presented at ICIT 2011: The 5th International
Conference on Information Technology. Amman, Jordan: Alzaytoonah University.
 68

Retrieved from http://www.zuj.edu.jo/conferences/icit11/paperlist/papers/E-

Commerce/612_Chitra.pdf

Christopher, M. (1996). From brand values to customer value. Journal of Marketing

Practice: applied marketing science, 2(1), 55-66.

Chu, B. H., Tsai, M. S., & Ho, C. S. (2007). Toward a hybrid data mining model for
customer retention. Knowledge-Based Systems, 20(8), 703-718.

Ck, N. (2015). Customer relationship management and customer retention in the Amica
Restaurant at Valmet Oy Ltd. (Master thesis, JAMK University of Applies Sciences).
Retrieved January 17, 2017, from
https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/103213/Nischal_final.pdf?sequence=1

Dean, A. M. (2002). Service quality in call centres: implications for customer loyalty.
Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 12(6), 414-423.

Díaz, G. R. (2017). The influence of satisfaction on customer retention in mobile phone

market. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 36(May), 75-85.

Doshi, M. P. (2016). Customer satisfaction measurement in paint industry: A case study of

asian paints. International Journal of Applied and Pure Science and Agriculture
(IJAPSA), 12(2), 104-113.

Ennew, C. T., & Binks, M. R. (1996). The impact of service quality and service
characteristics on customer retention: Small businesses and their banks in the UK1.
British Journal of Management, 7(3), 219-230.

Farooqi, M., & Raza, K. (2012). A Comprehensive study of CRM through data mining
techniques. CoRR, 1205.1126. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.1126

Feng Jr, Y., & Zhang, X. (2009). The impact of customer relationship marketing tactics on
customer loyalty within Swedish mobile telecommunication industry. (Master’s thesis,
Halmstad University). Retrieved March 25, 2017, from
http://www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2%3A239882/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Fornell, C. (1992). A national customer satisfaction barometer: The Swedish experience.

Journal of Marketing, 56(1), 6-21.

Fritzgerald, J. (2007, July 5). 5 Crucial factors in call center management. Retrieved January
11, 2017, from http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Janine_Fritzgerald/112371
 69

Galbreath, J., & Rogers, T. (1999). Customer relationship leadership: a leadership and
motivation model for the twenty-first century business. The TQM magazine, 11(3),
161-171.

Gefen, D., & Ridings, C. M. (2002). Implementation team responsiveness and user evaluation
of customer relationship management: A quasi-experimental design study of social
exchange theory. Journal of management information systems, 19(1), 47-69.

Gerpott, T. J., Rams, W., & Schindler, A. (2001). Customer retention, loyalty, and
satisfaction in the german mobile cellular telecommunications market.
Telecommunications policy, 25(4), 249-269.

Ghavami, A., & Olyaei, A. (2006). The impact of CRM on customer retention. (Unpublished
Master thesis). Lulea University of technology, Iran. Retrieved March 22, 2017, from
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1023082/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Ghusain, L. B. (2014). The role of customer relationship management (CRM) Programs in

Achieving Competitive Advantage for in Fusion Company for internet services and
communication systems. (Unpublished Master thesis). Islamic University, Gaza.
Retrieved October 24, 2016, from http://library.iugaza.edu.ps/thesis/113063.pdf

Gierl, H. (1993). Dere satisfied customers and brands changer (satisfied customer as brand
switchers). Absatzwirtschaft, 37(2), 90-94.

Grant, G. B., & Anderson, G. (2002). Customer Relationship Management: A Vision for
Higher Education. In R. N. Katz (Ed.), Web Portals and Higher
Education:Technologies to Make IT Personal (pp. 23-32). EDUCAUSE and
NACUBO. Retrieved from https://library.educause.edu/.../web-portals-and-higher-
education- technologies-to-make-it-personal

Guan, J., Barker, R. M., Faulds, D. J., & Gohmann, S. F. (2004). Sales force automation
acceptance: An exploratory study of the role of job experience. Journal of Applied
Business Research (JABR), 20(3), 103-114.

