Influence Of Electronic Customer Relationship Management, Competitive Advantage And Performance Of Commercial Banks In Nairobi City County Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between electronic customer relationship, competitive advantage and performance in commercial banks in Kenya. The study used cross sectional survey research design. The targeted population was staff working within branches of commercial banks in Nairobi region and its environs. The sample size of the study was 100 respondents. The research tool used was structured and semi structured questionnaire that was administered to 100 respondents from commercial banks in Nairobi and its environs. The rapid growth in electronic banking indicates a major move towards use of electronic money as opposed to the over-the-counter customer service. This leads to the need to analyze how E-CRM is working in order to harness how to use it to gain competitive advantage. According to this study, interaction with participants was rated as average and this offers an opportunity for improvement that may lead to the banks growth. The participants were willing to use all the means of communication that are available with more than half of the participants identifying phone calls as the quickest way to solve customers’ e-banking problems. This shows the perception that dealing with a person one can talk to may lead to faster solutions. Social media was second and this shows that customers are becoming more tech savvy. In this study, the preferred touch points were email, social media, telebanking, online banking service and customer service showing that participants were open to using majority of the available systems to interact with the banks. In spite of this, systems delays may inconvenience the user and it was the most mentioned complaint during use of e-banking. Banks may improve the time taken to access and use the electronic systems which may increase its usage and therefore give them a competitive advantage. Demographic characteristic of the population under study reveal that over seventy percent of the working population is youth aged between 18-33years. The respondents are generally single or young couples in non-management job level, but highly educated and technology survey. Electronic customer relationship through social media and telebanking was the most preferred regular means of communication. Banks hence have great potential of resource that is not fully exploited that can give them competitive advantage. The cost of transacting using electronic banking system is generally influenced by mode of electronic banking used. Human resource training on E-CRM was viewed as effective given the quality of service received by customer but not as regular as required. The E-CRM attribute with the highest mean was bank offers regular ECRM training, which has a mean of 2.75 and a standard deviation of 0.936. In competitive advantage, having significant growth opportunities had the highest mean (4.3) with a standard deviation of 0.9. The attribute with the highest mean (4.2) with a standard deviation of 0.8 in organizational performance was that employees had a positive attitude and delivered excellent customer service. Competitive advantage had a positive association with organizational performance. It also had a moderating effect on the relationship between electronic customer relationship management and organizational performance increasing the explanatory power of the model. Banks that continuously leverage on innovation and technology will be able to sustain competitive advantage over those who are slow or do not adapt to change.