Chapter 50 Impact Evaluation of Customer Knowledge Process on Customer Knowledge Expansion: An Empirical Study in Jordanian Banking Sector

Samer Alhawari

The World Islamic Sciences and Education University, Jordan

ABSTRACT

The article aim is to investigate how Customer Knowledge Processes used in practice by Jordanian banks to achieve customer knowledge expansion.

1. INTRODUCTION

In order to have a new knowledge economy and business, organizations are now facing major challenges due to external pressures as well as

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-6268-1.ch050

the nature of the workplace. This gives rises to the necessity of improvement of a strategic, comprehensive, holistic and adoption Knowledge Management (KM) to enhance the process and get competitive advantage.

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The globalization introduces many challenges, to meet these challenges, companies may require being innovative by introducing new ideas. Obvi­ously, this trend is magnified by the rapid devel­opment of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and the adoption of the customer­centric orientation (Stefanou et al., 2003).

They are concerned with the expansion of customers; Based on that Knowledge has become strategic resource of organization and the basis of competitive advantage.

Customer expansion plays the role of expand­ing the organizations customer base through word of mouth marketing and active interactions with the company (Park & Kim, 2003). As well, Bibiano and Pastor (2006) describe the Evolution phase refer to the integration of more capabilities into the CRM system.

Undoubtedly, Customer Knowledge Manage­ment (CKM) creates new knowledge sharing plat­forms and processes between companies and their customers. It is a continuous strategic process by which companies enable their customers to move from passive information sources and recipients of products and services to empowered knowl­edge partners (Gibbert et al., 2002). Through, review and study of selected fundamentals related literature, that focuses on developed countries and accordingly based on cultural, educational, technological, social and economical factors ap­plicable to advanced Western societies rather than developing countries.

Our study is therefore special, because it ad­dresses one of the important issues in Middle Eastern area because the adoption and use of IT is new for most businesses (Nehari Talet et al., 2010). We strongly consider that our study will assist and provide guidance for the IT Industry, and researchers as to how a logical knowledge process from customers should be kept in mind in developing countries to help in order to attain customer knowledge expansion.

This paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we review relevant literature; section three proposes the research model and hypotheses, section four is about the research methodology in which we discuss the design of the question­naire, sample, data collection, hypotheses analysis and results. The last piece of this paper is our conclusion.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Concept of Customer Knowledge

Study of the KM process is important for the orga­nization to validate the obj ective.

Customer knowledge managers seek opportu­nities for connecting with their customers as equal co-creators of organizational value. This is also in stark contrast to the desire to maintain and care for an existing customer base (Gibbert et al., 2002). The literature shows that managers concentrate on how to produce expansion for the company through attain new customers and through engaging in an active and value-creating dialogue with them, and are much less concerned with customer expansion information. Furthermore, Gebert et al. (2002) maintains that CRM and KM have been gaining recently wide interest in business environment. It is an approach that is used to capture, create, and apply knowledge to make the CRM process successful (Alryalat et al., 2007).

2.2. Customer Knowledge Flows

To become more innovative, responsive to custom­ers and adaptable to change, leading organizations are learning how to learn from high numbers of knowledgeable people. Today, Knowledge Flow continues to concentrate its efforts on innovations that are customer-focused, trustworthy, and dy­namic and intelligent. When customers, suppliers and staff willingly share expertise and experiences with one another, customers are loyal, everyone wins and business advantage is undeniable.

Salomann et al. (2005) distinguish between three kinds of knowledge flows that play a vital role in the interaction between an organization and its customers: Knowledge for, from and about customers. Knowledge for customers to support customers in their buying cycle, a continuous knowledge flow directed from the company to its customers. Knowledge from customers has to be incorporated by the company for product and service innovation, idea generation as well as for the continuous improvement of its products and services. Knowledge about customers is collected in CRM service and support processes and ana­lyzed in CRM analysis processes.

2.3. The Task of Customer Knowledge Process in Achieving Customer Knowledge Expansion

The CRM research draw attention to the im­portance of KM, culture change to develop a customer-oriented organization, and technologi­cal readiness essentially CRM is about customer interaction and about learning about customers’ needs and preferences in order to provide more suitable products and services to customers in the future. The importance of technology in enabling CRM is confirmed by the attempts at defining the concept. One view of CRM is the utilization of customer related information or knowledge to deliver relevant products or services to custom­ers (Levine, 2000). Furthermore, Newell (2000) discusses a range of CRM case studies that used customer knowledge to deliver relevant products and services. CRM has been also defined as the alignment of business strategies and processes to create customer loyalty and ultimately corporate profitability enabled by technology (Rigby et al., 2002).