Gupta, G., & Aggarwal, H. (2012). Improving customer relationship management using data
mining. International Journal of Machine Learning and Computing, 2(6), 874.

Herrmann, A. H. (2000). Customer satisfaction does not always guarantee more profit.
Harvard Business manager, 1, 45-55.
 70

Ivarsson, J. (2013). Quality management for IT support services - A case study of an IT

helpdesk service. (Unpublished master's thesis). Chalmers University of Technology.

Jaiswal, A. K. (2008). Customer satisfaction and service quality measurement in Indian call
centres. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 18(4), 405-416.

Jenabi, G., & Mirroshandel, S. A. (2014). Using data mining techniques for improving
customer relationship management. European Online Journal of Natural and Social
Sciences, 2(3), 3143-3149.

Johansson, J., & Sparredal, J. (2005). CRM in e-Business (Master Thesis.Lulea Universityof
Technology, Lulea). Retrieved from http://epubl.luth.se/1404-5508/2005/025/LTU-
SHU-EX-05025-SE.pdf

Kadiyala, S. S., & Srivastava, A. (2011). Data mining For customer relationship
management. International Business & Economics Research Journal (IBER), 1(6),
61-70.

Keiningham, T. L., Aksoy, L., Andreassen, T. W., Cooil, B., & Wahren, B. J. (2006). Call
center satisfaction and customer retention in a co-branded service context. Managing
Service Quality: An International Journal, 16(3), 269-289.

Klenke, M. (2002). Blueprint for call center success: Building an effective organizational
structure and team environment. Retrieved March 12, 2017, from
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.abcall.ir/Images/
files/Call%2520Center%2520Success.pdf

Knapp, D. (2014). A guide to customer service skills for the service desk professional. Nelson
Education.

Kordalipoor, M., Shahhosseini, R., & Hamidi, K. (2015). A literature review on customer
relationship management and critical success factors. Applied mathematics in
Engineering, Management and Technology, 3(3), 401-411.

Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2010). Principles of Marketing. Pearson Education.

Kumaran, K. (2015). Mobile service quality effects on customer satisfaction and business
performance in Salem. GJRA, 4(1), 2277-8160.

Lin, J., & Xu, X. (2009). A Novel model for global customer retention using datamining
technology. In J. Ponce, & A. Karahoca (Eds.), Data Mining and Knowledge
 71

Discovery in Real Life Applications (pp. 251-264). I-Tech Education and Publishing.
Retrieved from
http://www.intechopen.com/books/data_mining_and_knowledge_discovery_in_real_l
ife_applications/a_novel_

Linoff, G. S., & Berry, M. J. (2011). Data mining techniques: for marketing, sales, and
customer relationship management. John Wiley & Sons.

Luan, J. (2002). Data mining and its applications in higher education. New directions for
institutional research, 113, 17-36.

Malik, G. (2015). Impact of customer relationship management on customer loyalty and

customer retention with reference to automobile sector. University Journal of
Research, 1(1), 70-90. Retrieved from www.ganpatuniversity.ac.in

Marasabessy, F. D., Suhud, U., & Rizan, M. (2014). Among subscribers of two biggest
telecommunication providers in Indonesia: What factors are involved in customer
retention. European Journal of Business and Management, 26(6), 168-180.

Maxham, J. G. (2001). Service recovery's influence on consumer satisfaction, positive word-

of-mouth, and purchase intentions. Journal of business research, 54(1), 11-24.

Mehregan, S., & Samizadeh, R. (2012). Customer Retention Based on the Number of
Purchase: A Data Mining Approach. International Journal of Management and
Business Research, 2(1), 41-50.

