Social CRM Practices, Customer Experience and Customer Loyalty in Indian Banking: The Influence of Customer Engagement and Privacy Concerns

Abstract

In the banking industry, Social Customer Relationship Management (Social CRM) is becoming a crucial aspect that enables financial institutions to build relationships with their customers through social media, enhance their customer experience, and maintain customer relationships. The study’s focus was to explore the effect of connectedness, customer orientation, customer support, customer engagement and privacy concerns on the CRM experience and customer loyalty in the Indian banking industry. The research design was quantitative, cross sectional and secondary data, with 609 banking customers as the samples. Seven constructs were retained and composite scores were created for each of these constructs. Descriptive statistics, reliability assessment, Pearson correlation, multiple linear regression and multicollinearity diagnostics were performed, and robustness checks were performed. The results indicated that customer support had the highest level of association for the customer’s experience with CRM, followed by customer orientation and connectedness, with privacy concerns having a negative association. The amount of variance in the outcome that could be attributed to the CRM experience model was 64.0%. Customer engagement proved the strongest predictor of customer loyalty, while customer orientation had a smaller, positive influence and privacy concerns had a negative impact. The model for customer loyalty accounted for 50.1% of the variation. The results reveal that different relationship mechanisms contribute to the development of CRM experience and customer loyalty. In the growing digital service landscape, banks should, therefore, integrate responsive customer support, customer-centric practices, engaging interaction and robust privacy protection to bolster customer relationships.