Poor customer relationship management a case study in nhi long JSC

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Dang Thi Kim Khuyen

POOR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
A CASE STUDY IN NHI LONG JSC.

MASTER OF BUSINESS (HONOURS)

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2020

1


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Dang Thi Kim Khuyen

POOR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
A CASE STUDY IN NHI LONG JSC.

MASTER OF BUSINESS (HONOURS)
SUPERVISOR: DR. DOAN ANH TUAN
Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2020

2


POOR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AT NHI LONG
JOINT STOCK COMPANY
Table of Contents
1. Company overview ...................................................................................................... 5
1.1.

Nhi Long Joint Stock Company overview .......................................................... 5

1.2.

Organizational structure ...................................................................................... 6

2. Symptoms ..................................................................................................................... 7
2.1.

Increase in turnover rate ...................................................................................... 7

2.2.

Increase in sales employees dissatisfaction responses ....................................... 9

2.3.

Increase in customers unanswered calls ........................................................... 10

3. Problem Identification ............................................................................................... 10
3.1.

Potential problems .............................................................................................. 10

3.1.1.

Lack of sales skills ........................................................................................ 11

3.1.2.

Poor customer relationship management system ...................................... 12

3.1.3.

Company policies ......................................................................................... 13

3.2.

Validating problems ............................................................................................ 14

3.2.1.

Staffs lack of sales skills ............................................................................... 15

3.2.2.

Poor customer relationship management system ...................................... 15

3.2.3.

Company policies ......................................................................................... 17

3.2.4.

Managers’ perspective ................................................................................. 18

3.2.5.

Employees’ perspective ................................................................................ 18

3.3.

The importance of main problem ...................................................................... 21

4. Causes Validation ...................................................................................................... 22
4.1.

Potential causes exploration ............................................................................... 22

4.1.1.

Ineffective training program ....................................................................... 22

4.1.2.

CRM tool function limitation ...................................................................... 23

4.1.3.

Functional managers cooperation limitation ............................................. 24

4.2.

Validating causes ................................................................................................. 26

5. Alternative Solutions ................................................................................................. 28
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6. Action plan.................................................................................................................. 36
7. Supporting Information ............................................................................................ 41
References.......................................................................................................................... 51
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Organizational structure of Nhi Long Company .................................................. 6
Figure 2: % employees working in each department ........................................................... 8
Figure 3 Turnover rate in sales department (%) ................................................................... 8
Figure 4 : Number of sales employees’ dissatisfaction responses in quarter 4th 2018 ......... 9
Figure 5 : Customers’ unanswered calls (%) ...................................................................... 10

Table of Diagrams
Diagram 1 : Initial Cause-Effect map of Nhi Long Company ........................................... 20
Diagram 2: Updated Cause-Effect map of Nhi Long Company ........................................ 25
Diagram 3: Final Cause-Effect map of Nhi Long Company.............................................. 28

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1. Company overview
1.1.Nhi Long Joint Stock Company overview

Nhi Long joint stock company (Nhi Long JSC.) is one of small companies in

Vietnam. This firm is working in interior field, and now it has imported rugs from Turkey
to distribute in Viet Nam market. About company history, Nhi Long JSC stemmed from a
small business that first opened in 2005, working in gemstone painting industry, and was
established officially in 2013. When it had become strong competition in paintings
market, in 2013, director of Nhi Long Company decided to switch over to new products
of rugs and carpets.
In August 2013, the first container of rugs were imported from China by Nhi Long
JSC. After selling Chinese rugs in one year, Nhi Long Company had got so many
complaints from customers about rug quality. Through this problem, Nhi Long director
realized that although partner of Nhi Long company at that time was a biggest factory
which produced rugs in China, Chinese rugs were not high quality products as he
expected because of producing technology of Chinese itself. So, director of this company
tried to find more new suppliers who had better quality products to solve complaint from
his customers.
In May 2015, after nearly two years observing and researching, he chose to
cooperate with two factories in Europe- Turkey and Belgium country. With higher
modern technology and famous experience in producing rugs over the world, these
partners could provide quality rugs for Vietnamese customers. Customers’ satisfaction
was improved when they can buy Turkey rugs with high quality and suitable prices.
Moreover, the sales revenues of this company also improve significantly.
However, it still exists some difficulties for Nhi Long Jsc to maintain customers,
open market and get sales revenue increase. There are some limited resources of human,

