Premium
Moving beyond the direct impact of using CRM systems on frontline employees' service performance: The mediating role of adaptive behaviour
Author(s) -
Chen Renee Rui,
Ou Carol Xiaojuan,
Wang Wei,
Peng Zhuo,
Davison Robert M.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
information systems journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.635
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1365-2575
pISSN - 1350-1917
DOI - 10.1111/isj.12265
Subject(s) - business , customer relationship management , marketing , complex adaptive system , service (business) , knowledge management , information system , service provider , service system , process management , profit (economics) , computer science , engineering , economics , artificial intelligence , electrical engineering , microeconomics
Despite substantial investments in customer‐relationship‐management (CRM) systems, companies continue to experience pain rather than profit. Meanwhile, the concept of “adaptive behaviour” of frontline employees has received little attention in the literature related to CRM systems in which the frontline employees are the primary users. In this study, we propose that with the aid of CRM systems, individual employees are able to immediately access information about customers and service offerings, thus enabling their adaptive behaviours to provide personalized service to individual customers. Based on coping theory, we develop a CRM system‐driven adaptive behaviour model that explains how CRM systems facilitate individual employees' service performance by enabling adaptive behaviour during their service encounters. Multisourced data from a financial company in China largely support our proposed model, showing that employees' postadoption of CRM systems ( routinization and infusion of use ) enables interpersonal and offering adaptive behaviours , which in turn enhance employees' service performance. In addition, forming a postadoption behaviour of CRM systems relies on the frequent use. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of adaptive behaviour in service encounters with the aid of CRM systems.