Automated service quality and its behavioural consequences in CRM Environment: A structural equation modeling and causal loop diagramming approach

Information technology induced communications (ICTs) have revolutionized the operational aspects of service sector and have triggered a perceptual shift in service quality as rapid dis-intermediation has changed the access-mode of services on part of the consumers. ICT-enabled services further stimulated the perception of automated service quality with renewed dimensions and there subsequent significance to influence the behavioural outcomes of the consumers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has emerged as an offshoot to technological breakthrough as it ensured service-encapsulation by integrating people, process and technology. This paper attempts to explore the relationship between automated service quality and its behavioural consequences in a relatively novel business-philosophy – CRM. The study has been conducted on the largest public sector bank of India - State bank of India (SBI) at Kolkata which has successfully completed its decade-long operational automation in the year 2008. The study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to justify the proposed model construct and causal loop diagramming (CLD) to depict the negative and positive linkages between the variables.