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7/30/2019 Impact of customer retention
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International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 57-69 (2009) 57
THE IMPACT OF A CUSTOMER PROFILE AND CUSTOMER
PARTICIPATION ON CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE
Ji-Tsung Ben Wu*
, I-Ju Lin and Ming-Hsien YangDepartment of Information Management
Fu-Jen Catholic University
Taipei Hsien (24205), Taiwan
ABSTRACT
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one important application for e-business.
Two important factors influencing CRM performance are: customer profiles and customer
participation. The result of this experimental study demonstrates that the use of customer
profiles improves the customers perception of the quality of goods and increases the
effectiveness of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). In addition, customer
participation can improve customers perceptions the quality of goods and enhance
performance of CRM through perceived participation. The results indicate that the
customer profiles and customer participation are two crucial factors for companies to
maintain good customer relations.
Keywords: Customer Relationship Management, Customer Profile, Customer Participation
1. INTRODUCTION*
Companies are now more than ever focusing
on high customer retention and maintaining good
long term customer relationships [3][16][35].
Customer relationships management (CRM) is a high
customer retention strategy. It is very important to
know more about customers needs and offer
customized products and services in order to improve
customer satisfaction and loyalty [22][28]. Two
main strategies, collecting customers' profiles and
promoting customer participation, are used to probe
customers' needs. CRM research highlights that
knowledge of customers is critical, but the tacit
knowledge of customers is not much emphasized.
Companies need to make CRM efforts effective
[17][23]. Therefore, corporations should seek new
interaction mechanisms to improve customerrelations by achieving complete communication with
customers, building partnerships with customers, and
getting more non-structured information about
customers that is leveraged to drive CRM activities.
Regarding the urgent demand for tacit information
about customers, customer participation in the service
research should be considered as one important
source of knowledge about customers, in addition to
customer profiles which are acquired by database
technologies. Also, gaining customers active
participation is able to directly increase their
perception of the services provided by the companies.
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
The main objectives of this paper are to (1)
discuss and integrate related research to infer a
conceptual model which includes the customer
profile, customer participation, and measures of CRM
performance; (2) to investigate the relationship
between the degree of using a customer profile andcustomers perceptions of the quality of goods; and
(3) to investigate the relationship between the degree
of customer participation and customers perceptions
of the quality of goods and CRM performance.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
To research the impact of customer profile and
customer participation on the CRM performances,
this study examines the theories of CRM, customer
profiling and customer participation.
2.1 Customer Relationship ManagementThe new marketing paradigm is based on
knowledge and experience [24][30][31]. The
knowledge-based marketing paradigm indicates that
corporations need to know more about customers;
and an experience-based marketing paradigm
suggests bringing more interactions into customer
related activities. Since the 90s, there have arisen
numerous synonymous terms: customer management,customer information systems, customer value
management, customer care and sometimes customer
centricity or customer-centric management, but now
clearly, the term Customer Relationship Managementhas become the most widely used [6][20].
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58 International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2009)
CRM is an interactive process that turns
customer information into customer relationships
through actively using and learning from information.
It is a cycle for encompassing major group of actions:
knowledge discovery, market planning, customer
interaction, and analysis refinement [7][35].
Ryals and Knox [32] determined that thephilosophical bases of CRM are: relationship
orientation, customer retention, and superior
customer value created through process management.
Successful implementation of CRM requires
cross-functional reorganization, especially marketing
and IT, to work closely together to maximize the
return on customer information. The impact of the
use of IT on marketing includes the fact that database
marketing grew in significance in the late 1980s [24].
In summary, CRM integrates practices of database
marketing to support short-term market tactics and
conceptual frame to relationship marketing todevelop long-term customer relationship strategies.
2.2 Customer Profiles
Some characteristics correlate positively with
companies performing well in customer relationship
management: excellent products, excellent
management, and the informed use of knowledge
about customers. An insufficient knowledge base of
customers limits the value which a company can offer
to those customers [37][40]. Knowing customers
better, a corporation can precisely invest in valuable
customers and reduce the cost spent on poorly
performing customers [16][35]. The basic component
of customer knowledge comes from a customer
profile that is obtained by the use of a database and
data mining technologies used in organizations [1].
Building customer profiles is one of the most popular
strategies for knowing more about customers. In
summary, using a customer profile is the technique
which converts raw information about customers into
the strategic-support knowledge that reinforces the
value of goods which companies offer customers.
