Outsourcing of customer relationship management: implications for customer satisfaction

If knowledge about customers is a central driver of strategic marketing success and customer relationships lie at the heart of a firm's competitive advantage, why do many firms outsource aspects of customer relationship management (CRM)? This paper addresses this question by developing a conceptual model based on transaction costs economics (TCE), tests it with a cross-industry sample of managers, and draws out the implications for theory and practice. TCE-based antecedents explain most, but not all, CRM outsourcing decisions, with the resource-based value of the firm (RBV) and real options theory offering potential explanations for relationship between CRM outsourcing and technical uncertainty.