Mendoza, L. E., Marius, A., Pérez, M., & Grimán, A. C. (2007). Critical success factors for a
Customer Relationship Management strategy. Information and software technology,
49(8), 913-945.

Mitel. (2014). Call recording for customer retention and superior service. Retrieved May
2016, from http://www.mitel.com/sites/default/files/Call-Recording-for-Customer-
Retention_WP_EN.pdf

National Information Center. (2013). Profile, Telecommunications operators in the Republic

of Yemen. Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http://www.yemen
nic.info/sectors/information/

Nejad, M. B., Nejad, E. B., & Karami, A. (2012). Using Data mining Techniques to increase
efficiency of Customer Relationship management process. Research Journal of
Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology, 4(23), 5010-5015.
 72

Ng, K., & Liu, H. (2000). Customer retention via data mining. Artificial Intelligence Review,
14(6), 569-590.

Ngai, E. W., Xiu, L., & Chau, D. C. (2009). Application of data mining techniques in
customer relationship management: A literature review and classification. Expert
systems with applications, 36(2), 2592-2602.

Nili, A. (2011). The Impact of CRM on Customer Retention in Electronic Banking: Case of
Iranian Banks. (Unpublished Master thesis). Lulea University of technology, Iran.
Retrieved from http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1024082/FULLTEXT02

Nwankwo, S. I., & Ajemunigbohun, S. S. (2013). Customer relationship management and

customer retention: empirical Assessment from Nigeria's Insurance Industry. Business
and Economics Journal, 4(2).

Parahoo, K. (2006). Nursing Research: principles, process and issues (2 ed.). Houndmills:
Palgrave Macmillan.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A conceptual model of service
quality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 41-50.

Peelen, E., van Montfort, K., Beltman, R., & Klerkx, A. (2009). An empirical study into the
foundations of CRM success. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 17(6), 453-471.

Peighambari, K. (2007). Developing and testing a model for explaining customer retention
formation: Case of Iranian mobile telecommunication services. (Master’s thesis,
Lulea University of Technology) Iran. Retrieved from http://epubl.ltu.se/1653-
0187/2007/066/LTU-PB-EX-07066-SE.pdf

Petersen, R. A. (1994). A meta-analysis of Cronbach's coefficient alpha. Journal of consumer

research, 21(2), 381-391.

Postpaid mobile phone. (2016, August). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved
March 23, 2017, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postpaid_mobile_phone&oldid=73529198
3

Prepay mobile phone. (2017, February 12). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved
March 23, 2017, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Postpaid_mobile_phone&oldid=77946337
8
 73

Pride, W. M., & Ferrell, O. C. (2016). Foundations of marketing. Nelson Education.

Qadri, U. A., & Khan, M. M. (2014). Factors Affecting On Customer Retention: A Case
Study of Cellular Industry of Pakistan. International Journal of Recent Research in
Commerce Economics and Management (IJRRCEM), 1(1), 1-22.

Raab, G., Ajami, R. A., Gargeya, V. B., & Goddard, M. G. (2012). Customer Relationship
Management: A Global Perspective. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

Ranjan, J. (2007). Applications of data mining techniques in pharmaceutical industry.

Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology, 3(4), 61-67.

Rasooli, P. (2006). Knowledge management in call centers. (Unpublished Master thesis).

Lulea University of technology, Iran. Retrieved from http://www.diva
portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1025024/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Reichheld, F. F. (1993). Loyalty-based management. Harvard business review, 71(2), 64-73.

Roberts-Lombard, M. (2011). Customer retention through customer relationship

management: The exploration of two-way communication and conflict
handling. African journal of business management, 5(9), 3487.

Robinson, G., & Morley, C. (2006). Call center management: responsibilities and
performance. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 17(3), 284-300.

Robinson, J. P., & Shaver, P. R. (1973). Measures of social psychological attitudes. Survey
Research Center, Institute for Social Research.

Rootman, C. (2006). The influence of customer relationship management on the service

quality of banks (Doctoral dissertation, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University).

