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Multidimensional appraisal of customer relationship management: integrating balanced scorecard and multi criteria decision making approaches

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Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive integrative framework for measuring the performance of customer relationship management (CRM) system based on a detailed empirical study of 32 Iranian internet service provider (ISP) firms. At first, by an extensive literature review and experts who have real practical experiences in the field of CRM, appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs) based on four perspectives of balanced scorecard have been extracted. Then, due to the interdependency and feedback among these KPIs, multiple criteria decision making techniques are used to evaluate CRM performance. Specifically, this study first applies the decision making trial and evaluation laboratory approach to determine the interrelated relationships among criteria, and to find the crucial central and influential factors. Then, the analytical network process method is used to obtain the criterion weights. Finally, according to these previous results, the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution method is adopted to analyze the CRM performance of 32 Iranian ISP firms. The results of this study illustrated that learning and growth is the most crucial influential perspective and it would influence on the other perspectives much more. Furthermore, indicators including organization capital, human capital, customer retention process, customer perceived value, and customer expansion process play an essential role in succeeding of CRM. The results of this study can provide a comprehensive insight for managers into discerning how and through which mechanisms CRM can create merits for the organizations.

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Notes

  1. In this section, a questionnaire including an integer score ranging from 1 to 5 (1-lowest level, 5-highest level) was designed for each perspective and indictor in order to rank 32 ISP firms. Then, twelve experts that have been working in ICT sector for many years filled these questioners for each 32 company. After, gathering and averaging all experts’ opinions, the results were considered as TOPSIS input.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Industrial Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 11365–4563, Tehran, Iran

    Abbas Keramati & Fatemeh Shapouri

Authors
  1. Abbas Keramati
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  2. Fatemeh Shapouri
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Correspondence to Abbas Keramati.

Appendices: A brief summary of questionnaires

Appendices: A brief summary of questionnaires

1.1 Appendix 1: Instructions for filling out the questionnaire

The present questionnaires are designed to assess the impact of CRM on organizational performance based on the indicators listed in Table 13. In front of each index, elements of each factor are described. Your contributions will help to enrich the results.

Table 13 Description and references of KPIs with respect to CRM
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1.2 Appendix 2: DEMATEL questionnaires

1.2.1 Comparison of the impact of the indicators

With respect to your experience in implementing CRM, please compare the impact of the 11 criterions using 0–4 integer score ranging from 1, 2, 3, and 4, representing ‘No influence (0),’ ‘Low influence (1),’ ‘Medium influence (2),’ ‘High influence (3),’ and ‘Very high influence (4),’ respectively. [Please fill out the compared level of 11 criterions in the following table (Table 14)].

For example, the impact of customer satisfaction on the customer loyalty is “Very high”, therefore 4 is filled out in the box (Table 15).

Table 14 DEMATEL questionnaire for indicators
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Table 15 An example of filled questionnaire
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1.2.2 Comparison of the impact of the perspectives

With respect to your experience in implementing CRM, please compare the impact of the 4 perspectives using 0-4 integer score ranging from, 1, 2, 3, and 4, representing ‘No influence (0),’ ‘Low influence (1),’ ‘Medium influence (2),’ ‘High influence (3),’ and ‘Very high influence (4),’ respectively. (Please fill out the compared level of 4 perspectives in the following table) (Table 16).

Table 16 DEMATEL questionnaire for perspectives
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1.3 Appendix 3: ANP questionnaires

1.3.1 Pair wise comparison questionnaire

With respect to your experience in the field of CRM, please fill out the pair wise comparison questionnaires (Tables 17, 18).

Table 17 ANP questionnaires for indicators
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Table 18 ANP questionnaire for perspectives
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1.4 Appendix 4: TOPSIS questionnaireFootnote 1

With respect to your experience in the field of ISP industry, please fill out the questionnaire for each ISP firm (Tables 19, 20).

Table 19 TOPSIS questionnaire for indicators
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Table 20 TOPSIS questionnaire for perspectives
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Keramati, A., Shapouri, F. Multidimensional appraisal of customer relationship management: integrating balanced scorecard and multi criteria decision making approaches. Inf Syst E-Bus Manage 14, 217–251 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-015-0281-8

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