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finance and facilities, especially an increase of high turnover rate in sales department in
three recent years, more dissatisfaction for both employees and customers.
1.2.Organizational structure

As a trading company, Nhi Long JSC has organizational structure as following
chart:

Chairman

CEO
(General Director)

Marketing Team
leader

Marketing staff

Sales manager 1

Tax accountant

4 sales
representative
working in HCM

Payable and
receivable
accountant

4 sales
representative
working in Hanoi

Vice Director

Sales manager 2

4 sales
representative
working in HCM

Admin and
Logistic staff in
Hanoi

Admin and
Logistic staff in
HCM

Figure 1: Organizational structure of Nhi Long Company
With the structure showing in above chart, three groups of sales are working
independently with different KPIs for each group. The market is not segmented for each
group. Vision of this company is toward to build a lot of small sales groups, with around
5-6 sales persons for each group, to cover Vietnam market and increase revenue, leading
to high increase in profit.

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2. Symptoms
2.1. Increase in turnover rate

One of the big attentions for small enterprises which are working in construction or
interior business in Vietnam today is about human resources management. At Nhi Long

Company, turnover rate increases in three recent years, the figures are showed in the
below table:
Table of employees leave job
Month
Number of employees quit job in 2016
Number of employees quit job in 2017
Number of employees quit job in 2018
Total

Jan
2
3
3
8

Feb
1
1
1
3

Mar
0
0
2
2

Apr
1
1

0
2

May
0
2
0
2

Jun
0
0
1
1

Jul
0
0
1
1

Aug
1
3
1
5

Sep
0
0

2
2

Oct
1
0
1
2

Nov
1
0
1
2

Dec
0
1
2
3

Total
7
11
15
33

Table of employees working
Month
Number of employees working in 2016

Number of employees working in 2017
Number of employees working in 2018

Jan
9
17
26

Feb
11
16
25

Mar
13
18
29

Apr
15
25
29

May
15
25
30

Jun
15

25
31

Jul
15
28
32

Aug
16
26
32

Sep
17
28
30

Oct
18
28
32

Nov
17
29
32

Dec
18

28
30

Total
18
28
30

Feb
9.09
6.25
4.00

Mar
0.00
0.00
6.90

Apr
6.67
4.00
0.00

May
0.00
8.00
0.00

Jun
0.00

0.00
3.23

Jul
0.00
0.00
3.13

Aug
6.25
11.54
3.13

Sep
0.00
0.00
6.67

Oct
5.56
0.00
3.13

Nov
5.88
0.00
3.13

Dec
0.00

3.57
6.67

Total
38.89
39.29
50.00

Table 1: Turnover rate of Nhi Long company
Month
Jan
Turnover rate in 2016
22.22
Turnover rate in 2017
17.65
Turnover rate in 2018
11.54

The table displays total of employees who quit jobs in Nhi Long JSC is rising year
by year with the number of 7; 11and 15 employees in 2016; 2017; 2018, respectively.
And with an increase in leaving jobs from employees, Nhi Long turnover rate climbs
from 38.89% in 2016 to 39.29% in 2017 and reach 50% in 2018.
Furthermore, the below chart will perform the number of sales employees quit job,
together with percentage of turnover rate increased in sales department:

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Turnover rate in sales
department (%)

70

64

60
50

% employees working in each
department in 2018

52.63

20.00

40

23.33

6.67

40

3.33

30

6.67

20

40.00

10
0
Year 2016

Year 2017

Logistics

Sales

Accounting

Admin HN

Marketing

Managers

Year 2018

Figure 3 Turnover rate in sales department (%)

Figure 2: % employees working in each department

Table 2: Turnover rate in sales department
Year
Total sales employees (average)
Number employees leave jobs

Turnover rate (%)