Rouse, M. (2014a). Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Retrieved February 15,

2017, from SearchDataCenter [Internet]:
http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/definition/CRM

Rouse, M. (2014b). What is ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library)? Retrieved

February 15, 2017, from SearchDataCenter [Internet]:
http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/definition/ITIL

Rumburg, J. (2014, May). Call Center Performance Best Practices. Retrieved February 3,
2017, from https://www.metricnet.com/call-center-performance-best-practices
 74

Saadat, N., & Nas, Z. (2013). Impact of customer relationship on customer loyalty in cellular
industry: evidence from KPK, Pakistan. Asian Journal of Management Sciences and
Education (AJMSE), 2(3), 20-30.

Sadek, H., Youssef, A., Ghoneim, A., & Tantawi, P. (2012). Measuring customer
relationship management (CRM) and its relationship with customer satisfaction in the
Egyptian Banking Sector. Paper presented at the European, Mediterranean & Middle
Eastern Conference on Information Systems 2011 (EMCIS2011). Athens, Greece:
Brunel University. Retrieved February 15, 2017, from
http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/8459

Sample Size Table. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2017, from http://research-advisors.com/

Sarkindaji, B. D., bin Hashim, N. A., & Abdullateef, A. O. (2013). Does Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) Implementation Influence the Performance of
Telecommunication Services: Evidence from Nigeria? UUM Repository. Retrieved
February 15, 2017, from http://repo.uum.edu.my/16354/1/10.pdf

Seifert, J. W. (2006). Data mining: An overview. In D. D. Pegarkov (Ed.), National Security

Issues (pp. 201–217). Haupauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Sekaran, U. (2003). Research Method for business: A skill building approach. John Wiley &
Sons.

Service desk. (2017, January 11). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27,
2017, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Service_desk_(ITSM)&oldid=759552114

Shaw, M. J., Subramaniam, C., Tan, G. W., & Welge, M. E. (2001). Knowledge management
and data mining for marketing. Decision support systems, 1, 127-137.

Sheehan, M. C. (2007). Service on the Front Line: The IT Help Desk in Higher Education
(Research Report). Boulder: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. Retrieved
from http://www.educause.edu/ecar

Singh, H. (2006). The importance of customer satisfaction in relation to customer loyalty and
retention. Academy of Marketing Science, 7, 193-225.

So, S. (2007). An Empirical Analysis on the operational Efficiency of CRM call centers in
Korea. International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, 7(12), 171-
178.
 75

Soiferman, L. K. (2010). Compare and Contrast Inductive and Deductive Research

Approaches. Online Submission.

Tang, X., & Todo, Y. (2013). A Study of Service Desk Setup in Implementing IT Service
Management in Enterprises. Technology and Investment, 4(3), 190-196.
doi:10.4236/ti.2013.43022

Tauni, S., Khan, R. I., Durrani, M. K., & Aslam, S. (2014). Impact of Customer Relationship
Management on Customer Retention in the Telecom Industry of Pakistan. Industrial
Engineering Letters, 4(10), 54-59.

Test Validity. (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2017, from College Board-Research:
https://research.collegeboard.org/services/aces/validity/handbook/test-validity

Thearling, K. (1999). An introduction to data mining. Direct Marketing Magazine, 28-31.

Van Dun, Z., Bloemer, J., & Henseler, J. (2011). Perceived customer contact center quality:
conceptual foundation and scale development. The Service Industries Journal, 31(8),
1347-1363.

Viljoen, M., Bennett, J. A., Berndt, A. D., & Van Zyl, C. R. (2005). The use of technology in
customer relationship management (CRM). Acta Commercii, 5(1), 106-116.

Wah, Y. B., Ismail, N. H., & Fong, S. (2011). Predicting car purchase intent using data
mining approach. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Fuzzy
Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD) 2011. 3, pp. 1994-1999. Shanghai: IEEE.

