Impact of customer relationship management implementation on service operations management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of key strategic tools for companies to enhance their relationship with customers. There is a significant impact of CRM implementation on customer services through improvement of customer service efficiency and effectiveness. Nevertheless, impact of CRM implementation on service operations management has not been addressed in literature. In this paper, the comprehensive review of marketing, sales, information technology and service operations management literature is conducted focusing on CRM implementation and service encounter. The conceptual model of adapted technology-facilitated service encounter is proposed from literature review and in depth study of two models which are service encounter triad and technology in service encounter model. The proposed model indicates that service culture, empowerment, control system, contact personnel selection, training and ethical climate are the service components impacted by CRM implementation. In additional, an analysis of CRM critical success factors is conducted together with the impacted components. The result indicates that service culture and contact personnel training are the two components which should be focused by service operations manager in order to ensure the success of CRM implementation and the fast return on CRM investment. Further discussion is noted to suggest additional components which should be considered as well as the future research study.