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The goal of this study is to compare perceptions of customer relationship management (CRM) among
Vietnamese and Taiwanese maritime transport service providers, and specifically container shipping
companies. The study uses the t-test and factor analysis to analyze major differences in CRM usage
between the shipping industries in Vietnam and Taiwan, and determines the perceived importance of
CRM services employing Importance Performance Analysis. The study finds that perceptions of CRM
are clearly different in the two countries due to their divergent socioeconomic backgrounds. Significant
differences between the application of CRM by the shipping industries in the two countries existed in
connection with four major factors (e-commerce marketing, interactive marketing, contact marketing,
and customer service marketing). It is concluded that shipping companies should improve their
computerized CRM systems in order to collect and analyze valuable marketing data from their
customers, which will enable sales personnel and customer service staff to make appropriate
decisions, improves service quality, and create greater value for customers in the highly competitive
maritime transport business.
Key words: Maritime transport, customer relationship management, importance perfomance analysis.
INTRODUCTION
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a concept
that enables an organization to tailor specific products or
services to each individual customer. In its most sophisticated form, CRM may be used to create a personalized,
one-to-one experience that will give the individual
customer a sense of being cared for, thus opening up
new marketing opportunities based on the preferences
and history of the customer (Wilson et al., 2002). CRM
also represents a customer-focused business strategy for
increasing customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by
offering more responsive and customized service to each
customer.
A customer's relationship with a shipping company
involves prices, services, scope of service, schedule,
customer relations, company history, convenience, brand
name, and value-added services. There will be no significant differences between two shipping companies within
the same strategic alliance group for a customer considering the factors of price, service, scope of service,
schedule, and convenience. As a consequence, the main
distinguishing factors for customers comprise company
history, brand name, customer relations, and value-added
services (Wong, 2007); in particular, customer relationships are considered to be an important marketing tool
facilitating customer retention, development of potential
customers, and enhancement of corporate competitive
advantage.
While Vietnam and Taiwan are both located in the AsiaPacific region, there were many significant macroeconomic differences between two nations in 2009 (JETRO,
2010). With regard to population, Vietnam had 87.2 million
people, while Taiwan had 23.2 million; in terms of
geographic area, Vietnam occupied 331,689 km2, while
Taiwan occupied 36,191 km2; in terms of GNP, Vietnam
had a GNP of 1,060 dollars, while Taiwan had a GNP of
16,432 dollars; in terms of balance of trade, Vietnam had
12.8 billon dollars, while Taiwan 30.7 billon dollars; with
regard to balance of payments, Vietnam had 7.1 billon
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ON
CUSTOMER
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widelyimplemented strategy for managing a companys interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It
involves the use of technology to organize, automate,
and synchronize business processesprincipally sales
activities, but also those for marketing, customer service
and technical support. The information and communication technology components of a comprehensive CRM
strategy are integrated into CRM systems that enable the
automation of business processes in the area of marketing, sales and service in order to build and maintain
profitable long-term customer relations (Peppard, 2000).
Effective management of customer information is
increasingly crucial in CRM.
Customer information processes consists of two
sequential aspects: customer data acquisition and data
interpretation, which transforms the data into customer
information (Campbell, 2003). CRM can enable a
company's marketing department to identify and target
their best customers, manage marketing campaigns, and
generate quality leads for their sales teams. Furthermore,
CRM may help an organization to improve telephone
sales, account, and sales management by optimizing
information sharing among multiple employees and
streamlining existing processes. For example, the Marina
Logistics Company derives much of its annual profit from
logistics services provided to the Honda Vietnam
Company. Marina puts considerable effort into managing
this customer, and examines and reviews all activities
with them (including customs brokerage, consolidation,
full container loads, and less than container loads, etc.,)
in order to compare these activities with those of other
shipping companies.
For liner shipping companies, CRM services can
improve coordination and communication among ship
management, terminal operation, vehicle arrangement,
and infrastructure management. Additionally, CRM
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CRM factor
Assessment factors
Banner advertising
Website design
Online media
Sales presentation
Tracking of customer interaction
Contact management system
Order management system
Sales forecasting system
Contact center
Help desk
Call management system
Customer self service
Vietnam
VINALINES
VOSCO
Wan Hai
Taiwan
Evergreen
YML
and staff)
at shipping
Data collection
Two of the aforementioned recent articles (Fakhredaei, 2007; Lu
and Shang, 2007) analyzed CRM attributes from perspective of
maritime service providers, and thereby extended the scope of
CRM investigation from customers to the service provider. In
addition, sale representatives at shipping companies are considered to be frontline personnel because they are responsible for
communicating and negotiating with customers. The opinions of
sale representatives can therefore be considered to be a valuable
means of investigating consumer behavior. As a consequence, the
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EMPIRICAL ANALYSES
Basic data analysis
This paper sought to discover the differences in the perception of CRM among the shipping industries in Vietnam
and Taiwan by means of various methods, including
literature review, personal interviews, and a questionnaire
survey. Comparing the different systems in the two
countries was not a simple task; for example, Vietnam is
a socialist country, and the majority of its shipping companies and forwarders are state-owned enterprises with
conservative attitudes, which resulted in many difficulties
involving data collection and questionnaire administration. In contrast, because Taiwan is a democracy with
free market mechanisms, we could easily obtain valuable
comments and suggestions from domestic or international shipping companies located in the port of Kaohsiung.