Wangondu, G. N. (2013). Effect of Customer Relationship Management Systems on Customer

Retention in Life Insurance Companies in Kenya: A Case Study of British American
Insurance Company (k) ltd. (Doctoral dissertation, Kenyatta University, Kenya).
Retrieved February 25, 2017, from http://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/7116

White, C. (2003). An investigation into the core competencies of an ideal call center agent.
(Master’s thesis). University of Pretoria, South Africa. Retrieved March 25, 2017,
from_http://www.repository.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/handle/2263/22966/00dissertat
ion.pdf?sequence

Why Data mining in CRM. (2011, February). Retrieved March 16, 2017, from Alsys on
CRM: https://alsysoncrm.wordpress.com/
 76

Wilkin, C. J. (2009). Customer Service. The County of Los Angeles Department of Human
Resources. Retrieved January 14, 2017, from
http://hr.lacounty.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2015/09/CustomerServiceGuide20091208.p
df

Wilson, J. (2014). Essentials of business research: A guide to doing your research project.

Sage.

Y-Telecoms. (2014). The new Y-Telecoms company structures. Retrieved December 2015,

from Human Resources Department

Y-Telecoms. (2016). Revenue and churn rate monthly report. MIS department/IN section.

Zaheeruddin, M. (2015). Customer retention management and strategies with reference to

Ford Motors. The International Journal of Business & Management, 3(1), 67-73.

Zineldin, M. (2006). The royalty of loyalty: CRM, quality and retention. Journal of consumer
marketing, 23(7), 430-437.
 77

APPENDIX A: English Version of Questionnaire

References Related to the Questions in the Questionnaire

Components Items References Questionnaire

My call quickly Handled.
Very courteous
Keiningham et al.
Call (2006); Van Dun et The information I receive is consistent, even when I
Center al. (2011); Agarwal et talk to another employee.
al. (2013) Providing service at promised time
The employee asks me whether my question has been
Customer answered.
Relationship The employees are friendly.
Management Malik (2015); Employees are never too busy to answer requests.
(CRM) Service Parasuraman et al. Employees handle my complaints immediately.
Components Center (1985); Saadat & Nas The employees have the knowledge to answer my
(2013) questions.
Find flexibility by meeting your needs.
Reaching all previous and current information
Data Azzam (2014); regarding your participation if requested.
Mining Ghusain (2014) Offers suitable for your need.
Direct contact for marketing purpose.
I am satisfied with the overall service quality offered
Feng Jr & Zhang by this operator.
I am satisfied with the professional competence of this
(2009); Qadri &
Customer Satisfaction operator.
Khan (2014); I am satisfied with the performance of the frontline
employees of this operator.
Maxham (2001)
I am comfortable with the relationship with this
operator.
I am happy with the low charges of the calls.
Process of Complaints simple.
Qadri & Khan I plan to continue my relationship with my mobile
(2014); Marasabessy operators in future.
Customer Retention If I needed mobile services now, my mobile operator
et al. (2014); would be my first choice.
Peighambari (2007) The company transmits individualized marketing
messages to you.
The company tries to establish a long-term
relationship with you.
 ‫‪78‬‬

