MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
CAN THO UNIVERSITY
SUMMARY OF PHD THESIS
Major: Business Administration
Major code: 62340102
LE THI THU TRANG
THE INFLUENCES OF CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AND
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
MANAGEMENT ON BUSINESS
PERFORMANCE OF RETAIL COMPANIES
IN CAN THO CITY
Can Tho, 2021
THE THESIS IS COMPLETED AT
CAN THO UNIVERSITY
Supervisors 1: Dr. Luu Tien Thuan
Supervisor 2: Dr. Tran Thanh Liem
The dissertation will be defended in front of the school level at:
………………………………………………………………
On ….. hour ….. date ….. month ….. year …..
Discussant 1: ………………………………………………
Discussant 2: ……………………………………………….
Citing of this the dissertation in available at following the
libraries:
- Learning Resource Center – Can Tho University
- Vietnam National Library
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LIST OF PUBLISHED PAPERS RELATED TO DISSERTATION
1. Le Thi Thu Trang, Luu Tien Thuan, 2017. The influence of customer
relationship management on customer loyalty: The case of supermarkets
in Can Tho City, Industry and trade magazine, vol 10, page 145-151.
2. Le Thi Thu Trang, Luu Tien Thuan, 2017. The impact of customer
relationship management on customer satisfaction in modern retail market
at Can Tho City, Can Tho University Journal of Science, vol 48, page 54-
65.
3. Le Thi Thu Trang, Luu Tien Thuan, 2017. Effect of sales technology
usage on sales performance of salesmen: Case study at companies located
in Can Tho City, Journal of Economics & development, vol 254, page 99-
107.
4. Le Thi Thu Trang, Luu Tien Thuan, 2019. Influences of Customer
Relationship Management and Customer Experience Management on
customer satisfaction and loyalty: A case study of supermarkets in Can
Tho City, Journal of Trade Science, vol 135, page 51-60.
5. Le Thi Thu Trang, Luu Tien Thuan, Tran Thanh Liem, 2020.
Customer relationship management: Case study at local supermarkets in
Can Tho City, Proceedings of the first international Conference in
Economics & Business, Can Tho University, page 308-326.
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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research problem
The retail business in Can Tho City has been developing
strongly with the emergence of modern retail channels, especially
supermarkets. The participation of domestic and foreign enterprises
has created a fiercely competitive market to attract customers.
Therefore, the question “how can retailers attract and maintain
customer relationship effectively?” is becoming an important topic
for researchers and managers in recent years. Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) is chosen as a way to maintain customer and
orient the productions and the services for the customer needs in
many businesses. However, the increasing income of customers in
recent years leads to the inevitable demand for more experience in
the buying process. Retailers need to create competitive advantages
by making additional values to customers. Therefore, the term
“Customer Experience Management (CEM)” is introduced as a
strategy focusing on the utilities that meet the needs of individual
customers.
To create a competitive difference in the market among
enterprises, the model of creating competitive advantage based on
the marketing has been applied and developed by enterprises. Over
time, this model has been changed from creating some differences
from tangible characteristics of the enterprise to customers,
differences from the additional services to customers, and
differences based on customer relations (Christopher et al., 1991
quoted from Palmer, 2010). However, what will happen when
companies would operate in the same market with the same aim for
building relationships to similar customers? Therefore, differences
from practical experiences can be different in markets when the
customer relationship has not been a longer distinct competitive
advantage (Christopher et al., 1991 quoted from Palmer, 2010).
Research on CRM has not been clear yet in bringing benefits
to customers as promised (Barnes, 2002). Some researches on
marketing relationships have not attended to the emotional states of
customer causing negatively or positively effects other future
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behavior of customers (Allen et al., 1992; Barsky and Nash, 2002).
Therefore, the combination of CRM and CEM should be examined
in creating a competitive advantage for enterprises (Palmer, 2010).
Many enterprises consider CRM as a tool to measure the
performance of business activities. Therefore, it is important to
understand the mechanism (Reinartz et al, 2004) and the impact of
CRM in business activities (Gummesson, 2004 quoted from Hou and
Tu, 2008).Most of studies have evaluated the impact of CRM via
internal success including the satisfaction and the loyal of customers
(Long et al, 2013; Shaon and Rahman, 2015). In the meantime, other
studies have explored the relationship between CRM and the
performance of business activities by measuring external success
including revenue and profit (Homburg et al, 2002; Rust et al.,
2004). Therefore, business performance is measured by two metrics
consiting of internal success and external success (Hou and Tu,
2008; Khlif and Jallouli, 2011; Gronholdt et al., 2015; Ahani. et al,
2017; Rafiki et al., 2018).
CRM could contribute to the success of enterprises (Relmann
et al, 2010; Kim, 2012; Haislip and Richardson, 2017; Soltani et al,
2018). CRM help enterprises to identify who their customers are,
what the customer evaluate from the purchase of products, but CRM
cannot indicate what attraction thing of the product could catch the
attention of customers back. The success of enterprise is influenced
by authentic customer experiences, which create personal value for
each customer (Pine and Gilmore, 1998).
According to Palmer (2010), in order to have competitive
advantage, companies need to combine CRM and CEM to create
success for businesses. In previous studies, CRM and CEM are
studied independently, a number of studies on the relationship
between CRM and CEM (Thusy and Morris, 2004; Alavi, 2012) but
just stop at the discovery process, there’s hardly any study evaluating
the effects of both factors (CEM, CRM) to business results of the
enterprise in both internal and external success.
With the above issues, the advantages of CRM combined
with CEM can bring good business results to businesses, especially
in retail business.