2.3 Customer Participation
The customer profile is a more structured partof customer knowledge; whereas a more
non-structured part could come from customer
participation. In the service research area, customers
who contribute information or efforts in the service
complete the process with the service provider. They
fulfill the process together while the service is
produced and consumed at the same time [8][13] [14]
[26] [36]. For example, patients describe their own
symptoms to doctors. It makes the process of
diagnosis go more smoothly. These service
performances are heavily influenced by customer
efforts and the information they themselves provide
[4][13][19].
There are different dimensions of participation,
including personal interaction, information sharing,
and responsible behavior. This suggests that
participation has a positive impact on customer's
perceived product/service quality, customer
satisfaction, and a mixed impact on retention.
Different aspects of participation do not contributeequally in these models. Specifically, personal
interaction was found to have more significant effects
while the information sharing was thought to be of
particular significance from a conceptual perspective
[13]. There is a similar result in the new product
development research area. It indicates that through
close interactions with customers, designers can
accurately identify market requirements, quickly
refine product specification, and reduce time for
marketing and thus remain more competitive
[11][27].
Little CRM research has put specific effort intogetting and using non-structured information about
customers [23]. Customer participation can fulfill the
shortage of application towards gaining tacit
customer knowledge. Customer participation in the
delivery of service processes has been found to be
highly related to customers perceived quality of
service, customer satisfaction and new products
performance [13][19]. Customers can contribute their
own information in the process of participation and
also get information about the corporation. This is a
two-way communication between buyers and sellers
which positively impacts the CRMs performance.
Similar discussions are involved in numbers of
different research areas. In service research, customer
participation refers to the contribution of customer
information and the effort spent in the process of
service encounters [8][13][26][36]. Customer
participation influences the quality of service
[13][19]. In information system development
research, user participation has been found to
influence users perception of system success and
user satisfaction [41]. In advertising research,
scholars look at the impact which customer
involvement, advertising and products have on
purchasing decisions [43].Table 1 identifies similar concepts regarding
different participation types and customer roles in
service or product delivery processes value chain.
3. THE RESEARCH
FRAMEWORK AND
HYPOTHESIS
Figure 1 presents this studys conceptual model
as it has been derived from the preceding discussion.
There are two main kinds of knowledge
sources about customers: customer profiles and
customer participation. The former represents the use
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J. T. B. Wu et al.: The Impact of a Customer Profile and Customer Participation 59
of IT to acquire and create information about
customers in the organization and the latter shows
there are two-way communications and interactions
between the corporation and customers. The CRM
performance construct includes three measurements:
customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer
retention [7][9][18][22].
Table 1: Customer roles in different stages of the product/service value chain
Stage Type Related ResearchNew Service or
Product Development
Customer-oriented design; focus group; close contact
between designer and customer[11][15]
Manufacture of Product;
Service Encounter
Customer participation; visit factory; customer provide
information
[2][8][13] [19][34]
[36][43]
Advertising Customer involvement [10] [43]
Service Encounter;
Product Delivery and Sell
Customer self-subscribe which channel and time that
the product delivery
[8][13] [19][34]
[36][43]
Figure 1: Conceptual model
1. The effect of the customer profile on perceivedgoods quality
Goods mean the service or product which
companies offer to customers. Although there are
many measurements to examine the quality of
products, customers usually determine the quality ofproducts on the basis of their own subjective points
of view. From this viewpoint, the main factor
concerning a products quality should be based on the
degree of conformation to customers demands. Of
course it is harder to measure the quality of a service
when the goods are intangible [26]. The output of
service is the process itself. The judgment of service
quality should be based on customer experiences and
their perception of the process [27]. The above
discussion shows that it is crucial to measure
customers' perception of goods quality.
A customer profile is a base form of customerknowledge. By obtaining and analyzing customer
profiles, corporations can develop products and
services to fit the customers needs. Showing
customers that the company is using their profiles to
provide customized goods will also lead users to raise
their perception of quality. To examine this
proposition, the first null hypothesis of this research
is proposed:
H1: Companies that obtain and use customer
profiles could not influence its perceived
goods quality their goods offer to customers.
2. The effect of customer participation on perceivedgoods quality and CRM performance
In addition to getting a customer profile to
identify customer needs, corporations also need to
seek solution to gain more tacit information from
customers to know them better [23]. This situationindicates that corporations should build certain
channels and launch activities to enable the
transformation of tacit information with customers.
