The project “Customer perceptions of ASDA’s Mobile Phone App and its effects on their CRM success” is overall a very solid investigation. It sought to examine clients’ perception of ASDA’s 2013 mobile phone application in order to find its influence on its customers and the relationship it could have with respect to this company’s CRM success, which the application sought to improve. This led to the elaboration of recommendations that would help both the clients and the company.
As a whole, it had five objectives, which it greatly achieved. The first of these was to gather feedback from customers with regards to this mobile application. It did this in an acceptable way, with some limitations. The first of these was that only one hundred customers were taken into account, which is not representative. Furthermore, it only used quantitative measurements, while qualitative ones could also have been helpful.
The second objective was to analyze this data and observe their perceptions. Third, the researcher set out to analyze the customer’s perceptions towards this application. Furthermore, this investigation also sought to examine how this application impacted the company stores’ CRM strategy. These were done pretty well too. Nevertheless, it would have been useful to run more correlations and deeper statistical tests. The results showed that the application enhanced customer satisfaction and delivery at ASDA Stores Limited, which was the aim of the investigation. Nevertheless, it has not increased their loyalty, against what was expected; customers still switch to other stores in spite of the availability of this application.
The final specific objective was to use the data to make logical inferences and recommendations with regards to this company’s strategy. These were done in a professional and logical fashion, and are one of the strongest aspects of the study.
Furthermore, the literature was up to date, with most of it being published in the past five years. This is important, as technology and its market are constantly changing, so it is important to always be as current as possible.
Nevertheless, the investigation also has a few weak points. First, the customers were giving their own opinions about the application, and there are many complications with this methodology. For example, they may not want to give negative critiques, or may not actually know how they feel with respect to this software. This is one of the great limitations of positivist philosophy. As it seeks to describe everything in terms of numbers, it often misses the more subtle aspects of the human experience. Furthermore, one hundred subjects are not representative of the population. Even though this was obviously due to monetary constraints, further study is needed in order to have more serious results.
Self-Evaluation/Reflection
As a whole, I believe that this investigation was very fruitful for the company and significant at a personal level. The recommendations that I made are likely to have positive effects, and I hope that ASDA takes them into account. Even though it was very hard work, I feel that I learnt a lot from it at both a professional and a personal level.
I found that, even though this is not my favorite area of business and marketing, it is still fascinating. These types of studies are relatively simple to do and they can help companies out in a significant way. I learnt the importance of these types of mini-investigations, as they can really help a brand. Obviously, in my practice, I will not do all the theoretical and technical details that this, more academic project required. Nevertheless, having interaction with the customers and receiving their feedback was enlightening and actually very fun.
I saw that getting people to speak the truth was not as easy as I may have thought. The few times that I had casual chit-chat with the participants, I saw that what they officially said was different from what they said in an informal setting. This was also significant for me, as it allowed me to exercise and improve my language skills. I think that it would perhaps have been better to do interviews that were less structured in order to get more reliable information and reach this personal goal. However, I realize that this would have made the data processing more complicated and less valid.
Another important lesson was that I saw I needed to enhance my organization skills. Even though I do think I have developed them, I still think that they could be even better. This was especially noticeable when it came to collecting the information and writing the results of the project. I spent more time on them than I expected, which led to complication in other areas of my life. Nevertheless, I saw that I greatly improved my time management skills, something that was very important for me.
As a whole, I saw that this was, in fact, something that I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Even though it was challenging, I found that it was very rewarding at the end, producing great satisfaction in me. I now feel that I have more marketing and management knowledge, allowing me to understand the complex nature of this discipline.
