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WEB-BASED CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) SYSTEM FOR

EDUCATIONAL SECTOR INTEGRATED WITH MOBILE INSTANCE MESSAGE (MIM)
USING WHATSAPP APPLICATION

Article · March 2021

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 International Innovation, Design and Articulation i-IDeA, Vol 1 (2021) 392-397
e ISBN
Vol. 1978-967-19269-1-8
(2021) 392-397

WEB-BASED CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

MANAGEMENT (CRM) SYSTEM FOR EDUCATIONAL
SECTOR INTEGRATED WITH MOBILE INSTANCE
MESSAGE (MIM) USING WHATSAPP APPLICATION

Mohd Nizam Osman, Hamizah Mohamed and Khairul Anwar Sedek

Universiti Teknologi Mara, Perlis Branch, Arau Campus, 02600 Arau, Perlis, Malaysia

E-mail: mohdnizam@uitm.edu.my

Abstract: The process of disseminate information to the educational institutes in Malaysia is very
challenging due to geographic factors. With more than 10,000 of schools and almost 5,000,000
of students and 400,000 of teachers, the main issue faced by most companies is to disseminate
the information in effective way and how they manage the record of customers in a perfect way.
Therefore, the web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system integrated with
Mobile Instance Message (MIM) using WhatsApp application was developed specifically to
overcome the problem of disseminate information by most of the companies in business. The
CRM system is a special web-based system aggregates customer information (Teacher-Student-
Parent) in one place that gives the company, which involve in consultancy services to
educational institutes easy access to data, such as contact data, purchase history and any previous
contact with the customer service representative. This data helps business nurture relationships
with clients, anticipate customer needs, recognize customer updates and tract performance go al
when it comes to sales. Furthermore, CRM system main purpose is to make interactions more
efficient and productive between business and customer. Besides, the automated procedures
within the CRM module in the system, include sending sell of services offered to the educational
institutes based on customer’s selection of a product or service and the system also assesses a
customer’s need to reduce the time it takes to fulfil a request. Meanwhile, for quick
communication with customers of the system was integrated with WhatsApp application to
notify the user by sending messages to the mobile phone. The system was developed based on
the web-based platform using HTML to design the interface and PhP to execute the framework,
while MySQL is used for database purposes in the server. Besides, the web -based system was
integrated with WhatsApp application using WhatsApp API. Therefore, based on the features
and functionality offered by the system, it will benefit to business community and educational
institutes due to easy-to-use and be able to manage and improve external interactions b etween
the customer and organizations. Hence, this leads to enhancing the work efficiency and visibility
of a business.

Keywords: customer relationship managment (CRM), web-based, mobile ınstance message

(MIM), WhatsApp

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INTRODUCTION
In recent years, due to technological progress and information advances at our fingertips, the
world has undergone rapid changes. In order to win this competition and remain relevant,
companies should be more active and keep strong to compete with each other in business. Most
companies, especially for those who get involves in consultancies services to the educational
sector, the process of disseminate information to the targeted customers is essential and
important. Unfortunately, the process of disseminate information and services offered by the
company is very challenging due to geographic factors. Meanwhile, it is very important for
companies to maintain existing customers and target new customer at the same time in order to
survive in business. Therefore, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help
discover and attract new potential and existing customers by providing a comprehensive
information and services offered by the companies. The implementation of CRM is an ef f ort to
find solutions that can help organizations develop customer relationships with high satisf action
(Mohammadhossein et al., 2018). Besides, CRM is an important factor for organization to
provide customer-centric business and maintain effective marketing, sales, and service processes
(Aiyer et al., 2018). In addition, CRM aims to record and evaluate customer relationships, which
is essential for the company to succeed in a dynamic market (Kumar & Sr, 2020).

