Customer relationship management readiness in small to medium tourism enterprises with a focus on organisational characteristics: The Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.

Abstract

Customer relationship management (CRM) has become of pivotal importance to many organisations as businesses strive for competitive advantages through building relationships with their customers. CRM practice will enable organisations to target profitable customer segments, improve customer service, enhance customer retention and ultimately improve the profitability of the organisation. As such the study sought to investigate that implementing CRM is likely to be successful only if the organisation shows some level of readiness for CRM. The research design was a quantitative approach and was deemed appropriate for this study. Systematic sampling resulted in a sample of 332 respondent organisations chosen from the 2012 database of the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency. A total of 310 usable questionnaires were analysed. The findings elucidate that satisfactory levels of validity and reliability were obtained. The study further adds value to the area of CRM as it contributes to an improved understanding of the factors that should precede CRM readiness that will enable SMTEs to engage in CRM activities. Overall, the research makes a contribution to a largely under-researched area concerning CRM in SMTEs. CRM readiness is preceded by organisational factors, in particular business and customer strategies, customer touch points, particular levels of technology and competent and skilled staff, all combined in a cross-functional approach.

Keywords

• customer relationship management
• organisational factors
• small to medium tourism enterprises