Abstract:
The opportunities for CRM initiatives in highly competitive markets are offset by CRM project failure rates of up to 70 percent. The purpose of this research is to empirically investigate employee´s attitude towards CRM, CRM projects and CRM initiatives. Starting point for this study are findings from the literature, explaining, that the human factor is a key criterion for a successful and sustainable implementation. The human factor could thus have a great potential to improve the fail rate accordingly. It shall be investigated, what employees are struggling with in their daily business with CRM. The research is conducted with a quantitative approach with an online-survey. The questionnaire was administered among 106 participants who followed a call via Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and Xing. The study demonstrates that unclear communication, the inconsistent definition of CRM, and an unclear strategy create uncertainty among employees. Nevertheless, the attitude towards CRM initiatives is consistently positive, because it is believed that it is difficult to succeed in a tough competitive environment without CRM. The human factor is highlighted for successful implementation of CRM and employees want to be involved at an early stage of a CRM implementation. The research is conducted in the frame of social media contacts of the author. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to a larger population. This research is conducted in a relatively small sample and the result might be different for a bigger sample. A CRM initiative is characterized by high investments, but the successes are rather uncertain. Information can reduce the failure rate is therefore desirable. The anonymous participation in the survey should give the interviewees the opportunity to speak about experiences with CRM projects. Due to the pulularity of CRM, there are already many companies that use CRM in their daily business. Some provocative, open-ended questions should encourage respondents to reveal vulnerabilities and help improve future CRM projects accordingly.