Based on preceding discussion on customer
participation, it is possible for corporations to interact
with customers and get insights of customer needs
through customer participation. Getting customers to
participate in value delivery processes helps
customers to know corporation ability better and
raises the customers' perception on goods. The
customer participation also has positive effects on
customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer
retention [11][13][19]. To examine this proposition,the300 second null hypothesis of this research is
proposed:
H2: Customer participation could not influence the
perceived goods quality that companies offer
to customers.
3. The effect of goods quality on CRMperformance
The service quality the companies provide to
customers positively affects the customer relationship
quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty. The quality
of goods will influence the customers buyingdecision-making. When quality of goods is higher
than customers expectation, customers are motivated
to buy the goods. The goods quality depends on
customers subjective perceptions of how these high
quality goods will bring them benefits [39]. High
perception of goods quality leads to high customer
satisfaction, loyalty and retention. To examine this
proposition, the third null hypothesis of this research
is proposed:
H3: The perceived quality of goods could not
influence performance of CRM.
H3a: The perceived quality of goods could not
influence customer satisfaction.
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60 International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2009)
H3b: The perceived quality of goods could not
influence customer loyalty.
H3c: The perceived quality of goods could not
influence customer retention.
4. RESEARCH DESIGN
To test the relationships of customer profile and
customer participation on perceived goods quality
and performance of CRM, this research employs an
experiment with scenarios of services encountered
and a recall-base questionnaire. The primary
advantage of using scenarios is that they eliminate
difficulties of observation on the use of customer
profiles and the practice of customer participation in
organizations everyday operation. Also, the use of
scenarios reduces biases from memory lapses,
rationalization tendencies, and consistency factors,
which are common in results based on retrospectiveself-reports [33].
Recently, an on-line bank has prompted their
on-line services and this would be a focal
development in the future of the banking industry.
This is the reason that this research used on-line bank
services as scenarios and focused on five on-line
services: credit card bonuses and gift exchange
services; high amount transaction confirmation;
payment reminder services; comments; and new
service development conference to narrow down the
complexity and control the variable manipulation
more precisely.
4.1 Sampling Frames and Data Collection
Methods
The sample for this experiment was composed
of students from four departments of EMBA at the
Fu-Jen University. There were 119 EMBA students
involved in the experiment and the data were
collected using individually completed questionnaires
after the last step of the experiment. Of the 119
subjects, 96 subjects questionnaires were valid.
Among these 96 subjects, 68 were male, 28 were
female.
4.2 Experimental Design
The experiment employed a 2X2
between-subjects design, in which customer profile
and customer participation were manipulated. Four
treatments are shown in Table 2 and each treatment is
a scenario that represents a combination of one of
two customer profile scenarios with one of two
customer participation scenarios. Table 3 presents a
list of model variables and table 4 shows the labels of
each treatment and observation variable.
All the subjects were first grouped according to
three conditions: their answer to experience, recent
demand for on-line bank, and their interest in finance
management in the personal-data questionnaire. Each
subject in the same group was then exposed to one of
the four scenarios in proper sequence of the subjects
who finished the personal-data questionnaires in the
first step in the experiment process.
Table 2: Labels of manipulated treatments
High
Customer
Profile
Low
Customer
Profile
High
CustomerParticipation
HH LH
Low
Customer
Participation
HL LL
Table 3: Label of each variable
Description Label
Customer Profile K
Customer Participation P
Goods Quality Q
Customer Satisfaction S
Customer Loyalty L
Customer Retention R
Table 4: Experiment design
This study deemed these three conditions would
affect the perception of the subjects during the
process. The separation of the subjects was based on
these conditions. Then the subjects were assigned
according to their questionnaire filling time. This
would reach random sampling. Table 5 shows the
grouping process and Table 6 shows the whole
experiment process and the description of what the
subjects did in each step.
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J. T. B. Wu et al.: The Impact of a Customer Profile and Customer Participation 61
Table 5: The grouping process
The subjects were asked to fill out personal data questionnaire.
The data were stored into the DB.
The program allocated the subjects who had the same choices of three conditions into the same array.
The program drew each record from one array and assigned into one of four treatments in turn.
After the assignment was done, each subjects browser was directed to the homepage of each scenario the subject
belong to.
Table 6: The experiment process
Stage Step Description
Personal-data questionnaire
The subjects were asked to fill out the questionnaire and set
their own account and password which would be used to login
the experiment system as realized scenarios of on-line bank.
