Volume : 3 | Issue : 7 | July 2014 ISSN - 2250-1991

1 | PARIPEX - INDIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH

Research Paper
Factors Inuencing Service Seekers Perception
About Customer Relationship Management in
Corporate Hospitals
Commerce
Syed Shaukath
Hussain
Research Scholar- PG & Research Dept of Commerce, The Quaide
Milleth College for Men,Chennai- 600100.
Ayub Khan Dawood
Dean Research, PG & Research Dept of Commerce, The Quaide
Milleth College for men, Chennai- 600100.
KEYWORDS
CRM, Hospitals, Corporate Hospitals, Service seekers, perception.
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Service sector is the ever green sector which is at its boom in the recent days. The growth of retails industries and all service
is extensive in the recent past. Hospital sector is not an exception in this regard and has been growing and always at its
growing pace ever since its existence. Corporate hospitals are the recent additions to the healthcare sector that exists at its
best performance. The researcher has made an attempt to study the factors inuencing the service seekers perception about
corporate hospitals in Chennai city in tamilnadu. Five factors were identied as that inuencing service seekers perception
about corporate hospitals. T-Test was done to identify the major factor that was inuencing the customers perception
about CRM in hospitals. The Hospitals need to give signicant importance to such factors. This study is a value addition to
the CRM literature in an Indian context.
I. Introduction - Health Care Sector
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become one
of the most dynamic technology topics of the millennium. Ac-
cording to Chen and Popovich (2003), CRM is not a concept
that is really new but rather due to current development and
advances in information and enterprise software technolo-
gy, it has assumed practical importance. The root of CRM is
relationship marketing, which has the objective of improv-
ing the long-term protability of customers by moving away
from product-centric marketing. Health care sector alone has
been growing massively, accounting for almost 5.2 % of In-
dias GDP today (Mathiyazhagan,2008). Medical care is an
enormous business with the private sector being the most
dominant in this industry, accounting for more than 70% of
Indias urban health care service market (Mudur, 2003). This
unequivocal dominance of the private sector has been headed
by the emergence of the corporate hospitals in India, especial-
ly in the metropolises, where the middle-class is multiplying in
size and afuence. In fact, the corporate hospitals industry has
been estimated to be a $20 billion industry in the year 2012.
Therefore it can be seen that the corporate hospitals form a
very large business in India. This emergence has been the re-
sult of various forces, ranging from the growth of the urban
middle-class to government economic policies and mainly to
market forces. The corporate hospitals are constantly innovat-
ing and improving their technological, clinical and service as-
pects to provide satisfaction to the service-seekers. This study
is conducted by the researcher with an intention to nd out
the perception of the service seekers about the services pro-
vided by the corporate hospitals.
II. Review of Literature
Goldenberg has dened Customer relationship management
has been dened as a business approach that integrates peo-
ple, processes, and technology to maximize relationships with
customers.
Fornell (1992) suggests that CRM performance along dimen-
sions such as customer satisfaction and retention inuences
organizational effectiveness. High quality customer relation-
ship creates customer assets of high value that provide a
steady stream of future revenues. Customer loyalty programs
aimed at maintaining long-term customer relationships have a
positive impact on organizational performance, partly because
customers included in these programs discount negative infor-
mation about the rm and exhibit higher repurchase behavior.
Wang et al. (2004) developed an integrated framework of
customer values and CRM performance based on the identi-
cation of the key dimensions of customer value. Emphasizing
on customer equity the study explored the effects of custom-
er value on CRM performance in terms of relationship quality
and customer behavior.
Raab et al (2008) has done a study on CRM with a perspective
in a global perspective. The study has discussed I detail about
the implementation of CRM principles across countries by the
multinationals in the global market. The ndings from this
study shows that CRM is a signicant topic of research across
the globe and it attracts further research extensively keeping
in view the future of the country.
Sinkovics and Ghauri (2009) has emphasized the need for
CRM in order to meet the rising competitions, tackling con-
sumer behaviour towards CRM and the general consumer be-
haviour towards the products in the market. Keeping track of
CRM also enables to nd out the information about various
other businesses existing in the market.the nding from this
study enables to increase sales and also to satisfy the custom-
ers accordingly in the market.
Pradan (2009) has discussed about the signicance of CRM in
retail business and has also asuures that it would lead to long
lasting of the business in the long run. The ndings from this
study emphasizes that CRM improves the sustaining capacity
of the business among its competitors.
Mueller (2010) has done a study on CRM and there emphasiz-
es that implementation of CRM enables to face competitions
and facilitates the business to be highly dynamis in the market
among its competitors. It enables the customer relationship
management effectively thereby studying them intensively.
Mathur (2010) has detailed the CRM usage by the multina-
tionals in their work. This work serves as a guide to our Indi-
an businesses to know about the multinational CRM practic-
es and thereby implement it in the national aspect which will
facilitate the competitiveness of the rms among its competi-
tors.
Volume : 3 | Issue : 7 | July 2014 ISSN - 2250-1991
2 | PARIPEX - INDIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH
Peppers and Rogers (2011), has insisted on the satisfying of
customers in the long run is very important rather than focus-
ing on short term satisfying measures. The study found that
CRM is one measure that will enable long run satisfaction of
consumers and will lead the business to be on par with the
competitive market. The ndings from the study act as moti-
vators for the non-CRM businesses to implement CRM in their
business activities.
From the extensive literature on CRM it is evident that it is a
topic of signicance from more than two decades ago. Yet
there has been no end to studies pursued on this area and
this is another attempt in the area of CRM.
III. Research Methodology
Convenience sampling by non probability method was exploit-
ed for selecting the samples. Data was collected from the re-
spondents of the following hospitals.
1. Apollo Hospitals
2. Fortis Malar Hospital
3. MIOT Hospital
4. Vijaya Hospital and Health Centre
5. Billroth Hospitals
6. Madras Medical Mission Hospital
7. Sri Ramachandra Medical Centre
8. Global Hospitals
9. Chettinad Health City
10.Sooriya Hospital