Kumar and Ramani (2004) viewed CRM as the process of getting and maintaining an ongo­ing relationship with customers across multiple customer touch points through differential and tailored treatment of individual customers based on their likely responses to alternative market­ing programs, such that the contribution of each customer to the overall profitability of the firm is maximized. Therefore, to realize CRM success, business and IT executives should implement CRM processes and technologies and foster em­ployee behavior that supports coordinated and more effective customer expansion throughout all customer channels.

A high degree of CRM process implementation is characterized as where firms are able to adjust their customer interactions based on the life-cycle stages of their customers and their capacity to influence or shape the stages (i.e., extending relationships, (Reinartz et al., 2004). E-CRM is defined as the application of CRM processes utilizing IT and relies on technology such as re­lational databases, data warehouses, data mining, computer telephony integration, the Internet, and multi-channel communication platforms in order to get closer to customers (Chen & Chen, 2004). Interestingly, the level of technological sophistica­tion of CRM technology makes no contribution to economic performance and supports the view that CRM is more than just software (Reinartz et al., 2004). CRM can be conceptualized at three levels:

1. Company wide,

2. Functional, and

3. Customer facing (Buttle, 2004).

Bhaskar and Zhang (2005) confirm that the most significant changes in the practice of market­ing during the last decade is the shift in emphasis from a transaction orientation customer interaction to the CRM, However, in large organizations, it is not very easy to collect and to transform the customer data necessary for creating systems to support it as the basis of the organizations wide customer relationship strategy, In terms of market­ing strategies, CRM systems allow organizations to manage customer data, analyze customer rela­tionships to keep existing customers and attract potential new customers.

The enhancement of existing relationships is important to organizations, since attracting new customers is known to be more expensive. Therefore, as part of their CRM strategy, the need to understand and react to changes of customer behavior is an inevitable aspect of surviving in a competitive and mature market, (Lariviere & Poel, 2004).

2.4. Phases of Customer Knowledge Expansion

In recent years companies have integrated their CRM and KM efforts because they realize that KM plays a key role in CRM process (Dous et al., 2005). Additionally, CRM is a strategy which aims at acquiring customers, retaining and expanding the relationship with the customers (Alryalat & Alhawari 2008). Generally, CRM is defining as an interactive process that achieves an optimum balance between corporate investment and the satisfaction of customer needs to generate the highest profit through customer expansion.

Based on the theoretic al b ackground and litera­ture review, a conceptual model was developed to examine the role of Customer Knowledge process (Customer Knowledge Codification, Customer Knowledge Representation, Customer Knowl­edge Sharing, Customer Knowledge Application, Design of Customer Knowledge, Execution of Knowledge from Customer, and Verify of Knowl­edge from Customer) on Customer Knowledge Expansion. To achieve the Customer Knowledge Expansion, need to investigate seven phases that can be seen in Table 1.

The first stage deals with “Customer Knowl­edge Codification.” The codification stage involves the conversion of validated customer knowledge into explicit form. It is used to represent customer knowledge in transferable, comprehensible and easily accessible format.

The second stage deals with “Customer Knowledge Representations.” It describes the knowledge in familiar terms. The aim of this phase is to represent the customer knowledge in explicit form to make the view simple.

The third stage is concerned with “Customer Knowledge Sharing.” It refers to the transfer of the customer knowledge to others by boosting individual’s innovativeness and performance.

The fourth stage focus on “Customer Knowl­edge Application” to organization’s products, services and processes aiming in certain ways to

Table 1. Taxonomy of customer knowledge expansion

improve them. This stage helps individuals uti­lize the customer knowledge possessed by other individuals.

The fifth stage is “Design of Customer Knowl­edge”: which is defined as the systematic plan or a guide for extending the relationship with the customers. It is not only concerned with preserv­ing the relationship with the customer. But it also prepares the company for a profound and long­term relationship. It determines the important steps needed to achieve an insightful affiliation between the organization and their customers.

The sixth stage “Execution of Knowledge from Customer”: This phase produces knowledge base called knowledge from customer that includes customer knowledge to improve products and services.

The final stage is “Verify of Knowledge from Customer.” The main objective of this stage is to verify the knowledge from customers. The main objective of the verification stage is to reveal the reliability of the source by providing evidence, conducting tests and investigating the reference to ensure its accuracy.