2016
5
2
40

2017
9.5
5
52.63

2018
12.5
8
64

Looking at Figure 2, we can see the structure of human resources in each
department at Nhi Long Company, total employees working in sales staff are highest by
40% in total employees. And by data shown in table 2, number of sales employees will be
calculated by the average of sales staff at the beginning of each year and at the end of
each year (reference data in supporting information), turnover rate in sales staff are
escalating quickly from 40% in 2016 to over 64% in 2018. It is clear that, the turnover
rate of sales employee impacts strongly in turnover rate of whole company.
By reviewing on number of rising turnover rate in table 1 and table 2 together with
the structure in above pie chart, there is a relation recognized, the turnover rate in sales
staff contributed mostly in turnover rate increase of Nhi Long Company.
Moreover, because employee turnover is costly(1), and one of strategies of Nhi
Long is create more and more sales team. Managers of this company have to pay attention
in the growth of sales employee turnover rate. So, employee turnover can be a symptom

of this company.
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2.2. Increase in sales employees dissatisfaction responses

By data of internal system from making survey monthly, the responses of sales
employees are almost dissatisfaction with their current job. The number of discontentment
responses is increased steadily in three recent months, the percentage in detail is showing
below:
Answers of discontentment (%)
100.00
80.00

83.33

91.67

63.64

60.00
40.00
Answer of
discontentment
(%)

20.00
0.00

Answer of discontentment

(%)

Oct-18

Nov-18

Dec-18

Oct-18

Nov-18

Dec-18

63.64

83.33

91.67

Figure 4 : Number of sales employees’ dissatisfaction responses in quarter 4th 2018

(Form of question paper in survey)

Although this type of survey of Nhi Long company does not have the reason for
each answer, and also does not know the name of respondent for each answer, leading
managers need to consider this is a signal for your sales staff feedback that need to make
attention to find out the potential problems in their organization.

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2.3. Increase in customers unanswered calls

The call center system of Nhi Long Company has a statistic of calling in and out
between sales and customers every day. And in three consecutive months, the number of
calling that sales employees cannot contact with their customers, are increasing from
20.73% in October to over 31.11% in December 2018. The below chart is shown an
upward trend for this situation:
% Call-out can not contacted
35.00
30.00
25.00
20.00
% call-out can not
contacted

15.00
10.00

Linear (% call-out can not
contacted)

5.00
-

% call-out can not contacted

Oct-18

Nov-18 Dec-18

Oct-18
20.73

Nov-18
25.93

Dec-18
31.11

Figure 5 : Customers’ unanswered calls (%)

It is an unusual action from customers that employees are facing and these number
are collected through call center system. Customers play an important role in small
business, so employees lose contact with customers is a symptom that company have to
explore potential problems that Nhi Long may get in 2019.
3. Problem Identification
3.1.

Potential problems

By using method of depth interviews individually with sales staff who are quit job,
sales representatives who are working in organization, sales managers and director of this

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firm, together with the information which are collected in symptoms part, some potential
problems are explored as following:

3.1.1. Lack of sales skills
According to an increase in number of unanswered call when sales conduct a call
to customers during last three months in 2018, it can become an upward trend in
following months in 2019.
Related to current condition, Mr. Huan – general director, sharing the information
that company can face the loss of customers who are not contacted by sales. In the
statistic from internal call center system, the number of customers are not willing to
receive the call increase steadily from 21.73% to 31.11% in three months, and they are the
highest rate until now. He was also sharing that the problem can stem from the sales
staffs, they lack of some needed skills for calling to customers, and especially when the
work in this field change daily, sales man have to upgrade their skills to meet
requirements of customers such as communication skill, presentation skill, persuasive
skill… Besides that, based on his own view, if sales have good communication skill, they
can get customer satisfaction and they can contact with their customers anytime.
At the same situation about customers did not answer calls, Ms. Khuyen- sales
manager, stated her view that there is a limitation in employing skills that sales staff have
been trained when sales conduct a call to all customers, so in some cases, the customers
feel boring, and they have a tendency to ignore the call from sales in next time.
And when discussing with Ms. Mo – sales representative in Ha Noi, she gave a
point of view that in order to meet company requirements, all sales have to contact via
call with customer monthly, and company also support for sales to contact with customers
via sending message at least two times monthly in order to create interaction with
customers. So after a while, customers feel annoyed when they see message or call from
sales employees regularly, it makes more and more difficulties for sales employees to
communicate with them, sometimes she do not know what is calling purpose to her
customers.
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With different jobs in organizations, people have different point of view in the