The hospitals were chosen from the top ten lists of hospitals
as per the public database of 2013. The above listed hospitals
are considered to be the top most hospitals in the most pre-
dominant Chennai metropolitan city. The study was conducted
only in Chennai city because it is a metropolitan city with a
cosmopolitan crowd of people from all parts of the country.
Studying Chennai city would be studying respondents from all
part of the country and hence the ndings from this study can
be generalized to whole of the country.
IV. Results and Discussion
Table-1: Demographic Prole of the Respondents
S.No Demographic Criteria Percentage
1
Gender
Male
female
58.60%
41.40%
2
Age
18-30
>31-45
Above 45
40.18%
30.80%
29.02%
3
Marital status
Single
Married
30.75%
69.25%
4
Educational Level
Undergraduate
Graduate
Post graduate and above
24.00%
41.73%
35.27%
5
Monthly Salary
Less than 50000
>50000-150000
>150000
36.27%
31.13%
32.60%
Table- 2: Test to nd out the most predominant factor in-
uencing the customers perception about CRM in corpo-
rate hospitals
Factors N Mean
Std
deviation
t-test Sig
Inuence 125 3.5610 1.00225 2.965* .000
Maintenance
services
125

4.1000 1.00317 1.112* .000
Relationship services 125 4.8760 1.60000 2.105* .000
Factors N Mean
Std
deviation
t-test Sig
Core Benets 125 4.9200 1.00001 0.005* .000
Value added
benets
125 3.1111

1.00065
3.987* .000
**P 0.05

From table 2 it can be interpreted that core benets with a
mean of 4.9200 with its corresponding t-value 0.005 is the
most predominant factor inuencing the service seekers per-
ception about CRM in corporate hospitals at 5% level of sig-
nicance. It is followed by Relationship service with a mean
value of 4.8760 with its corresponding t value of 2.105 as the
next factor being considered signicant in inuencing the ser-
vice seekers perception about the CRM in corporate hospitals
in Chennai city. The next factor inuencing the service seek-
ers perception about corporate hospitals is Maintenance Ser-
vices with a mean value of 4.1000 with corresponding t value
of 1.112 at 5 % level of signicance. The next preferred fac-
tor is the initiation or inuencing factors with respect to CRM
in corporate hospitals with a mean value of 3.5610 with cor-
responding t value of 2.965 at 5% level of signicance. The
last preferred factor is the value added service with a mean
value of 3.1111 at a corresponding t-value of 3.987 , that in-
uences the service seekers perception about CRM in corpo-
rate hospitals.
V. Conclusion
It can be concluded from the study that CRM is a very impor-
tant aspect in service industry that has been practiced in re-
cent days to improve the customer relationship management.
This paper is an attempt to nd out the most preferred factor
that inuences the service seekers perception about CRM in
corporate hospitals. It is found from the present study that
from all the ten hospitals that been used for collecting data,
Core benets are being considered most important. Whatev-
er be the type of service received the main intention would
be to enjoy the core benets to the fullest and that has been
the result from this study. Relationship maintenance between
the service providers and service seekers is considered the next
important factor which signies that CRM is a point of expec-
tation by the customers of present day. The services provided,
maintenance of the services provider with respects to its place,
equipments, etc are considered as the next most important
factor with respect to corporate hospitals. This signies that
service seekers are concerned in getting clean and effective
services from the service providers. The next factor is the in-
uencing strategies which signify from the statements used
highlighting the way the service seekers are treated when they
approach the hospitals, the orientation they receive etc. This
is in fact the rst factor that actually decides the service seek-
ers perception of CRM but as per this study it is the fourth
aspect. The nal aspect is the value added services that is con-
sidered as the last priority because even without these services
the customers can survive but not without the other four as-
pects. The discussion reveals that CRM is not just a single term
but one that consists of several other aspects which inuences
in turn the customer loyalty, trust, satisfaction about the ser-
vice provider.
Volume : 3 | Issue : 7 | July 2014 ISSN - 2250-1991
3 | PARIPEX - INDIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH
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