3. RESEARCH MODEL

CRM is often described as a strategy or a set of activities the organizations employs to gain a competitive advantage. Also, CRM helps orga­nizations make sense of customer needs and help organizations manage these relationships and helps to predict the future. Therefore, customer knowledge expansion is very important for the survival of organizations to achieve the competi­tive advantage.

In addition, Customer Knowledge expansion is the process of deepening and sustaining the relationship with the most valuable customers

(Alryalat & Alhawari 2008). It is concerned with developing a value proposition relationship management with the customer. This act of sus­taining the relationship will automatically results in turning the customers into profitable ones. Also, CRM helps organizations make sense of customer needs and help organizations manage these relationships and helps to predict the future. Therefore, “Customer Knowledge Expansion” is important for the survival of organizations to achieve the competitive advantage.

Based on the theoretic al background and litera­ture review, a conceptual model was developed to examine the role of Customer Knowledge process (Customer Knowledge Codification, Customer Knowledge Representation, Customer Knowl­edge Sharing, Customer Knowledge Application, Design of Customer Knowledge, Execution of Knowledge from Customer, and Verify of Knowl­edge from Customer) on Customer Knowledge expansion. Figure 1 presents the research model, dependent on Table 1.

Seven hypotheses address the associations between Customer Knowledge process and “Customer Knowledge Expansion.” The seven hypotheses which guided this line of inquiry are as follows:

There is no significant relationship between “Customer Knowledge Codification” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” at level (α ≤ 0.05);

There is no significant relationship between “Customer Knowledge Representation” and Customer “Customer Knowledge Expansion” at level (α ≤ 0.05);

There is no significant relationship be­tween “Customer Knowledge Sharing” and “at level (α ≤ 0.05);

There is no significant relationship be­tween “Customer Knowledge Application” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” at level (α ≤ 0.05);

There is no significant relationship be­tween “Design of Customer Knowledge” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” at level (α ≤ 0.05);

There is no significant relationship between “Execution of Knowledge from Customer” and “at level (α ≤ 0.05);

There is no significant relationship between “Verify of Knowledge from Customer” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” at level (α ≤ 0.05).

Figure 1. Research model

4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

4.1. Justification of Selecting the Quantitative Research

The quantitative approach supplied a suitable research data collection strategy, allowing the collection of a large amount of data from a size­able population in a highly economical way. The construct was subjected to the scale reliability procedure of SPSS 11.0, using the Cronbach’s Alpha Cronbach (1951) criterion to assess the internal consistency of the studied construct. The Cronbach' Alpha coefficient is above 0.75 the value exceeds the accepted cut-off value of 0.75, as suggested by Nunnally (1978). This indicates that each individual item is internally consistent and highly reliable.

4.2. Justification of Selection the Questionnaire

The questionnaire started with a brief description of the meaning of the main concepts, and it gave instructions on how to answer each section of the questionnaire. An initial draft was developed based on an extensive literature review. It includes many questions which are in line with the research aims. For that reason, the research survey could be described as being comprehensive. It is divided into two parts. The first part includes the personal information of the respondents such as gender, area of profession and years of experience. The second part includes the questions related to variables that affect the integrated Customer Knowledge process regarding Customer Knowledge Acquisition.

4.3. Sample

The sample of the survey is divided into four Jordanian Bank which apply the CRM system. A total of 185 questionnaires were sent to six Jordanian banks. A total of 172 questionnaires were returned, 165 of which were completed and 7 were uncompleted. A total of 13 questionnaires were not returned. To increase the return rate, each bank was assigned a contact person to collect and return the questionnaires. Table 2 shows the summary of the sample size.

5. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULT

This study contains 139 males with a percentage of 84.2% and 26 females with a percentage of 15.8%. The largest group of respondents (54.5 %) indicates that their area of specialization was Information Technology (IT). The smallest group area of specialization of respondents indicated Manage­ment Information system (4%). Additionally, the largest group Ofrespondents (36.4%) indicates that their years of experience range from (1-2 years). Finally, the smallest group of respondents (17%) indicates that their years of experience is (Less than 1years). This demographic data are detailed in Table 3.

Table 2. Summary of the sample size

Based on the objectives and hypotheses of the study, the researchers applied the regression Analysis (ANOVA). The following in Tables 4 through 10 represents the test of the hypotheses by using Analysis of variance (ANOVA), based on the significant level of (0.05).

