CRM Effectiveness (CRME) in Indian Quick-Service  Restaurants (QSRs): An Investigation of Scale  Generalizability

Tejas  Yaduvanshi; Alok Kumar  Rai

doi:10.21844/16202118106

Tejas Yaduvanshi Assistant Professor, School of Management Sciences, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Alok Kumar Rai Professor, Institute of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University, BHU, Varanasi, India

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21844/16202118106

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management (CRM), CRM Effectiveness (CRME), Scale generalizability, Quick-Service Restaurants (QSRs)

Abstract

Purpose: This study comprehends the effectiveness of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Quick-Service Restaurants (QSRs), with a focus on the measurement of CRM Effectiveness (CRME) specifically tailored for the Indian QSR sector by testing the validity and generalizability of an existing scale for CRME (Padmavathy et al., 2012), originally developed for the Indian banking service industry.

Research Gap: The QSR sector witness challenges of high customer turnover with quick-paced service environments, making CRM strategies pertinent. With exponential increase in the competition, effective CRM practices have become decisive for retaining customers and enhance overall business performance. Although, there has been lot of research in the field of CRM Effectiveness in the Indian Banking service industry, there is a lack of standardized scale for quantifying CRM effectiveness for the Indian QSRs, which may lead to ineffective CRM implementation and assessment practices.

Novelty: The present study investigates the validity and generalizability of a multi-dimensional CRME scale that evaluates the effectiveness of CRM system in the QSR context by employing exploratory and descriptive quantitative methods (such as KMO, Cronbach Alpha, EFA and higher order CFA using SPSS and AMOS), which is the first of its kind in the context of the QSR industry.

Findings/Implications: Leveraging existing literature and theoretical frameworks, present study empirically investigates critical dimensions of CRME, including Organizational commitment (OC), Customer experience (CE), Process-driven approach (PD), Reliability (RE), and Technology orientation (TOR); and concludes that the scale originally developed by Padamavathy et al. (2012) is generalizable to the Indian QSR sector with OC being the most impactful predictor of CRME. Finally, the study offers actionable insights for QSR managers to improve their CRM efforts.