Moving beyond the direct impact of using CRM systems on frontline employees' service performance: The mediating role of adaptive behaviour
Authors: Chen, Renee Rui; Ou, Carol Xiaojuan; Wang, Wei; Peng, Zhuo; Davison, Robert M.
Journal: Information Systems Journal (2020)
DOI: 10.1111/isj.12265
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>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 (<jats:italic>routinization</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>infusion of use</jats:italic>) enables <jats:italic>interpersonal</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>offering adaptive behaviours</jats:it…