Nowadays, most business uses the web-based system (Baashar et al., 2020; Osman et al., 2017)
for sharing their information to the customer. At the same time, smart devices such as mobile
phones have grown from being just a means of communication to being a highly valuable
business tool over the last few years, and it has also become more significant in our lives. Hence,
the mobile phone is the most widely used device for telecommunications (Wong, 2016). Since
most people are using mobile phones, that will make users who are used to notification
technology to be more relaxed (Macvan, 2017). Besides, the way we do our work, socializing,
coordinating and entertaining ourselves have been fundamentally changed by mobile phone.
Some of the benefits of mobile phones include communication and text. Text messaging can help
people to communicate through a short-written message.

This project is aimed at informing and communicating between companies who offered
consultancy services and customers from educational sector. The interaction with customer is an
important factor to improve the business. Any customer interaction is an opportunity to change
their opinions about the company and customers are changing their actions according to
increasing experience. These changes may be either profitable or unprofitable for the company.
To achieve high interaction and satisfaction, many aspects will require some measurement
method. The main focus of this project is to facilitate interaction and reducing communication
problems between companies and customers. This is for every user who is constantly in the
know of the company over time. The quality and productivity of a service is not only based on
the performance of the service provider, but also on the performance of its customers. Hence,
this project has proposed to develop a web-based CRM system with Mobile Instant Message
(MIM) notification using WhatsApp application to notify the users and disseminate the
information and services offered by the company to customers.

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METHODOLOGY

Developing the System Architecture for Web-Based CRM System Integrated with
WhatsApp Application
Figure 1 illustrates the system architecture for the proposed system. Basically, the system
consists of computer to run the system, a web server to store a database and a mo bile phone to
retrieve a notification using WhatsApp application. Besides, the system involves two types of
users, which is admin represents sales representative from the company and customers who
included teachers, students or parents.

Figure 1. System Architecture of the Web-Based CRM System Integrated with WhatsApp Application

The proposed system was to provide a customer-centric business and maintain effective
marketing, sales and service processes by disseminate the business information and services
offered to the customers using web-based system and nurture the relationship by communicate
and notify the customers using WhatsApp application. Besides, the system facilitates interaction
and reducing communication problems between companies and customers. The admin can
manage the information of the website and get information from the customer such as program
booking and query or any questions from the customers, and then response to the respective
questions. Meanwhile, the customer can make a booking and get the response from the admin by
accessing to the website and retrieve the data from the database. The customer also will be
notified about the information and services offered by the company through WhatsApp
application.

Model Used for the Developing of Web-Based CRM System Integrated with WhatsApp
Application.
The waterfall Model was used to develop the proposed system. The Waterfall Model emphasizes
that a logical progression of steps be taken throughout the software development life cycle
(SDLC) (Bassil, 2012). In a waterfall model, there are five phases, which is requirement
analysis, design, implementation, evaluation and maintenance.

Requirement Analysis – In this phase, all information, data and problem about the project were
gathered by read articles, journal, and thesis from previous research . Besides, some websites

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were navigated to explore and get valuable information for the project development. The
activities included were the identification of hardware, software, functional and non f unctional
requirements.

Design – There are several tools and techniques used for describing the system design of the
proposed system included system components, system architecture, contextual diagram, data
flow diagram, entity relationship diagram, databases, user interfaces design and system
flowchart.

Implementation – Layouts of interfaces for the web-based development were created using
HTML and PhP coding through sublime for a text editor. PhP language is used to execute the
system and MySql is used for the database, while Apache runs as a web server software using
Xampp package. Then, the web-based was integrated with WhatsApp application using
WhatsApp API.

Evaluation – The system has undergone testing based on usability testing to the selected
respondents. The target respondents were teachers, students and parents. In order to evaluate the
effectiveness of the system, User Experience Test (UXT) was conducted by providing a set o f
questionnaires to the respondents.

Maintenance – In this phase, any system failure that may be improved to allow the system to
function properly. It must meet the scope and any other added functional features to co pe with
the latest needs.

FINDINGS

Interfaces of the Web-Based CRM System Integrated with WhatsApp Application.

This section explains about the interfaces of the proposed system. Basically, there are two main
interfaces for user, which is admin and customer. Figure 2 shows the main interface for both
users, and several functions were provided such as add, edit, delete, view, update and print.

