An integrated framework for customer value and customer‐relationship‐management performance: a customer‐based perspective from China

TLDR

Customer value is a strategic tool for attracting and retaining customers, yet its key dimensions and evaluation of CRM performance remain unclear, creating divergent views in the literature. The study develops an integrative framework that identifies the key dimensions of customer value and examines their decomposed effects on CRM performance through relationship quality and customer behaviors. Using a partial least squares structural equation model calibrated on data from Chinese customers, the authors empirically test the framework.

Abstract

In the modern customer‐centred era, customer value is a strategic weapon in attracting and retaining customers. Delivering superior customer value has become a matter of ongoing concern in building and sustaining competitive advantage by driving customer‐relationship‐management (CRM) performance. However, related studies are rather divergent, the key dimensions of customer value remain unclear, and there is no agreement on the evaluation of CRM performance. This paper develops an integrative framework for customer value and CRM performance based on the identification of the key dimensions of customer value. Emphasising the customer equity‐based view, the paper explores the decomposed effects of customer value on CRM performance in terms of relationship quality and customer behaviours. In doing so, a structural equation model is developed using the partial least square method supported by an empirical investigation of customers in China.