customer relationship management in facilities management: a study of office buildings in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy used by the business organisations in order to optimise the service efficiency in the current competitive business environment. The aim of CRM in Facilities Management (FM) is to build an acceptable long-term relationship with customers and users of the facility for long term sustainability. Though CRM in FM is an area gaining importance, the CRM practices in FM is still unclear. Therefore, this study intends to develop an understanding of the current CRM practices in FM in Sri Lankan Office buildings focusing on the tenants, identify the issues and propose strategies to overcome them. The case study approach was adopted as the research method and the required data were collected from both the management and tenants of the selected cases. The data collection was done through semi structured interviews whereas the analysis was conducted through code-based content analysis. The results of the study showed that CRM in FM in Sri Lankan office buildings sector is at a low level and there are different issues related with CRM process, employees who involved in providing customer services and the technology used for CRM. The identified common issues were unavailability of a mechanism to evaluate CRM process or tenants to give their feedback, the FM employees’ poor communication skills, ineffectiveness of manual processes used for some CRM activities and the like. Conducting customer satisfaction surveys, training and development on CRM practices, periodical tenant meeting, etc. are the proposed strategies to overcome those issues. It was also established that the current CRM practices can be enhanced by implementing the identified strategies, with the effort of all the parties involved in service provision for tenants in Sri Lankan office buildings. The results of the study guide the industry professionals to improve the CRM practices related to FM in Sri Lankan office buildings.