The majority of company names and addresses were
obtained from local shipping company associations or,
and some companies were also obtained from lists of
companies in shipping newspapers and magazines. As
shown in Table 3, a total of 54 questionnaires were
received from 26 shipping companies in Vietnam and 28
shipping companies in Taiwan, hence the total response
rate was 54%; the questionnaire response rates by
country were 52 and 56% for Vietnam and Taiwan
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Assessment factor
Banner advertising
Source
Deighton (1996), Perrson
(2004) , Wilson (2005),
Leeuwen (2009)
Description
Banner advertisements are one of the dominant forms of
advertising online. For example, the Evergreen Line website
contains the advertising banner EVERGREEN guarding our green
earth.
Website design
Online media
Sales presentation
Customer feedback
Deighton (1996),
Perrson(2004), Wilson
(2005), Leeuwen(2009)
Tracking of customer
interaction
Contact management
system
Order management
system
Sales forecasting
system
Contact center
Help desk
Call management
system
Customer self service
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Type of business
Vietnam shipping company
Taiwan shipping company
Total
Questionnaires sent
50
50
100
Questionnaires returned
26
28
54
Variable
Nationality
Office location
Job title
Working experience
(Years)
Frequency
26
28
Percentage
48.15
51.85
Kaohsiung
Hanoi
Haiphong
28
18
8
51.85
33.33
14.81
Staff
Director
Manager
General Manager
14
12
20
8
25.93
22.22
37.04
14.81
5
6-10
11-15
16-20
21-25
26
9
17
8
4
10
6
16.67
31.48
14.81
7.41
18.52
11.11
Vietnam company
Taiwan company
respectively.
As shown in Table 4, the demographic characteristics
of the respondents were as follows: 48.15% were at
Vietnamese companies and 51.85% at Taiwanese companies. Office locations included Kaohsiung (51.85%),
Hanoi (33.33%), and Haiphong (14.81%). Respondents
job titles included manager (37.04%), staff (25.93%),
director (22.22%), and general manager (14.81%). In
terms of working experience, 31.48% of respondents had
6 to 10 years of experience, 18.52% had 21 to 25 years,
and 16.67% had 5 years or less. The respondents job
titles, lines of business, and working experience suggest
that their opinions are informed and representative. The
fact that almost all the respondents worked at shipping
companies may indicate that the results are representative views concerning CRM in the shipping company.
Validity and reliability test
The term validation refers to the demonstration of
measures validity and reliability (Morse et al., 2002).
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Assessment factor
Banner advertising
Website design
Online media
Sales presentation
Customer feedback
Tracking of customer interaction
Contact management system
Order management system
Sales forecasting system
Contact center
Help desk
Call management system
Customer self service
Code
a1
a2
a3
a4
a5
a6
a7
a8
a9
a10
a11
a12
a13
Mean
4.11
4.24
4.29
4.21
4.74
4.50
4.32
4.29
4.29
4.32
4.45
4.50
4.42
Importance
S.D.
0.76
0.59
0.80
0.74
0.45
0.56
0.57
0.77
0.69
0.62
0.69
0.69
0.68
Rank
13
11
8
12
1
2
6
9
10
7
4
3
5
Mean
4.18
4.21
4.21
4.55
4.39
4.32
4.21
4.18
4.45
4.34
4.55
4.71
4.39
Satisfaction
S.D.
Rank
0.73
12
0.74
9
0.78
10
0.65
2
0.68
5
0.53
8
0.78
11
1.04
13
0.72
4
0.58
7
0.65
3
0.52
1
0.59
6
The mean scores are based on a five-point scale; S.D. = standard deviation.
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Assessment factor
Bannner advertising
Website design
Online media
Sales presentation
Customer feedback
Tracking of customer interaction
Contact management system
Order management system
Sales forecasting system
Contact center
Help desk
Call management system
Customer self service
Vietnamese shipping
company
4.55
4.35
4.40
4.25
4.80
4.65
4.35
4.60
4.45
4.40
4.55
4.65
4.55
Taiwanese shipping
company
3.50
3.95
4.00
4.18
4.63
4.31
4.22
4.04
4.13
4.22
4.27
4.27
4.27
T value
P value
5.300
1.935
1.526
0.304
1.163
2.019
0.662
2.554
1.533
0.923
1.292
1.776
1.611
0.000*
0.060
0.135
0.762
0.252
0.153
0.512
0.015*
0.133
0.361
0.204
0.083
0.115
Factor 1
Important performance analysis
E-Commerce marketing, which consisted of the four
items of website design, banner advertising, online media
and order management system; website design was the
service item with the greatest load, and these factors
accounted for 87% of total variance.
Factor 2
Interacting marketing, which consisted of the four items of
tracking of customer interactions, customer feedback,
sales presentation and call management system; tracking
of customer interactions was the service item with the
greatest load, and these factors accounted for 72% of the
total variance.
Factor 3
Contact marketing, which consisted of the three items of
contact center, contact management system and help
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Table 7. Summary of CRM IPA for Vietnamese and Taiwanese shipping companies.
Area
Vietnamese shipping
companies
Overall shipping
industry
Call management system
Help desk
Taiwanese shipping
companies
Help desk
Customer feedback
Concentrate
here
Customer feedback
Customer self service
Online media
Help desk
Tracking of customer
interaction
Customer feedback
Low priority
Banner advertising
Website design
Online media
Tracking of customer
interaction
Contact management system
Order management system
Contact center
Possible overkill
- Sales presentation
- Sales forecasting system
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