situation of unanswered call raising, however, all views are related to the skills of sales.
And for any reason from company or employees, if sales employees have an effective
communication skill, it can help to improve this unexpected ratio.
To sum up, the lack of sales communication skills can be seen as a potential problem for
organization during this period of time.
3.1.2. Poor customer relationship management system
Nhi Long is a trading company which is clearly aware of the importance of sales
employees. It is because they see dissatisfaction of sales man can impact directly on their
customers and their profit, from comment of general director. Looking back with an
internal survey showing an increase of dissatisfaction employee responses in general
about their work in current months, the ratio increases significantly with highest number
by 91.67% in December 2018. Managers have to pay attention in this situation.
To understand more about the issue, after discussing with sales manager 2 – Mr.
Cuong, he said that in Nhi Long organization, sales representative are more and more
getting supports from company such as sales kit, tools, skills training
program…especially the CRM systems. With applying CRM systems which are always
latest updated regularly, sales will get more benefits from minimize manual operation, for
example create quotation by excel, or thinking and sending email or message for a vast of
customers, revenue statistic…With the discontent from sales, for him, it may be related to
KPIs achievement. It is so difficult for sales to reach the requirements of company that are
measured by KPIs in CRM system.
In fact, related to sales discontentment, opinion from sales representatives- Mrs.
Thao working in HCM, and Ms. Linh working in Ha Noi, they offer the recognition about
system in management the customer relationship of company. To be specific, Ms. Linh
stated that she faced with customer information duplication. It means that, she added
some new customers in last month, and other sales people also add one more new account
with the same of her customers by different number phone and then she lost order
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purchases because she did not know about this duplication. And it is very difficult for her
to check, because company have over 4,000 existent customers and she also is limited
about access permission in system. The duplication of so many customers make her takes
time and efforts to serve these accounts, such as for each account, she had to send
quotation, calling every month, visiting customers, answer all enquiries, and then she
suffer higher workload but unnecessary. In other view of employee about CRM system,
Mrs. Thao, she gives feedback about the information displayed in CRM system, it takes a
lot of her time to collect necessary information for using to analyze to make report
weekly. For example, on Saturday morning, she has to check each account of customer,
and for at least 100 customers she contacted on this week, to find out which customers
arise quotes, which customers comments to contribute their work, which ones not concern
information sales man provide…and then analyze and make report. It takes much time
because information is located in each different field in system. And she also shared these
activities are so boring and make her get more task to do, while she had a lot of more
necessary tasks to complete. So, the bad CRM system can lead to workload higher for
sales employees, of course, it will make increase in employees’ dissatisfaction.
Therefore, the poor customer relationship system can be a potential problem for
Nhi Long organization at this time.
3.1.3. Company policies
With turnover rate increased in three recent years, especially in sales department,
from 40% to 64%, information is collected to find out potential problems for organization
through depth interviews with employees who left job and director of company.
Through discussion with Ms. Trang, who left sales job in December 2018, she
mentioned that in order to manage sales staff about customers interaction in internal
systems, company ban a lot of new policies such as shipping, payment policies, the
content of a call to talk with customers,…and these policies were updated every month,
this can make her confused strongly when she tried to remember the latest policies,
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especially she was a sales man working in B2B field, so when policies changes, she had
to support for all customers to remember new policies, and edited the contract with
customers, while she cared for over 300 customers in system. More than that, new
policies are accompanied by so many key performance indicators (KPIs) that applied for
sales staff. This make sales man as her suffered high stress pressure and could not be
happy and worry about the current jobs, although she satisfied with her income monthly.
In other case with Mr. Lam, he left his job in October 2018, he had given that he got
stress every day when he worked in this job, for instance, he had to call at least 20
customers daily and solved any job if having in order to meet one of KPIs for sales people
in a day. Along with this KPI, sales are required to follow KPIs of visiting customers,
with this task, all customer accounts in system that he were hold, are encouraged to visit
at least once a year, and a lot of mandatory tasks were needed to complete by sales as
him. With a lot of KPIs that were required to archived, his performance was lower than he
expected and also lower to compare with other sales person. So, for him, this is a stressful
job with incorrect KPIs.
With general director view point, Mr. Huan stated that some sales employees quit
their job because of their individual issues like a job involved in their family, some quit
their job because they could not catch up something changes in company. In order to
make sure all customers of company are cared well and customers have a good
relationship with sales people and company, he and managers had to update quickly
policies, and of course the result are measured by new KPIs for sales staff.
So, these policies of company can be a potential problem for Nhi Long Company.
3.2.