‫‪APPENDIX B: Arabic Version of Questionnaire‬‬

‫أوالً‪ :‬البيانات الشخصية‬

‫الرجاء وضع عالمة أمام اإلجابة المناسبة‪.‬‬

‫أنثى‬ ‫ذكر‬ ‫الجنس‬ ‫‪-‬‬

‫‪ 03‬وأقل من ‪ 03‬سنة‬ ‫أقل من ‪ 03‬سنة‬ ‫العمر‬ ‫‪-‬‬

‫‪ 03‬سنة فأكبر‬ ‫‪ 03‬وأقل من ‪ 03‬سنة‬

‫دبلوم‬ ‫ثانوية عامة فما دون‬ ‫المؤهل العلمي‬ ‫‪-‬‬

‫ماجستير فأكثر‬ ‫بكالوريوس‬

‫مكان السكن‬ ‫‪-‬‬

‫فوترة‬ ‫مسبق الدفع‬ ‫نوع الخط‬ ‫‪-‬‬

‫أكثر‬ ‫مرتين في الشهر‬ ‫مرة في الشهر‬ ‫عدد مرات التعبئة‬ ‫‪-‬‬

‫أكثر من ‪ 0333‬ريال وأقل من ‪ 033333‬ريال‬ ‫‪ 03333‬ريال أو أقل‬ ‫الدخل الشهري‬ ‫‪-‬‬

‫أكثر من ‪ 033333‬ريال‬

‫موظف قطاع خاص‬ ‫موظف قطاع عام‬ ‫المهنة‬ ‫‪-‬‬

‫ال أعمل‬ ‫أخرى‬

 ‫‪79‬‬

‫ثانيا ‪:‬مكونات إدارة عالقة العمالء‬

‫غير‬
‫موافق‬
‫موافق‬ ‫غير‬
‫محايد‬ ‫موافق‬ ‫بدرجة‬ ‫الفقرة‬
‫بدرجة‬ ‫موافق‬
‫كبيرة‬
‫كبيرة‬
‫أوالَ‪ :‬مركز االتصال‬
‫يتم الرد على اتصالك سريعا‪.‬‬
‫يقوم موظف مركز االتصال بالرد عليك بطريقة مهذبة‪.‬‬
‫يتم تزويدك بمعلومات صحيحة وثابتة وال تتغير بتغير موظف مركز الخدمة‬
‫يتم تزويدك بالخدمة المطلوبة في الوقت المحدد‬
‫يتأكد الموظف من المتصل عند نهاية المكالمة بأنه قد تم االستجابة لطلبه‪.‬‬
‫ثانياَ‪ :‬مركز الخدمة‬
‫موظف مركز الخدمة مرحب ومتعاون‬
‫يتم االستجابة للطلب المقدم دون االنشغال بأعمال أخرى‬
‫يتم حل المشكلة الموجودة لديك في أسرع وقت‪.‬‬
‫موظف مركز الخدمة على معرفة تامة بطبيعة الخدمة المقدمة لك‪.‬‬
‫تجد مرونة من خالل تلبية الشركة الحتياجاتك‬
‫ثالثاَ‪ :‬التنقيب عن البيانات‬
‫بإمكانك الوصول إلى معلومات الحالية والسابقة المتعلق بالخدمة والرصيد المتاح‬
‫تشعر بأن العروض المقدمة لك مناسبة الحتياجك‬
‫تقوم الشركة باالتصال المباشر عليك لتسويق منتجاتها وخدماتها‬
‫رابعاَ‪ :‬رضا الزبون‬
‫أنا راضي عن جودة الخدمات المقدمة من قبل الشركة بشكل عامة‬
‫أنا راضي عن الكفاءة المهنية لهذا الشركة‪.‬‬
‫أنا راضي عن أداء الموظفين الذين أتعامل معهم‬
‫أشعر بارتياح عن عالقتي بالشركة‬
‫خامساَ‪ :‬االحتفاظ بالزبون‬
‫أنا سعيد بكلفة المكالمات الحالية‬
‫يتم التجاوب مع الشكاوى المقدمة بسرعة وسهولة‬
‫أنوي االستمرار مع الشركة الحالية وال أنوي تغييرها‬
‫إذا خيرت بين شركات خدمات المحمول (الجوال) فإن شركتك الحالية هي خيارك األول‬
‫تقوم الشركة باالتصال المباشر عليك لتسويق منتجاتها وخدماتها‪.‬‬
‫تعمل الشركة على إقامة عالقة طويلة األجل معك من خالل الخدمات المقدمة لك‬

‫شكرا لتعاونكم‬