Business: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) For Wynn Hotel.
Introduction
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a word that in used in reference to the well detailed strategies, practices and technologies that organizations use for the analysis and management of customer information. Customer relationship management has the capacity to hold a client’s information as long as he is still a customer of the organization. In a nutshell, it stores and handles information relating to the clients throughout the business period. It has the capacity to analyze and store even the most vital and sensitive information relating to a client’s interaction with the company (Greenburg, 2009).
The primary objective of a customer relationship management scheme is to improve the quality of service the company gives to its clients; furthermore, it enhances the quality of interaction between a company and its customers. Through these services, an organization has the ability to retain its existing customers and make major boosts in terms of sales and growth.
Customers Relationship Management are based on information technology, through this systems, an organization is able to maintain an effective customer database. These information systems are designed by the company to compile information relating to the customers across different dimensions and channels. Apparently, these systems explore and make use of the critical information obtained from the various points of contacts between the customer and the organization.
However, CRM does not only depend on physical engagement to obtain customer’s vital information, it can also obtain information from emails, the social media, the company’s website, telephone calls and live chats, just to mention but a few (Greenburg, 2009). These systems are tailor-made as per the company’s requirements, the company through its director of Information and communication technology, explore the possible areas where the critical information can be obtained from in the course of their interaction then further directs their implementation on the proposed CRM.
Literature Review
Wynn Hotel is an example of a company that has embraced CRM in order to boost its interactions with customers. Indeed, it has brought a lot of good to the hotel as the level of interaction between it and the customers has reached and advanced level. As the hotel was planning its implementation, the major issues it wanted addressed by the system is to store some of the most critical information relating to their clients, most notably was the personal information of the client, the customers concern and complaints if any, the frequency of visit and the client’s preferences (Fornell, 2012). Besides, the system was seen to have the ability of offering support to the customer-facing staff of the hotel, in so, the staff members would have a lot of ease and confidence as they handle the client’s issues.
The Hotel attempted to use the CRM to consolidate all the documents and customer information as a single unit of database. The primary objective the hotel meant to achieve by consolidating its databases into a single unit was to achieve efficiency; indeed, it achieved it to some extent. The consolidated database allowed the hotel management through its staff to manage the hotel more effectively as they were able to access and manage some of the most crucial information without major hustles (Mohammadhossein, 2012). Moreover, the system was meant to record customer contact with the hotel and store the information in the database. Other intended functions of the system were to automate workflow within and without the hotel, and to give alerts to the relevant authorities where necessary. Even though all these functions can still be achieved using the CRM system, the primary reason is that the hotel adopted this system was to track productivity and performance of the using the information stored in the database.
Although CRM proved useful to Wynn Hotel, it presented several challenges for the hotel. Being a technology based system; there are certain particular issues that needed to be sorted out for the hotel to realize the best out of the system. Without a proper management and relevant knowledge regarding the system, the system would not be any special to the hotel rather just performing the very basic functionalities an ordinary database can perform (Fornell, 2012). Furthermore, it would not be meaningful for the hotel to purchase the system only to use it as an ordinary database considering its cost.
The system is quite expensive and can only be afforded by some of the established hotels. For the system to be very useful for Wynn Hotel, the hotel management needed to connect all its databases to the system such that all the information stored in various databases in the hotel could be remotely accessed by authorized users from any point in and out of the hotel. Customer relationship management systems heavily relies on distributed database systems, this meant that the hotel had to incur extra cost to make a distributed system within the hotel. Distributed systems will help the users and staff to access all the information they would need from different locations (Mohammadhossein, 2012). These are just but a few challenges the hotel had to encounter in its bid to make use of a Customer Relationship Management system.
Discussion of CRM Metrics
There are various metrics that the hotel can use to determine whether the system is helping them meet their objectives or not. When the hotel management decided to use a Customer Relationship Management system to increase their interactions with the hotel’s clients, these should make the most basic metrics to determine the functionality and importance of the system. Besides, there are universally recognized metrics that a CRM is expected to possess, once again, these should be used by the hotel as a yardstick of measuring the functionality of the system. Even though the hotel management decided to use the system to increase their interactions with the customers, CRM is a system that is universally used, in a nutshell, CRM has various uses besides maintaining data or even increasing interaction between the client and the company (Shaw, 2011).