Validating problems

In order to validate problems, some theories and studies are reviewed, together with
comments from managers and employees as below:

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3.2.1. Staffs lack of sales skills
Based on customers refuse calls from sales are mentioned in part 2, this can be
seen as a response of customer dissatisfaction. According to a study, one of eight
customers dissatisfaction responses are neglect (2), where can cope with items including
little caring or quit caring service provider, do not take note any action and finally let
worse relationship happens, this reaction can be called passive response from customers.
Plus, Hirschman (3) also stated that to face with dissatisfied situations, some customers
choose to be silence and hope better new things will happen. Likewise, these studies
mention an action that customers do not accept calls from partners are dissatisfaction
response from customers, and that because customers do not care about this firm and
complaints are recognized not worthy.
One of the factors can affect to the customers dissatisfaction is the understanding
customers and their needs(4). Lack of understanding will lead to customer’s
dissatisfactions while high level in communication can get customer satisfaction. Besides
that, effective communication skills is very important for sales interaction, sales
adaptiveness and sales outcomes (5). Other words, if sales staffs, who have to make a call
to customers daily, lack of skill about communication will make customers do not want to
answer their calls.
Therefore, lack of effective communication skill via calling to customers can be a
problem of this firm.
3.2.2. Poor customer relationship management system
With the number of dissatisfied responses from sales rise from October 2018 to
December 2018, that’s really important signal that managers have to make attention.
Indeed, according to Farrell (6), complaint from employees is one of five decisions
discontent employees choose, it can be seen as constructive response intended to benefit
itself. But it can also be a sign of turnover intention as well.

15

Actually, Mr. Huan – general director, shared information about one of the urgent
tasks is handling job dissatisfaction from three sales teams in recent time because it may
be related to raise in turnover rate in sales employees and bring negative effect directly to
company performance in next quarter. Besides that, about relationship between
employees and customers, employee satisfaction impact directly or indirectly to customer
satisfaction via external service quality that employee provide, higher employee
satisfaction can contribute in higher customer satisfaction and vice versa (7). Therefore,
the dissatisfy employee increase can make increased in customers dissatisfaction.
When customers dissatisfy about a product or service of a company, they have
three basic reaction to their partners including: keep silence and exit the relationship,
complaint about dissatisfaction, or quietly remain a relationship (3). This can be seen as
“opportunity cost” and impact indirectly to company productivity, business effectiveness.
If company do not recognize the passive silence from their customers, it can loss these
current customers as well as the revenue from them.
According to Michael (8), customers relationship management (CRM) adoption
and utilization can impact in positive way to sales performance, and efficiency as well as
effectiveness of sales. However, customers’ relationship management can effect
negatively to organization if the firm cannot implement CRM in the right way. Indeed,
fail in CRM can create ineffective communication with customers and then lead to the
customer dissatisfaction, customer trust and loyalty(9).
Besides that, although customer relationship management can make employees
satisfy through this system meets employees’ requirements, in some cases, CRM system
can cause some problems, such as the poor customer relationship management can make
duplicate in data entry or enter unorganized customer information, these can create
unnecessary tasks and make increase high workload, then create complaint from
employees(10). Other words, inferior CRM system can contribute to employees’
dissatisfaction, so bad CRM system can be seen as a problem of company.