Referring to Table 4, 5% of the variance in “Customer Knowledge Expansion” accounted by “Customer Knowledge Codification,” the significance equal 0.00, which is less than (0.05). For that reason, there is an effect of “Customer Knowledge Codification” on “Customer Knowl­edge Expansion.” Previous research on the use of “Customer Knowledge Codification” is mainly conceptual. The present study is one of the first to use empirical quantitative data to investigate concept of “Customer Knowledge Codification” to improve customer knowledge expansion. The implication of this finding for Jordanian Bank is that they may need to pursue a combined strategy aimed at managing “Customer Knowledge Codi­fication” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” in order to improve customer satisfaction.

Referring to Table 5, 9% of the variance in “Customer Knowledge Expansion” accounted by “Customer Knowledge Representation,” the significance equal 0.00, which is less than (0.05). For that reason, there is an effect of “Customer Knowledge Representation” on “Customer Knowl­edge Expansion.” Previous research on the use of “Customer Knowledge Representation” is mainly conceptual. The present study is one of the first to use empirical quantitative data to investigate concept of “Customer Knowledge Representation” to improve customer knowledge expansion. The implication of this finding for Jordanian Bank is that they may need to pursue a combined strategy aimed at managing “Customer Knowledge Repre­sentation” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” in order to improve customer satisfaction.

Referring to Table 6, 7% of the variance in “Customer Knowledge Expansion” accounted by “Customer Knowledge Sharing,” the significance equal 0.00, which is less than (0.05). For that reason, there is an effect of “Customer Knowl­edge Sharing” on “Customer Knowledge Expan­sion.” Previous research on the use of “Customer

Table 3. Demographic data

Table 4. ANOVA test for “customer knowledge codification” and “customer knowledge expan­sion”

Table 5. ANOVA test for “customer knowledge representation” and “customer knowledge ex­pansion”

Table 6. ANOVA test for “customer knowledge sharing” and “customer knowledge expansion”

Knowledge Sharing” is mainly conceptual. The present study is one of the first to use empirical quantitative data to investigate concept of “Cus­tomer Knowledge Sharing” to improve customer knowledge expansion. The implication of this finding for Jordanian Bank is that they may need to pursue a combined strategy aimed at managing “Customer Knowledge Sharing” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” in order to improve cus­tomer satisfaction.

Referring to Table 7, 8% of the variance in “Customer Knowledge Expansion” accounted by “Design of Customer Knowledge,” the sig­nificance equal 0.00, which is less than (0.05). For that reason, there is an effect of “Design of Customer Knowledge” on “Customer Knowledge Expansion.” Previous research on the use of “De­sign of Customer Knowledge” is mainly concep­tual. The present study is one of the first to use empirical quantitative data to investigate concept of “Design of Customer Knowledge” to improve customer knowledge expansion. The implication of this finding for Jordanian Bank is that they may need to pursue a combined strategy aimed at managing “Design of Customer Knowledge” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” in order to improve customer satisfaction.

Referring to Table 8, 6% of the variance in “Customer Knowledge Expansion” accounted by “Customer Knowledge Application,” the sig­nificance equal 0.00, which is less than (0.05). For that reason, there is an effect of “Customer Knowledge Application” on “Customer Knowl­edge Expansion.” Previous research on the use of “Customer Knowledge Application” is mainly conceptual. The present study is one of the first to use empirical quantitative data to investigate concept of “Customer Knowledge Application” to improve customer knowledge expansion. The implication of this finding for Jordanian Bank is that they may need to pursue a combined strategy aimed at managing “Customer Knowledge Appli­cation” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” in order to improve customer satisfaction.

Referring to Table 9, 14% of the variance in “Customer Knowledge Expansion” accounted by “Execution of Knowledge from Customer,” the significance equal 0.00, which is less than (0.05). For that reason, there is an effect of “Execution of Knowledge from Customer” on “Customer Knowledge Expansion.” Previous research on the use of “Execution of Knowledge from Customer” is mainly conceptual. The present study is one of the first to use empirical quantitative data to investigate concept of “Execution of Knowledge from Customer” to improve customer knowledge expansion. The implication of this finding for

Table 7. ANOVA test for “design of customer knowledge ” and “customer knowledge expansion ”

Table 8. ANOVA test for “customer knowledge ap­plication” and “customer knowledge expansion”

Table 9. ANOVA test for “execution of knowl­edge from customer” and “customer knowledge expansion”

Jordanian Bank is that they may need to pursue a combined strategy aimed at managing “Execution of Knowledge from Customer” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” in order to improve cus­tomer satisfaction.

