Executive summary
The remarkable issues that have overwhelmed the performance of Eagle’s Nest Hotel Inc are the relevant amount of time spent by the executives on low value customer services that have little value to the customer. The decline of share price and income have prohibited Eagle’s Nest Hotel Company from achieving its customer-centric vision of offering fast, opportune and efficient services to customers across all channels. Our proposal will allow Eagle’s Nest Hotel Inc. to transform its retail channels into a high value, reliable customer services while receiving economies of scale via centralization of customer services. The proposal will focus on three areas to improve customer services, which include loyalty programs, mobile app services and real estate investments.
Background
The proposal intends to propose three significant areas for investment of the $125 million, which the board of directors have agreed to spend in order to expand the company. Therefore, our proposal target executive directors who will decide whether they like the three areas presented. The customer service must be implemented with the customer’s needs in mind and connected to customer segmentation strategies. The impact of the customer service is to enhance the customer experiences as follows.
- Achieving the highest customer satisfaction for the market segments within which company operates by putting the customer first and excelling in meeting customer expectations via loyalty program.
- Reducing waiting time by introducing the mobile application service that will simply forms and steps for example, 24 live chat that will align supply with demand.
Investment 1- Loyalty Program
Loyalty program will improve customer service of the Eagle’s Nest Hotel Inc. Gaining customer loyalty is a significant goal of marketing, and loyalty programs are proposed to help in reducing customer queue. According to Meyer and Schwager (2007, pp. 117), loyalty program has a positive attitude toward the benefits of the program and is more economic in nature. When a program is attractive, customers will build a relationship with the program rather than the brand, which will increase their likelihood of repurchasing. Developing loyalty programs will help the customer to differentiate between loyalty to a company and loyalty to a loyalty program. Loyalty programs will cultivate loyal customers to increase sales and share.
A wide variety of loyalty programs have been implemented by various companies. For instance, a retail loyalty program is growing at 11% per year (Richelsen, 2012, PP. 625). Similarly, co-branded airline customer loyalty cards are generating more than $4billion in annual revenue for the top seven legacy airlines. Therefore, adopting and implementing these loyalty programs will realize productivity increases of about 20 percent and turnaround time reduction of 50 percent or more, all with higher quality levels. Loyalty programs have proven to be far more impactful than traditional customer service pursued by many hotel companies. Therefore, the drivers of loyalty program include social benefits of the program such as liking, tolerance and respect that are influential in the development of loyalty (Bogomolova, 2011, PP. 793). Similarly, perceived value of the program is another driver that offers the customer overall assessment of the utility of a program.
Investment 2- Mobile app service
The relationship between lifestyle traits, social influence, the customer’s attitudes toward mobile innovation, and the adoption advanced mobile services contributes to the proposal of mobile app service. The mobile application service focuses on the customization of customer service (Harry, 2012, pp. 169). Based on the analysis of the IT capabilities at Eagle’s Nest Hotel Inc., the current company’s IT platform is capable to support the Mobile app service. The advantage of the current Eagle’s Nest Hotel Inc. IT platform includes a single mainframe system with an integrated customer data, which will be used by the Communication Company to develop Mobile app service. The device will be converted into human voice, which will be used to inform, teach or reply customers (Eric, 2013, PP. 17).
The service device will store this information in order to communicate with correspondent customer. It will be designed in a way that it will maintain a multiple code bases, which will accelerate the time and value of the company. The service will provide 24 hours live chat, reminder service and remind the customer about the reservation in order to reduce the numbers of no-show. Similarly, it is designed in a way that it will remind customers about tables or rooms that are ready and cleaned. The service is expected to deliver up to $700 billion in value to business users. The service will facilitate a constant flow of information and reduce the number of staff because it is an automated process. Developing and implementing the service will cost about $90 million, which is a reasonable cost compared to its benefits.
Investment 3-real estate
The real estate project could increase the retail sales of the company. To have its own Frontline personnel or to outsource this function will be within the budget. The investment is a diversification opportunity for Americans pension funds. This will improve customer service because the customer can diversify their income in this project. The project will reduce the overall risk of the portfolio, hedging against inflation and delivering steady cash flows to the portfolio (Cummings, 2013, PP. 311).
Next step
The experience with similar customer service suggests that this can be executed within a 16-month period. The proposal covers the first 9 months of the implementation, assuming that the company will be capable to carry out the programs proposed within 16 months. The key principles that govern the objectives for these projects are their impact, creation of a substantial company’s investment that will drive change, and to ensure the sustainability.
Target
We are certain that the three investment projects will meet the objective of executive directors who have allocated a budget of up to $125 million for the initial investment. These executive directors include Joseph Walsh, Jason Brown, Alan Catraz, Glynn McFrey, Brenda Simpson, and Mina Muraki. The investments will achieve the highest customer satisfaction for the market segments within which company operates. This will be done by putting the customer first and excelling in meeting customer expectations via loyalty program. The loyalty program will reduce the customer queue, facilitate information center, which will improve the customer services.
The real estate service will capture the idea of Jason who argues that 3-star and motels has always been the foundation of their income stream until 2-3 years ago, and represents the largest part of the portfolio by income and room numbers. The venture in real estate can increase profitability and customer services.
The mobile application service will reduce the consultation cost, which is a concern to Joseph Walsh, who argues that consultation will cost them a large fee and recommend for something that can work. The mobile application service will reduce the number of staff and have automated process that will be cost effective for the company. Since the three investments capture the objective of many directors, the venture project would be a crucial to the continued independent survival of the company after been affected by the decline of share price.
References Lists
Bogomolova, S. 2011. Service quality perceptions of solely loyal customers. International Journal of Market Research, 53 (6), 793-810.
Cummings, R. 2013. A National Profile of the Real Estate Industry and the Appraisal Profession. Journal of Property Management, 31 (4), 311-324.
Eric, S. 2013. How Mobile Apps Can Customize Customer Service. Forbes.com, 23 (3), 17-18.
Harry, B. 2012. Consumer Lifestyles: Alternative Adoption Patterns For Advanced Mobile Services. International Journal of Mobile Communications, 10 (2), 169-189.
Meyer, C., & Schwager, A. 2007. Understanding Customer Experience. Harvard
Business Review, 85 (2), 116-126.
Richelsen, V. 2012. Consequences Of Customer Loyalty To The Loyalty Program And To The Company. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40 (6), 625-638.