Experiment instruction The explanation of specific terms and notice.
Pre-experiment
Waiting for assignment
The program drew data from the personal-data questionnaire
to assign subject into one treatment of experiment.
Login in experiment systemSubjects used their own account and password to login the
on-line bank of the experiment.
Customer accounts dataThe first page was subjects accounts data which was default
value represented the scenarios of on-line bank.
Transfer accounts for credit card
payment
Confirmation of transfer
Practice
Transfer success and the
instruction of next step
Subjects were asked to perform the transfer used the on-bank
interface which was a practice for subjects to familiar the
operation of experiment on-line bank system and also a cue
that the subject was one of on-bank customer.
Credit cards bonus and gift
exchange service
Confirmation of gifts, rest ofbonus points and receivers
address
This step was the beginning of experiments manipulation.
The different semantics and operation on the page of on-linebank represented each manipulation of the experiment.
The setting of payment inform
service
The different semantics and operation on the page of on-line
bank represented each manipulation of the experiment.
The setting of high amounttransaction confirmation
The different semantics and operation on the page of on-linebank represented each manipulation of the experiment.
Advice zone
This step was skipped at the low degree customer
participations manipulation to represent the manipulation of
low degree customer participation.
Experiment
The invitation of new service
development conference
The different semantics and operations on the page of on-line
bank represented each manipulation of the experiment.
Data
Collection
Observation variable data
collection questionnaires
This was the last step of experiment to ask subjects to fill out
the questionnaires based on the experience of previouslyoperations of the on-line bank system.
4.3 Manipulation of Factors and Measurement of
Variables
Customer profile and customer participation are
two independent variables of this study. Based on the
previous research discussed above, each of the two
independent variables was manipulated as high and
low degree and represented as an on-line banking
system. The details of manipulation and the definition
of independent variables are discussed below.
4.4 Customer Profile
Customer profile variable indicated that the
organization has acquired the customers information
by different kinds of channels or systems to transform
this information into practical instruments to provide
customized goods. This study manipulated low and
high degree of customer profiles by the different
semantic descriptions on the webpage, such as these
gifts are prepared for you based on your past
transactions via our on-line banking service as the
cue and let the subjects believe that this on-line
banking system provided customized service base ontheir own profiles and that this would be a high
customer profile degree. After the subjects logged
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62 International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2009)
into the system, the screen showed the customers
account information. The customers name was
drawn from the subjects personal data and all the
account information entered was the default value, so
all the subjects saw the same information, which
allowed them to be familiar with and understand their
accounts' information in this experiment. Table 7shows the details of customer profile manipulated.
4.5 Customer Participation
Customer participation means customers have
to contribute a certain amount of effort or information
in the process of purchasing products or services.
This variable in the study indicated that the
organization had built mechanisms and also invited
customers to participate actively. This study
manipulated this variable by supplying different
flexibilities of services for customers in the low and
high customer participation treatments. In the highcustomer participation treatment, the subjects had
more than one option based on their own demand;
while there was only one choice for the subjects in
the low participation treatment. For example, the
subjects in high participation could decide both the
means and the time to be informed about the due date
of a payment, but the subjects in the low participation
treatment didnt have these options.
Table 8 shows the details of the manipulated
customer participation.
Table 9 shows the detail of each manipulation
treatment. LL indicates Low in Customer Profile and
Low in Customer Participation. LH indicates Low in
Customer Profile and High in Customer Participation.HL indicates High in Customer Profile and Low in
Customer Participation. HH indicates High in
Customer Profile and High in Customer Participation.
4.6 Questionnaire
After going through all of the experiment steps,
the subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire.
The questionnaire is divided into two sections: the
first section contains four questions to check whether
the subject perceived the proper scenarios in the right
manipulation treatment; the second section contains
20 questions concerning the intermediary anddependent variables, including perceived goods
quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and
customer retention. All the questions employed the 7
points likert scales with numbers 7-1 progressively
representing very strongly agree to very strongly
disagree and positive semantic statements. Table 10
presents the questionnaire for variables.
Table 7: Detail description of manipulation of customer profile
Definition Descriptions of Manipulation
Customer personal data recorded
by the system
Customer personal data were drawn from the
questionnaire of the first step of experiment and the
customer account data were designed as the default valueof the system in advance.
Low Degreeof Customer
ProfileRecognizing and contacting
customer by system
The records of customers personal data on the system
were displayed with proper descriptions on the web-pageinterface.