(a) Customer Interface (b) Admin Interface

Figure 2. Main interface for a) customer and b) admin

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Figure 2(a) illustrates the main interface for customer. Basically, the user can register for new
customer and login for the registered user in order to access and manipulate all modules and
functionalities provided by the proposed system. Besides, the customers also can view the
program list offered by the companies and booking the services provided by company. The
customer also can update the password if needed. Meanwhile, Figure 2(b) shows the admin
interface of the proposed system. Some roles of the admin are viewing the customer record,
manage booking, view or respond to the query from customers and manage the program offered
to the customer. Admin also can manage to answer the query using WhatsApp application.

User Experience Test (UXT).

To evaluate the user experience toward the proposed system, the study was conducted to th irty
three (33) respondents consisting teachers, students and parents. The respondents were given a
chance to explore and analyse the proposed system independently. Then, they were required to
answer a set of questionnaires, which consists of twenty six (26) questions and divided into six
(6) scales included attractiveness, perspicuity, efficiency, dependability, stimulation and novelty
(Schrepp et al., 2017). The result can be measured by using the scale value and the value is
between -3 which is horribly bad and +3 is extremely good. The results from the UXT were
analyzed using descriptive statistics. Table 1 summarized the mean results for the identified scale
respectively. The result shown that three (3) scale is good, which were efficiency, stimulation
and novelty. Meanwhile, the result is above average for attractiveness, perspicuity and
dependability. Therefore, it can be verified that the proposed system can make it easier f or user
to recognize and search for information. Besides, most participants were satisfied with the
proposed system, and it can help them completed their task easier, faster and significantly attract
users to use it.

Table 1. The UXT Result of Mean for Each Scale

Comparison to
Scale Mean
benchmark
Attractiveness 1.59 Above average
Perspicuity 1.44 Above Average
Efficiency 1.54 Good
Dependability 1.46 Above Average
Stimulation 1.50 Good
Novelty 1.17 Good

CONCLUSION
The Web-based CRM system integrated with WhatsApp application is a system that specifically
developed for the users who get involves in consultancy services for the educational sector in
order to nurture the relationship between company and customers. The system helps business to
engage with clients, anticipate customer needs, recognize customer updates and tract
performance goal of the companies. Moreover, this system helps to disseminate the information
and services offered by the company to the customers more efficient and productive. Besides, the
customer can get all the information about the services offered by the company from the web-site

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and communicate using WhatsApp application. The system was measured using User
Experience Test (UXT) by providing User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) to the selected
users. The result was shown that most participants were satisfied with all the information and
functionalities provided in the system. Therefore, the system using the web-based integrated with
WhatsApp application for CRM system, will benefit to the business community and educational
institutes due to easy-to-use and be able to manage and improve external interaction between the
customer and organizations. Hence, this leads to enhancing the work efficiency and visibility of
a business.

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Aiyer, M., Panigrahi, J., & Das, B. (2018). Successful Customer Relationship Management in Business
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Baashar, Y., Alhussian, H., Patel, A., Alkawsi, G., Alzahrani, A. I., Alfarraj, O., & Hayder, G. (2020).
Customer relationship management systems (CRMS) in the healthcare environment: A systematic
literature review. Computer Standards & Interfaces, 71, 103442.
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Bassil, Y. (2012). A Simulation Model for the Waterfall Software Development Life Cycle. International
Journal of Engineering and Technology, 2(5). http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.6904

Kumar, M., & Sr, M. (2020). Evaluating the Effects of CRM Practices on Organizational Learning, its
Antecedents and Level of Customer Satisfaction. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, ahead-of-
print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-11-2019-0502

Macvan, U. (2017, April 24). Mobile Technology, Its Importance, Present and Future Trends. Finextra
Research. https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/14000/mobile-technology-its-importance-present-and-
future-trends

Mohammadhossein, N., Ahmad, M. N., & Zakaria, N. (2018). Benefits of Customer Relationship
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Osman, M. N., Zain, N. M., Paidi, Z., Sedek, K. A., & Yusoff, M. N. (2017). Online Car Rental System
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