CRM systems and their impact on salesperson’s performance and their benefits have been widely studied previously. As purpose of this study was to examine CRM utilization and its relationship with employee and customer experience, this study contains similar aspects than previous studies, and the results are to some extent similar. However, this study expanded understanding of how em-ployee and customer experience can be developed by utilization of sales and mar-keting tools. This study’s findings cannot be generalized to a greater extent, even though interviews were held in several companies that represent different indus-tries, since only two persons from each company were interviewed. Therefore, it would be reasonable to replicate this kind of study in a larger scale and only con-duct the study from employees’ point of view to gain more robust results of the relationship between employee and customer experience.
Examined phenomenon provides multiple points of view that can be stud-ied in the future and its significance should not be underestimated. Thus, em-ployee experience and customer experience are even more important matters for the businesses in the future. Therefore, it would be interesting to study more about the relationship between employee and customer experience, if possible perhaps quantitatively by using questionnaire. Moreover, observing employees
CRM utilization and measuring their CRM work task performance could provide deeper insight of the matter on how largely CRM system can affect employees’
performance and efficiency.
Employee engagement and its importance has been on the rise recent years. Focusing on how to engage employees increasingly with CRM systems and what factors or antecedents affect their overall engagement could provide an interesting avenue for further research. Many former research have shown that employee engagement has a profound role in generating income for the busi-nesses and also, for the customer processes, hence, it should be investigated more in-depth. In addition, although CRM implementation processes have been stud-ied widely, more research regarding engaging employees, such as end-users throughout the implementation and development processes and its outcomes could provide interesting and unique information that managers could exploit on their upcoming CRM projects.
In the future, more and more sophisticated technology solutions and sys-tems are being introduced that are meant to ease or hasten their users work in a way or another. Understanding and gaining more knowledge of these intelligent technology solutions, such as AI-based marketing automation or CRM solutions and how they are utilized and how they affect their users’ experience can play a significant role in the future sales and marketing tools studies. Additionally, ex-amining their impact on improving customer experience and satisfaction could help companies to reap benefits of these new systems.
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APPENDIXES
Appendix 1 Interview questions for employees:
Background information Name:
Age:
Position:
Sales and marketing experience (years):
Years in the organization:
Theme 1: Utilization
1. CRM experience in years?
2. Why do you use CRM or for what purpose?
3. What modules you use from the CRM system?
4. How often do you use the CRM system?
5. How does using the CRM system help you in your daily work?
6. How does the CRM system support your personal work?
7. How has the CRM system affected your work?
8. What could be improved in the CRM system, why?
Theme 2: Utilization antecedents
9. What does the usefulness or ease-of-use of CRM system mean to you?
How do you experience these things yourself?
10. Do you find the CRM system as easy-to-use? Why, why not?
11. Do you find the CRM system as useful? Why, why not?
Theme 3: Employee experience
12. How does using the CRM system affect your own employee experience?
13.How does using the CRM system affect your personal performance?
14. How does the CRM system affect your personal satisfaction?
15.Are you committed to use the CRM system? Why?
16. How have you been involved in the acquisition/implementation/devel-opment of the CRM system?
17.Do you feel more committed to use the system if you have been involved in these matters?
Theme 4: Customer experience
18.How does using the CRM system relate to a better/positive customer ex-perience?
19. How does customer satisfaction improve with the use of the CRM system?
20. How the CRM system should work to make you more satisfied/effi-cient/motivated to use the CRM and you could improve the customer ex-perience?
21.Does using the CRM system create customer value? How, how does not?
Appendix 2 Interview questions for management:
Background information Name:
Age:
Position:
Sales and marketing experience (years):
Years in the organization:
Theme 1: Utilization
1. CRM experience in years?
2. How long has the CRM been in use in the organization?
3. How do you use the CRM system and for what purpose?
4. How often do you use the CRM system?
5. How do you experience the CRM utilization rate?
Theme 2: Utilization antecedents
6. What does the usefulness or ease-of-use of CRM system mean to you?
How do you experience these things yourself?
7. Do you find the CRM system as easy-to-use? Why, why not?
8. Do you find the CRM system as useful? Why, why not?
Theme 3: Employee and customer experience
9. What kind of understanding you have regarding your CRM system’s im-pact on employee experience and the resulting customer experience?
What is the significance of this for the business?
10. How does the company invest in developing employee and customer ex-perience in the context of CRM and what are goals in these areas?
11. What are biggest challenges/barriers to achieve these goals in CRM con-text?
12.Once a CRM system has been invested in has it provided clear benefits in terms of developing employee and customer experience, and what kind?
Why have no benefits been obtained?
13.How successful do you find the implementation of the CRM system in your organization?
14. Are employees committed to use the CRM system?
15. Do you feel that employees would be more committed to use the CRM if they were engaged in acquisition, implementation or development pro-cesses?
16. Does using the CRM system create customer value? How, how does not?
17. How does customer satisfaction improve with the use of the CRM system?