Customer personal and
transactional data recorded by
system
Customer personal data were drawn from the
questionnaire of the first step of experiment and thecustomer account and the historical transaction data were
designed as the default value of the system in advance.High Degree
of Customer
ProfileThere are predictive customers
demands of services and
differential customer credit
displayed on the system.
The records of the customers personal, transactional and
also analytical information on the system were
represented by the proper descriptions on the web-page
interface.
Table 8: Detail description of manipulation of customer participation
Definition Descriptions of manipulation
Low Degree
of Customer
Participation
There are no customer participate
mechanisms widespread built in
the customer contact system of the
organization.
Subjects cannot compose the form of service content by
their own need and have no channel to communicate or
give advice to company by the web interface.
High Degreeof Customer
Participation
There are widespread built
customer participation
mechanisms in the customer
contact system of the organization
and invite customer to participate
actively.
Subjects can decide which form of service content basetheir own need and have an advice zone to communicate
or give advice to the company by the web interface.
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J. T. B. Wu et al.: The Impact of a Customer Profile and Customer Participation 63
Table 9: Description of four treatments
LL LH HL HH
Credit card
bonus and gift
exchange service
Exchange by
bonus points.
Exchange by bonus
points, bonus with
money and allow
each customer to
draw bonus in
advance.
There is statementemphasis that the gift list
were referred to subjects
transaction history and
offer only one way toexchange as in LL
treatment.
There is statement emphasis
that the gift list were
referred to subjects
transaction history and offer
three ways to exchange as in
LH treatment.
High amount
transaction
confirmation
service
Default amountand way of
notification.
Subjects can decidewhich amount and
way of notification.
There is statement
emphasis that the default
amount and way of
notification were
referred to subjects
exercise history.
There is statement emphasis
that the default amount and
way of notification werereferred to each subjects
exercise history and subject
can change the default value
on the webpage.
Payment
notificationservice
Default amount
and way ofnotification.
Subjects can decide
which amount andway of notification.
There is statement
emphasis that the default
amount and way ofnotification were
referred to each subjects
exercise history.
There is statement emphasis
that the amount and way of
notification were referred to
each subjects exercisehistory and each subject can
change the default value onthe webpage.
Advice zoneNo this page in
the web system.
This page is showed
up when finish the
last step.
No this page in the web
system.
This page is showed up
when finish the last step.
The invitation of
new service
development
conference
Using the form
of
advertisement.
Invite the subject to
participate.
There is statement
emphasis that the new
service in advisement
was referred to each
subjects exercise
history.
There is statement emphasisthat the new services were
referred to subjects exercise
history and invite subject to
participate.
Table 10: Questionnaire
Construct
Subjects perception of the using customer profile
by on-line bank system.
Subjects
Perception Check
(4 items) Subjects perceived participation.
Modified from
[42]
Reliability
Responsiveness
Assurance
Goods
Quality
(5 items)Empathy
Modified from
[29]
Perceived usefulness
Process satisfaction
Decision-making satisfaction
Customer
Satisfaction
(4 items)Total satisfaction
Modified from
[12][21][33][36]
Positive attitude
Word-of-mouth communications
Purchase intentions
Price sensitivity
Customer
Loyalty(6 items)
Complaining behavior
Modified from
[5][25]
Customer Retention
(1 item)Consumed the offer again Modified from [18]
5. RESULTS
5.1 Data ValidationTo measure the internal consistency of the
collected data, this study assessed the instruments
reliability using the Cronbach Alpha coefficient. The
results are presented in table 11. All Cronbach alpha
values reach the level of generally considered
acceptable reliability.
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64 International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2009)
The questions were adapted from relative
research and examined by two experts. Questions
were modified to reflect problems encountered by the
pretest subjects. The content validity and face validity
are considered acceptable. Table 12 shows all
dependent variables mean and stander deviations in
the different treatments.To ensure the subjects viewed the scenarios in
the right aspect, this doubt was tested using the
two-tailed t-test. The results are presented in table 13,
14, 15, and 16.
These results show that most of the subjects
perceived the right scenario and the high and low
degree of manipulation also made significant
differences.
This study used an F-test to evaluate the effect
of individual differences in perception of scenarios.
Table 17 shows the results.
The results show that individual differencesmake no effect on each dependent variable.
5.2 The Effect of Customer Profile
Table 18 shows the results of the main effects
of two independent variables on all dependent
variables.
