Technology Acceptance Model in U.S. Extension: CRM Adoption

QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF TAM

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CRM technologies have implications for outreach, engagement, and communications through the

centralization of data, improved user experience, enhanced customer support, and strategic

marketing and communications.

Annika Noel

Annika Noel is an Extension specialist at a university in the northeastern region. She is

currently in charge of CRM implementation in her state. She assumed leadership of these

responsibilities from another employee who left the university. At present, Salesforce has a

limited implementation across her state. Annika defines CRM as lifecycle contact management

and perceives the benefits of CRM to be client insights, engagement, and interaction tracking, as

well as reporting and evaluation. There is low acceptance among employees at her university of

the Salesforce system, and employee resistance was noted for reasons including digital literacy,

perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness of the system. Annika believes that the critical

success factors for CRM implementation include leadership commitment, training and support,

cost and resource considerations, integration strategy, and the presence of a local champion. She

states that that criteria for technology adoption include consideration of costs and resources, data

privacy, and alignment with organizational goals. The pre-adoption approaches she utilized

included different evaluative approaches such as focus groups and communicating across the

organization. Annika has experienced barriers to CRM adoption, including concerns over data

privacy, cost and resources, training and support, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of

use. She states that the technology is perceived as being difficult to use and not useful. As a

result, many colleagues continue using various ad hoc systems. The potential risks of CRM

implementation include cost and resources issue, adoption or implementation failure, and poor

data management. Annika reports engagement and interaction tracking, as well as strategic