Towards Customer Satisfaction: The Role of Customer Relationship Management, Service Quality, and Customer Perceptions

Orientation and focus on customer satisfaction is an important part of efforts to improve sustainable organizational performance. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy is part of an effort to find, collect, store information about customers and implement it in all parts of the organization so as to provide a unique experience for customers. However, most of the previous studies have focused on the effect of CRM on companies and few have reviewed CRM in the context of customer perceptions. Drawing based on congruity theory, this study aims to examine the effect of CRM on customer satisfaction through the mediating role of customer perceptions and service quality. Through random sampling, 87 data were obtained from customers who used the services of PT Jasco Logistics Semarang. Data was obtained using a questionnaire with the consent of the respondents. Then analyzed using Partial Least Square (PLS) with the Smart PLS 3.0 program application. The results of this study indicate that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) indirectly has a significant influence on customer satisfaction through service quality and perceived customer perceptions. It was also found that customer perception and service quality directly contribute significantly to customer satisfaction. However, service quality has a greater influence through customer perceptions. These findings provide significant insight for practitioners that in building a CRM strategy it must be able to provide a unique and valuable experience that is felt by customers, so that this will trigger satisfaction.


Introduction
Customers are the most important asset in the organization (Besterfield, 2003).Understanding customer needs and expectations is critical to winning new business and maintaining existing business continuity.Customer satisfaction is the main result of thought processes and marketing activities, culminating in buying, using, using and postusing, ultimately leading to attitudes, repurchasing and customer loyalty (Churchill, Gilbert A.;Surprenant, 1982).This shows that customer satisfaction is one of the determining factors in determining the success or failure of a company.Customer satisfaction can be important in improving company performance (Otto et al., 2020).Organizational performance improvements can be made when organizations can better understand, determine and satisfy customer needs than competitors (Pelham, 2009;Pelham & Kravitz, 2008).This can be achieved if relationships and interactions are carried out intensively with customers so that organizations can continue to understand developments in customer needs and solve customer problems (Sofi et al., 2020).
Research on building good customer relationships is fundamental and will contribute to appropriate and superior marketing strategies.Good customer relationship management can positively increase customer satisfaction (Sofi et al., 2020).Some research on the implementation of customer relationship management (CRM) has been carried out by several previous researchers, for example (Mohammad et al., 2013;Rafiki et al., 2019;Wu & Lu, 2012), trying to investigate the effect of CRM implementation on organizational performance.Other researchers have explored the relationship between CRM, company image and service quality (Chen & Chen, 2014), as well as other studies conducted (Rahimi, 2017) that examined the relationship between CRM and organizational culture.Thus, most of the previous research focused on the effect of CRM on firms.However, the customer's perception of the relationship has not yet been explored.Furthermore, a survey of the existing literature reveals that most of the CRM research is in the hospitality sector context (Sofi et al., 2020), and there are still very few exploring CRM in the logistics sector in Indonesia.
This study aims to explore the effect of the relationship between CRM on service quality and customer satisfaction based on perceptions felt by customers as mediation in services in the logistics sector, namely service providers freight forwarding, especially at PT-Jasco Logistics in Semarang, Central Java.PT Jasco Logistic Semarang provides several important services: freight forwarding, shipping cargo expeditions, and export-import document service activities.This service is part of an important service that can facilitate and encourage national economic activity and growth.The phenomenon in the field, the increasing number of service providers freight forwarding in the city of Semarang, will increase competition in the business sector.This can threaten PT Jasco Logistics Semarang if it does not continue to improve its services.Based on data from interviews with employees and several customers, it was found that several problems occurred, such as customer complaints in the form of delays in drafting service documents related to related agencies.Delays in documents related to agencies are due to system downtime, so when a customer needs a quick document draft, the company cannot fulfil the request.This study will fill the gap of existing research.

Theoretical background: Congruity Theory
Based on congruity value theory, value alignment is often a major consideration for consumers in developing relationships, such as being positive about certain services or products if they are at the values or beliefs they expect (Lee & Jeong, 2014).Delivering valueadded services is a key component of a successful organization (Lee & Jeong, 2014).Therefore, congruence (i.e. when there is a perceived match) between the customer and the value of the services the organization provides can lead to a favourable psychological relationship (e.g.trust, satisfaction and positive behavioural intention, etc.) (Lee & Jeong, 2014;Zhang & Bloemer, 2008).Then, (Sirgy et al., 2008) stated that value congruity can affect positive post-purchase perceptions and behaviours such as customer satisfaction and trust.That is, the greater the value congruence that consumers have, the more satisfied they will be with the service and feel high trust in the company's services.This is the basis of this study that companies must build positive customer relationships through superior services that align or exceed customer value to gain customers' trust.