However, for Wynn Hotel, the system should be able to automate its marketing procedures. As a hospitality facility, intensive marketing is required to retain and attract more customers. A tailor-made Customer Relationship Management system with the necessary functionalities should have the capability to automate tasks and spur the marketing efforts that an organization makes. These tasks are expected to be continuous and should not stop at any given time, its lifecycle functionality. For example, a Customer Relationship Management system should be able to receive sales prospects from whatever the source might be and sends them directly to the clients through their emails or via the social media.
Another metric the management can use to gauge the functionality of the system is to test whether it has the ability to automate the sales force. The customer relationship management system is composed of several sub-systems, all these work together to form the main system (Shaw, 2011). Since a CRM has the capability to have several sub-systems, it should also have the sub-system of sales force management, through it, the system should be able to detect and avoid duplicate actions between the customers and sales team. The system can do this by carrying out a follow up and tracking the contacts of both the clients and the sales team.
Another major functionality and probably the most crucial metric of a CRM system is its ability to automate the contact center (Shaw, 2011). This functionality is primarily meant to reduce the tiresome job of the contact center agents. Contact center automation is a functionality that helps the contact center agents in their duties of disseminating information to the clients. It should employ various techniques like the use of recorded audio in a bid to solve the customer’s issues.
The CRM system achieves this functionality by using software that can integrate the agent’s desktop tools with the system’s functionality. The final matric to use while gauging CRM system is determining whether it can offer location-based services. Examples of location-based services include offering those services that put campaigns on a client’s actual location; this can be achieved through integrating the system’s functionalities with GPS apps (Fornell, 2012). When the system meets all or any of the above, then it is suitable for use in the hospitality industry just like Wynn Hotel.
The study revealed that since Wynn Hotel started using a customer relationship management system, it had made tremendous gains in the hospitality industry. All these gains can be directly or indirectly be attributed to the various functionalities that the system offers. Particularly, the hotel is able to effectively maintain their customers through their contacts and other personal information. CRM has offered several uses to the hotel; a very good example is that the system provides a great boost to marketing. Prospects can be sent directly to the clients via their emails or social media without human involvement, the process is actually automated (Mohammadhossein, 2012). This sees to it that several customers get information in the right time, perhaps it could be reason that they continually seek the services of Wynn Hotel. Customers need efficiency, when they find it, they hardly defect. Previously, Wynn Hotel did not have as much customers as it has today; this is due to an efficient management that gives them perfect services besides remitting them information in real time.
Conclusion
Customer Relationship Management system is an important system that should be employed in the hospitality industry. The industry has its customers scattered all over the globe, reaching them is easy unless an appropriate technology is applied (Fornell, 2012). Through the use of CRM just like the case of Wynn Hotel, they would be able to get the much needed information. Previously, tourists relied on agencies to get information pertaining to the hospitality industry, today, CRM does it. The functionalities offered by CRM are just incomparable; any hotel not using the system does itself a lot of harm. To meet the strict competition that is currently evident in the hospitality industry, one must acquaint his facilities with the latest technology and current trends in the sectors. Through the use of CRM, Wynn Hotel has been able to register success; furthermore, it is still continuing to rise.
References
Fornell, C. (2012). A National Customer Satisfaction Barometer. The Swedish Experience . Journal of Marketing, 56, 6-22.
Greenburg, P. (2009). Customer Relationship Management At the Speed of Light (4th Edition). London: McGraw Hill Publishers.
Mohammadhossein, N. (2012). Customer Relationship Management Benefits for Customers. Journal of Marketing, 22-56.
Shaw, R. (2011). Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Adoption the 'Biggest Problem' in 83 Percent of all the Cases. San Fransisco: James Wiley and Sons Publishers.