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3.2.3. Company policies
Based on the table in 2.1, turnover rate of this company is increase steadily in three
recent years. And regarding to job dissatisfaction, Herzberg describe five factors can build
on job dissatisfaction including company policy, supervision, interpersonal relationships,
working conditions and salary. When these factors be raised, turnover intention will be
increased (11). And in a company apply more IT technology with their own new customer
relationship management (CRM system), the policies have been changed in a short time
to catch up with feedback from internal and external customers. CRM sometimes requires
employees to do new working action that they have ever tried before. In some cases,
company train them but employees can not aware, or in other cases, the company
recognize these employees are not suitable for this work. Other words, CRM may requires
organizations change in their recruitment policies to archive success(10).
Moreover, besides the policies related to recruitment, CRM system requires
combination of people, processes and technology to find out the insight of customers,
focus on customers retention and growth in customers relationship (12). CRM system
related to customer orientation. A sustainable CRM strategy implementation need the
training program mandatory about customer loyalty for all staffs (13). So, in order to
supply high quality service and get customers satisfaction, employees are managed by
many key performances indicators (KPIs) as if they were “standard” , but they are not
based on studies or experienced evidence (14) . So, inconsistent KPIs can create
employees dissatisfactions because of high pressure in work or low performance base on
these KPIs. And the job dissatisfaction is actually one of the factors dragging on turnover
rate in organization as well.
To determine the main problem to prioritize to solve, perspectives from managers
and employees are supported as following:

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3.2.4. Managers’ perspective
Mr. Nguyen Ba Huan, general director of Nhi Long JSC has given that focusing
development relationship management is the most important issue. When having a strong
system with loyalty customers, sales employees will gain more opportunities to get higher
revenues and have better performances as well, so it can support to decrease the turnover
rate directly in sales department. Besides that, when company have a good system of
CRM, customers will have more satisfaction and company may get more profit by higher
volume products are sold. With better finance, company can invest in sales benefits and
create employees satisfaction. Moreover, through better CRM system, the technology will
be improved and minimize wrong operations in systems, that will make decreased in sales
dissatisfaction. A company has a good customers relationship management, of course,
will have an effective communication with their client, and it will minimize unanswered
calls from customers.
3.2.5. Employees’ perspective
Sales employees – who are directly related to all symptoms, give the about there
recognitions when they are working in Nhi Long company. Ms. Thao, she is working in
sales department in HCM, believes that if company has a good relationship management
system, especially CRM internal software, she will save time in processing of collection
information from system to make weekly report, and helping her in avoiding high
pressure when using system. Plus, Mr. Huy and Mr. Dat, new sales employees also stated
that they agree with the purpose of focusing in customers , however, if company have
better CRM system, other better methods to contact with customers will be implemented,
customers will accept calls from sales employees . From them, customers will get more
satisfaction and high pressure in work of sales people will be decreased.

18

Through theories and in-depth interviews with managers and employees, poor customers’
relationship management system is considered as the central problem effect Nhi Long
Company at this time.

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SYMPTOMS

Lack of
sales skill

Poor
Customer
Relationship
Management
System
(CRM)

Ineffective
communication
with customers

Lack of
system
integration

Unorganized
customer
information

Customer
dissatisfaction

Entry data
duplication

High
workload

Increased in
unanswered
call from
customers

Increased in
dissatisfied
responses from
sales employees

Take time to
pull out right
information

High stress
pressure
Company
policies

Job

dissatisfaction

Inconsistent
KPIs

Turnover rate
increase

Low
performance

Diagram 1 : Initial Cause-Effect map of Nhi Long Company
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3.3.

The importance of main problem

According to J Dyche (15), customer relationship management system (CRM system)
requires company understand how to improve customers’ relationship and enterprise
practices through whole program with a lot of processes and organization changes, CRM
technology and customers data are considered as parts of this program, with superior
customer relationship make a company differentiation itself. And in business-to-business
(B2B) field, it is considered that an important aim is optimization the relationship between
company and customers. Top managers also agree CRM is a critical factor to business
success, so if CRM system is inferior, company will not have sustainable development.
Moreover, there will cause the poor relationship between customers and company, it will
make customers ignore company and do not buy products. In other aspect, in the situation
of worse customer relationship, the cost for rebuild this relationship is costly. So, it will