The results show that the use of a customer
profile reflects customers' perception of the quality of
goods (p=0.027). Thus null hypothesis H1 can be
rejected. That is, the degree of using customer profile
by a company is positively related to customers
perception of goods quality. This means the subjects
have perceived that the service was designed basedon their historic transactions and so they were more
satisfied, which raised their perception of the goods
quality.
5.3 The Effect of Customer Participation
The results indicated that customer
participation is not significantly related to the
subjects perception of goods quality, customer
satisfaction, loyalty and retention (see table 18). Thus
there is no significant evidence to reject the null
hypotheses 2 and 4. Wu and Marakas [41] suggest
that perceived participation should be an intermediarybetween participation and user satisfaction in the
information system development research area. It will
be discussed later of this paper to see if the perceived
participation makes a difference.
Table 11: Cronbach alpha coefficient value
Constructs Number of Items
Perceived Customer Profile Using 2 0.78
Perceived Participation 2 0.66
Goods Quality 5 0.86
Customer Satisfaction 4 0.89
Customer Loyalty 6 0.80
Customer Retention 1 1.00
Table 12: Mean and St. Dev. of dependence variableGoodsQuality
CustomerSatisfaction
CustomerLoyalty
CustomerRetention
Mean St. Dev. Mean St. Dev. Mean St. Dev. Mean St. Dev.H 5.22 1.07 5.26 1.11 4.92 0.85 5.31 1.18Customer
Profile L 4.68 1.31 5.00 1.18 4.63 1.13 5.40 1.14H 5.08 1.17 5.27 1.00 4.83 0.88 5.29 1.18Customer
Participation L 4.85 1.27 5.01 1.26 4.73 1.11 5.41 1.13ALL 4.96 1.22 5.13 1.15 4.78 1.00 5.35 1.15
Table 13: Mean and St. Dev. of high and low customer profile
Manipulation Treatment Subjects Mean St. dev.
H 49 5.73 1.24Perception of Customer Profile Manipulation
L 47 4.75 1.63
Table 14: T-test result of high and low customer profile
T-value D. F. P-value
Perception of Customer Profile Manipulation 3.328 94 0.001*
*p
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J. T. B. Wu et al.: The Impact of a Customer Profile and Customer Participation 65
Table 16: T-test result of high and low customer participation
T-value D. F. P-value
Perceived Participation 2.016 94 0.047*
*p
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66 International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2009)
Figure 2: Modified model
This study investigated the effects of customer
profiles and customer participation on the quality of
goods. The findings suggest that the organizations
would be wise to apply customer profiles into
practical characteristics of products or services.
This will raise the customers perception goods
quality and further affects the CRM performance. In
this study, the condition was simulated. It can beargued that the effect would be greater when the
customers see that their real profiles are used.
Based on this studys findings, the impact of
customer participation on goods quality and CRM
performance is mediated by perceived participation.
In this study, users did not actually interact with
representatives from the company. It can be argued
that the effect would be greater when the customers
interact with real people. This process changes
customers attitudes towards this organization and
reflects customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention.
Although every effort was made to enact the
experiment scenarios in something like a near-real
environment, limitations do exist because the subjects
knew that they were participating in an experiment
and had different levels of perception as customers of
an on-line bank. These factors will naturally cause
some inaccuracy in the results when compared to
real-world cases.
Overall, the research discussed in this article
explores the different dimensions of CRM theoretical
development drawn from service research area in the
context of the service industry as a main trend in the
business world. These findings can be considered as
the elements of building a strong customerrelationship that ultimately is needed in order to
survive in todays competitive environment.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ji-Tsung Ben Wu received his D.B.A. degree from
Indiana University, U.S.A. He is now an assistant
professor in the Department of Information
Management, Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taiwan.
His research interests are Knowledge Management
and Web 2.0.
I-Ju Lin received her M.B.A. degree from the
Department of Information Management, Fu-Jen
Catholic University, Taiwan. Her research interests
are Customer Relationship Management and
Knowledge Management.
Ming-Hsien Yang received his Ph.D. degree fromNational Taiwan University, Taiwan. He is now the
dean of the College of Management, Fu-Jen Catholic
University, Taiwan and a professor in the Department
of Information Management, Fu-Jen Catholic
University, Taiwan. His research interests include
Electronic Business, Collaborative Commerce, and
Business Process Reengineering.
(Received February 2009, revised March 2009,
accepted March 2009)
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