Referring to Table 10, 4% of the variance in “Customer Knowledge Expansion” accounted by “Verify of Knowledge from Customer,” the significance equal 0.00, which is less than (0.05). For that reason, there is an effect of “Verify of Knowledge from Customer” on “Customer Knowl­edge Expansion.” Previous research on the use of “Verify of Knowledge from Customer” is mainly conceptual. The present study is one of the first to use empirical quantitative data to investigate concept of “Verify of Knowledge from Customer” to improve customer knowledge expansion. The implication of this finding for Jordanian Bank is that they may need to pursue a combined strategy aimed at managing “Verify of Knowledge from Customer” and “Customer Knowledge Expansion” in order to improve customer satisfaction.

The relation between the Customer Knowledge process (Customer Knowledge Codification, Customer Knowledge Representation, Customer Knowledge Sharing, Customer Knowledge Ap­plication, Design of Customer Knowledge, Ex­ecution of Knowledge from Customer, and Verify of Knowledge from Customer) and Customer Knowledge Expansion was confirmed in this study. The findings are summarized as follows:

1. “Customer Knowledge Codification” had a positive impact on “Customer Knowledge Expansion.”

2. “Customer Knowledge Representation” had a positive impact on “Customer Knowledge Expansion.”

3. “Customer Knowledge Sharing” had a positive impact on “Customer Knowledge Expansion.”

4. “Customer Knowledge Application” had a positive impact on “Customer Knowledge Expansion.”

Table 10. ANOVA test for “verify of knowledge from customer” and “customer knowledge expansion”

5. “Design of Customer Knowledge” had a positive impact on “Customer Knowledge Expansion.”

6. “Execution of Knowledge from Customer” had a positive impact on “Customer Knowledge Expansion.”

7. “Verify of Knowledge from Customer” had a positive impact on “Customer Knowledge Expansion.”

Moreover, although the importance of terms of Customer Knowledge Processing such as the (Customer Knowledge Codification, Customer Knowledge Representation, Customer Knowl­edge Sharing, Customer Knowledge Application, Design of Customer Knowledge, Execution of Knowledge from Customer, and Verify of Knowl­edge from Customer) is often acknowledged in the literature, this study enhances understanding of these relationships in providing empirical results based on quantitative data. Further, the findings are based on data that was gathered from the perspec­tive of employee of Jordanian banks. In our view this is an important contribution because Customer Knowledge Processing related Customer Knowl­edge Expansion may vary significantly.

6. CONCLUSION

The article attempts to build a more complete framework of the factors that influence Customer Knowledge Expansion. The results of this study clearly show that seven of the selected factors (Customer Knowledge Codification, Customer Knowledge Representation, Customer Knowl­edge Sharing, Customer Knowledge Application, Design of Customer Knowledge, Execution of Knowledge from Customer, and Verify of Knowl­edge from Customer) have a significant impact on Customer Knowledge Expansion in Jordanian banks. Consequently, the paper illustrated the role Customer Knowledge process achieves Customer Knowledge Expansion. These processes help to acquire more customers by providing the members of the organization with real information enabling correct reaction in making the right decisions in order to gain the competitive advantage. This research contributes to the understanding of the Customer Knowledge process and Customer Knowledge Expansion. The research has suc­ceeded in proposing a model that enriches current research by offering specification, justification, and empirical validation of a set of interrelation­ships between important factors.

This research describes an integration of Customer Knowledge process and Customer Knowledge Expansion. Hopefully these findings will shed some light for policy makers allowing them to integrate Customer Knowledge process and Customer Knowledge Expansion to improve customer satisfaction in Jordanian banks. To the best of our knowledge, no existing studies have em­pirically tested for an interaction effect on expand of customer knowledge and Customer Knowledge process. Similarly, while the interaction effect between Customer Knowledge processes has been suggested as phases, empirical support has been scant. Our study fills these two major gaps in the literature.

Due to lack of Customer Knowledge process in Jordanian bank, the banks are not aware of Customer Knowledge Expansion facilities. This is also the reason for a lack of trust in Customer Knowledge process. Therefore, the vital contri­bution of values based recruitment and selec­tion, innovative and need-based training and development, comprehensive, and reasonable performance evaluation, foster satisfaction, and quality of work life are essential dimensions that have positive effects on superior performance for sustained competitive advantage that need to be capitalized by executive “Customer Knowl­edge Expansion” at all level by using (Customer Knowledge Codification, Customer Knowledge Representation, Customer Knowledge Sharing, Customer Knowledge Application, Design of Customer Knowledge, Execution of Knowledge from Customer, and Verify of Knowledge from Customer).

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