Customer Relationship Management
CRM is a marketing relationship philosophy introduced and defined by (Berry, 1983) as an effort to attract, retain, and improve relationships with customers, which shows a paradigm shift from a transactional marketing approach that emphasizes operational efficiency and sales volume towards a relationship-oriented approach.Positive relationship with customers (W.G. Kim et al., 2001).CRM development is based on the belief that building good and sustainable customer relationships is an important effort and the main foundation for achieving customer satisfaction and loyalty (Dowling, 2002).Good CRM practices will benefit organizations sustainably (Law et al., 2018;Rahimi, 2017;Sofi et al., 2020).Customer preferences and constantly changing lifestyles impact their decision-making process in using products and services (Sofi et al., 2020).
CRM is an effort for organizations to collect and process information about customer needs and expectations, which can then be converted into customer knowledge useful in building an effective quality strategy (T.U. H. Nguyen et al., 2007).This will help organizations adapt their products and services to customer needs and offer personalized services (Soltani & Navimipour, 2016;Wongsansukcharoen et al., 2015).
According to (Sin et al., 2005), CRM consists of four dimensions: customer orientation, knowledge management, organizational CRM, and technology-based CRM.The customer orientation dimension of CRM was adopted in this study to measure its effect on service quality, customer perception and customer satisfaction.This is because customer orientation is a vital element in the success of CRM, whose main focus is on improving organizational performance (B.Y. Kim, 2008;King & Burgess, 2008).In line with this, organizational performance can be improved when the organization can understand and satisfy customer needs compared to its competitors (Pelham, 2009;Pelham & Kravitz, 2008).This will be achieved if the organization continues positively interacting with customers to develop customer-oriented problem-solving strategies (Sofi et al., 2020).
Several empirical studies show that good CRM practices can improve service quality (Al-Gasawneh et al., 2021;Tseng & Wu, 2014), increase organizational understanding of customer tastes and preferences (Ramani & Kumar, 2008) so that they can provide services and satisfy products for customers (Pelham, 2009;Pelham & Kravitz, 2008;Sofi et al., 2020).Studies (Makasi & Saruchera, 2014) and (Charles, 2013) show that organizations that can develop CRM well can increase positive value perceptions for customers.Based on the literature, the following hypotheses were developed, H1: CRM has a positive effect on customer satisfaction H2: CRM has a positive effect on customer perceptions H3: CRM has a positive effect on service quality

Service Quality
Service quality is defined as a service that meets customer expectations (Chakrabarty et al., 2007).Meanwhile (Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, 1988) interprets service quality as a customer's evaluation of the services provided by the organization with what is felt.Furthermore (Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, 1988) suggest five dimensions for measuring service quality: tangible, responsive, reliable, assurance and empathy.
Several studies confirm the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction (Dam & Dam, 2021;Sivadas & Baker-Prewitt, 2000).Previous investigations also found that service quality is a predictor of customer satisfaction and has a positive impact on customer satisfaction (Putro & Rachmat, 2019).Previous studies also show that perceived service quality provides value to customers, contributing substantially to behavioural intentions and positive perceptions.Based on the literature, the following hypotheses were developed, H4: Service quality has a positive effect on customer value perceptions H5: Service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction

Customer Perception
Perceived value or customer perception is rooted in equity theory, which considers the product/service performance ratio of product/service providers and customer expectations (Besterfield, 2003;Oliver & DeSarbo, 1988).Equity refers to the customer's evaluation of what is fair, right, or appropriate for the costs incurred on the offering (Bolton & Lemon, 1999).Perceived costs include monetary payments and non-monetary sacrifices such as time consumption, energy consumption, and stress experienced by consumers (Makasi & Saruchera, 2014).Customers feel treated fairly if they perceive the ratio between the results received and the costs incurred for a product/service (Oliver & DeSarbo, 1988).
Several empirical studies have shown that positive perceptions of customer perceived value positively and significantly affect customer satisfaction (Nguyen et al., 2018;Mbango, 2019).In line with these studies, (Samudro et al., 2020;Susanti et al., 2020;Simanjuntak et al., 2020), confirm that customers' perceived value strongly influences customer satisfaction.Based on the empirical literature, hypotheses are developed, H6: Perceived customer value has a positive effect on customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is interpreted when a customer receives a product or feels a service that matches his expectations, making it more likely that he will return to make another purchase (Simanjuntak et al., 2020).Repeat purchases indicate that customers trust the company because they are satisfied with the product or service they receive.In the long run, customers will recommend products or services to their closest relatives and not switch to other companies (Gurviez, P., & Korchia, 2003).Based on a review of the literature and previous studies, we developed a proposed research model, as shown in Figure 1 below,

Method, Data, and Analysis
Samples were taken from respondents who used the service freight forwarding at PT Jasco Logistics Semarang by incidental.Based on respondent questionnaires, 87 data were obtained from respondents.47 were male, or 56%, and 40 were female or 44%.Furthermore, the characteristics of respondents according to education: respondents with scholar education were 56 people or 64.4%, those with senior high school education were 29 people or 33.3%, and those with junior high school education were 2 people or 2.3%.
In this study, we used the CRM indicator on the customer orientation dimension from (Sin et al., 2005) adjusted to the study context, with a Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).Service quality indicators refer to indicators (Dam & Dam, 2021).Customer perception refers to (Simanjuntak et al., 2020), and customer satisfaction uses indicators from (Gurviez, P., & Korchia, 2003;Simanjuntak et al., 2020).Then, the data were analyzed using SEM with the help of PLS 3.0 software.

Evaluation of the Measurement Model
The measurement model is evaluated to test the validity and reliability of instruments that measure latent variables.In Table 1, the loading factor values for convergent validity and AVE values (Table 2) have met the required cutoff, which is >0.5 (Ghozali, 2008).Likewise, in (Table 2) the value of Cronbach Alpha, which is greater than 0.70, indicates that the indicators of all variables meet all that is required (Cronbach, 1946).

Evaluation of the Structural Model (Inner Model)
Evaluation of structural models that aim to predict the relationship between latent variables, namely exogenous and endogenous constructs, can provide answers to questions about the relationship between variables that have been previously hypothesized.The model output results look like Figure 2.

Figure 2. Inner model
The data description of each variable is presented in Table 3 below.Based on the description data, the respondents generally responded positively to each variable indicator.However, there are still several important points that must remain a concern for the management of PT Jasco Logistics.The level of customer trust must be increased.Table 2 shows the mean value of 4.15 for the indicator of the level of customer trust, which is the lowest compared to the mean value of the other indicators on the service quality variable).Likewise, at the level of customer satisfaction, service satisfaction indicators still need to be improved to obtain truly satisfying customer service.
All indicators generally show an excellent response for the variable customer relationship and perception.These results provide important information for the management of PT Jasco Logistics to maintain and continue to improve the quality of relationships with customers so that they will foster a better perception of the services provided by PT Jasco Logistics.Next, for results, bootstrapping path coefficients to test the relationship between variables are presented in Table 4 below.

