Customer Relationship Management Practices in University Libraries of Pakistan

The purpose of this study was to appraise the prevailing status of customer relationship management (CRM) practices in university libraries of Pakistan to increase strong and mutual beneficial relationship with user. Moreover, correlates of CRM practices with types, categories, and geographical locations of university libraries were also explored. This study adopted cross-sectional survey research design using a questionnaire. The survey questionnaire was emailed to the in-charge/head librarians of all 193 university libraries in Pakistan and response rate was 74%. The results were consolidated at the analysis stage. The results have demonstrated that current status of CRM practices (customer focus, organizational focus, customer feedback management) is in the adolescence phase, while information technology infrastructure is inadequate for absolute implantation of CRM programmes and strategies. The data indicate that CRM practices are linked with university libraries types and geographical locations private sector university libraries are concentrating more on organizational focus as compared to public sector while university libraries of Islamabad Capital Territory are having good IT Infrastructure from KPK Province and AJK region respectively. The study suggests that all academic institutions should formulate a clearly specified user care and satisfaction policy. In Pakistan, Information Management / Library & Information Sciences schools and library associations should conduct ongoing training, workshops, seminars, and conferences on CRM strategies, practices, programs, tactics and mechanism, defined in this study. University top management must encourage, provide financial resources and train staff for smooth running and implementation of CRM. Complete IT infrastructure, CRM software and models should be adopted as per market demand. CRM models may be developed for Pakistani university libraries or such models may be opted with some amendments from other pure business CRM models