impact directly to profit of company.
According to theories and perspective in organization, customers choose to unanswered
call from sales man is one of behaviors of customers when they dissatisfy about something
from company. It also stemmed from sales man lacking communication skills or from
company’s management system. In details, sales employees of Nhi Long Company depend
mainly on company management activities when most of situation handling and answer to
customers are trained and requires follow regulatory compliance. Besides that, these sales
members who contact with current customers have a certain level of communication skills,
and they also can contact with customers in a certain of time until last quarter in 2018. And
the application for sending automatically so many messages or call from company CRM
system is not a good method for supporting sales employees in customers retention. It is
difficult to see the lack of sales skills is a main problem for this organization. In other
aspect, CRM system of organization can impact directly on customer’s satisfaction when it
focus on customers, and sending automatically to all current customers. With the data are
imported by employees, and organized subjective to organization, this CRM system can
contains something wrong data or inconsequential organized data. Plus, when applying the
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method of sending the same contain information with a same programmed style, it cannot
reflect the different distinct style of each sales employee, or it also cannot make customers
satisfy when they not meet their requirements as well. With problem from the CRM
system, company also can make sales man dissatisfy and lead to they cannot communicate
effectively with their current customers. To be more in details related to CRM system
limitations, sales employees can suffer high workload because of data duplication or
unorganized data as employee comments and theory findings. It also make sales staff get
more difficulties in meet KPIs requirements. All are led to employee dissatisfaction,
customer’s satisfaction and increase in turnover rate.
A good CRM system can support so many jobs for sales employees, however, the bad
one will be contrasted. It will make employee feel boring and do not believe in

organization and their capacity. And they can choose to quit their job. This will impact
indirectly to the profit of a company when turnover rate costly and productivity decreased.
To sum up, the poor CRM system is an important and main problem of a company, this
problem should be solve as soon as possible to maintain customers and employees.
4. Causes Validation
4.1.

Potential causes exploration

Based on literature reviews and information are analyzed in previous parts, some
potential causes of main problem are explored as below:
4.1.1. Ineffective training program
It is the fact that, one of main sources to have competitive advantage today is customer
relationship, and employees play an important role to contribute good relationship with
customers, having customer intimacy through providing good customer’s services.
Training program for employees to help them to understand and use CRM system is the
best way when working together is a factor in success of CRM implementation. Ineffective
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training program can cause poor CRM system when it can make employees do not know
clearly about the meaning of some CRM activities. Employees can dissatisfy about their
job because of their own misunderstand. In addition, quality and quantity data is a factor
contribute to support or barrier for a CRM system. Almost data entry to system is made by
employees, and if employees are trained unclearly, data problems may happen and create
CRM system mistake(16). Consequently, inefficient training program can cause poor CRM
system.
4.1.2. CRM tool function limitation
Lack of measuring key customers performance can make organization get difficulties to
provide best services or products for all customers. Moreover, customer relationship

management focuses on customer orientation, so an important thing that company need to
make attention is understand customer requirements before implementing a CRM system.
Undoubtedly, customers with different segments can have different insights and
expectations. If company is not clear on evaluating customers, organizations cannot
understand customer needs and it can create customer dissatisfactions. In contrast,
understand distinct characteristic of each customers segments can support company have
good approach to. Besides, some studies findings showed that customer dissatisfaction
related to customer retention and customer retention impact on business profitability(16).
Other aspect of customer segment measurement is it impact on key performance
indicators (KPIs). Measuring unnecessary things is considered worst activities itself and
waste of company resources. KPIs is one of decisions for measuring effectiveness of CRM
implementation. So, many organizations need to build a system of standard measurement
with appropriate KPIs.
Consequently, CRM functional tool limitation about classify target customers can be a
cause of a poor customer relationship management system.

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4.1.3. Functional managers cooperation limitation
CRM need a cross-functional activities between different departments to ensure create
value to company customers. However, in some cases, customer relationship management
implementation influence favors of some departments, so these managers become reluctant
and unwilling to cooperate with other departments in CRM activities. And when people
who do not want to do some things, it is difficult to have a good result from their activities.
Top managers like director, CEO, or CRM managers need to transform clearly about
benefits of whole organization for these manages aware of meaning CRM activities.
In others words, cooperation between functional managers can be a cause of poor CRM
system implementation in organization.

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CAUSES
SYMPTOMS

Ineffective
communication
with customers

Ineffective
training
program

CRM tool
functional
limitation

Functional
managers’
cooperation
limitation

Poor
Customer
Relationship
Management
System
(CRM)

Entry data
duplication

Customer
dissatisfaction

High
workload

Increased in
unanswered
call from
customers

Increased in
dissatisfied
responses from
sales employees

Take time to
pull out right
information

Inconsistent
KPIs

Job
dissatisfaction

Turnover rate

increase

Diagram 2: Updated Cause-Effect map of Nhi Long Company

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