Discussion
Based on the data in Table 4, hypothesis 1 shows that customer relationship management has a positive effect that is partially accepted.However, the effect of customer perceptions on customer satisfaction (Table 5) is positive and significant.This provides information and is in line with (Besterfield, 2003;Makasi & Saruchera, 2014) that customer relationship management practices carried out by organizations will have a positive impact on customer satisfaction if the product or service provided is perceived as providing more value by customers by the costs incurred.
It was also found that CRM, in this case, customer orientation, is a significant predictor of customer perception (H2 accepted) and has a dominant and significant effect on service quality (H3 accepted).These relevant results strengthen the studies (Al-Gasawneh et al., 2021;Charles, 2013;Makasi & Saruchera, 2014;Tseng & Wu, 2014).This means that the quality of customer relationship management built by PT Jasco Logistics Semarang in providing services and products is oriented to the needs and according to customer expectations.PT Jasco Logistics Semarang did this by forming a customer service officer (CSO) ) whose job is to assist in collecting data and serving every order (booking) for export or import purposes by making job orders according to the registration number.Before this data collection process begins, the customer enters into an agreement with the marketing party to be forwarded to customer service for further action, as well as to address all complaints and problems experienced by the customer.
Likewise, it was also found that good service quality has a positive and significant effect on perceived customer value and customer satisfaction (H4 and H5 are accepted).The study results are relevant and strengthen previous research (Dam & Dam, 2021) and (Putro & Rachmat, 2019).According to the data in (Table 3), the latter also supports the hypothesis that positive customer perceptions of perceived services/products have a positive and significant effect on customer satisfaction.Based on (Table 4), this customer perception has a very positive mediating role in the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction.This can be seen from the value of the indirect effect, which is greater (3.566) compared to the direct effect of service quality on customer satisfaction (3.379).Likewise, service quality and customer perceptions positively mediate the relationship between customer relationship management (CRM) and customer satisfaction.The indirect effect value through service quality and customer perception (3.619) exceeds the direct effect value (1.811).These findings confirm and support research from (Mbango, 2019;H. T. Nguyen et al., 2018;Samudro et al., 2020;Susanti et al., 2020).
Based on empirical data in Table 3, it shows that customer relationship management directly has a partial effect on customer satisfaction.The data in Table 5 shows that the relationship between customer relationship management and customer satisfaction through service quality shows a significant and positive influence.This means that service quality is an important mediating variable for building customer satisfaction.Likewise, perception mediates customer relationship with customer satisfaction significantly and positively.However, mediation through service quality still has a higher significance value.These results follow the study (Çerri, 2012;Dam & Dam, 2021;Sivadas & Baker-Prewitt, 2000) that service quality is important in building customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty.It can be concluded that superior service quality perceived by customers compared to competitors is an important factor for companies to gain long-term performance advantages (Ghobadian et al., 1994;Lewis, 1989).These results are in line with congruity theory and studies (Lee & Jeong, 2014;Munawar et al., 2021;Sirgy et al., 2008) that better service values will provide and increase positive perceptions for customers, which can trigger increased customer satisfaction and trust in the company.To be able to provide this superior service, companies must be able to build effective communication with their customers so that they can continue to better adjust and meet their expectations and needs.This can be built through good customer relationship management (Lebdaoui & Chetioui, 2020).
This study develops a customer satisfaction model based on customer relationship management with service quality and customer perceptions as mediation.Based on the model test results, the R-Square value is obtained in The data in Table 5 provides information that the customer satisfaction construct can be explained through the variables of customer perception, service quality, and customer management of 83.3%.This can be interpreted that the three exogenous variables are significant critical variables for building customer satisfaction.High customer satisfaction will encourage him to make a high frequency of purchases (Simanjuntak et al., 2020), and in the long run he will provide recommendations to other parties to use our products and services (Gurviez, P., & Korchia, 2003).Furthermore, this customer satisfaction will increase the company's market share and competitive advantage (Alkhurshan & Rjoub, 2020).

Conclusion
Customer satisfaction is an important orientation for building sustainable business performance.The results of this empirical study indicate that customers' perceived value after using the products/services provided by the company has a very positive mediating role in the relationship between customer relationship management (CRM) and service quality.This implies service quality and customer relationship management that can trigger customer satisfaction when both are perceived and felt by customers as having value and uniqueness the costs (time, effort, finance, stress) they incur.This study contributes to the development of customer relationship management studies in logistics.This field is important to explore because the logistics sector has an important role in supporting the distribution of products/services for all businesses in various fields and has a strong level of resilience.

Suggestion
The management of PT Jasco Logistics Semarang can increase customer satisfaction by building good customer relationships.This customer relationship management can be developed through a customer-focused orientation to get feedback on changing customer needs, expectations, and things that can reduce customer satisfaction.Through this data and knowledge, companies can provide superior service quality to provide customers a unique experience.The empirical test results show that service quality significantly mediates between customer relationship management and customer satisfaction.Thus, it is suggested that customer service quality should be an important concern for the management of PT Jasco Logistics, increasing the customer's positive perceptions of PT Jasco Logistics.PT Jasco can provide the right product, time, price, and place services.Following its core business in freight forwarding, export-import and goods transportation services, this is important.

Table 3 .
Data description variables

Table 4 .
Results of Tests for Direct Influence between Variables

Table 5 .
Indirect Influence Test Results