CRM for Hotel: Why we need a good loyalty program

I stayed at a Marriott recently, and it took me half of a morning to find my Rewards number, so they could assign my points. Sure, it’s my fault I didn’t carry around my loyalty number around with me- but we all know there are so many programs it’s near impossible to do that. It’s almost expected now that nobody will have their member card with them. Barnes & Noble looks it up by last name and phone number. My video store, the same.
I stop by the front desk on the way to breakfast. I don’t have my number, so they lookup my Marriott rewards account by my last name and the billing zip code from the first time I had registered with them. I’ve only had two spanning the last 10 years, but no, neither work.
I remembered I had an email from them on my iPhone. I scrolled to it in front of the registration person and no, nowhere on it was my number. My points, my first name, but not my member number. (see below)

I tell the registration person not to worry and later that day when I remembered, I logged into the site. Still not so easy- you have to click around to your account, profile details (it’s not on there), and then finally the account profile (what’s the difference?) and there is the number, hidden amidst other details. The reason my zip code didn’t work is that it requires the four digit extension. I wonder if they require the dash?
Later that night return to the hotel and provide the number, and then they assigned points. I doubt my parents, or colleagues, would be as determined as me to get these free points. So the kind of rewards member they’re targeting is the cheap, coupon-clipping, business traveler. I doubt that’s their desirable target demographic.
On the site, if you forget your password- and if you forgot your number, you probably forgot your password, is accessible by filling out this strangely lengthy form:

I finally found it because I punched through my usual passwords and struck gold. The lessons I take from this: if someone is already a guest, and they want to assign points to their loyalty program, they should be searchable some of the common criteria .
- email address and/or
- first and last name
Also, the email should either have the account number in the email, or at least, one click away. Currently it’s 3 clicks, login, account page, then profile.
I wonder if they are trying to get regional data from their customers, because hospitality really leans on regional information. The problem is that they are creating this barrier to participation in the program. Perhaps that’s intentional too. If so, this is one of the most intricate, and relatively useless, process in CRM. We build this system, but don’t really want you to participate. We make it hard, so you won’t really take advantage of our offers.
I know it should be different online where there are more fraudulent schemes, but doubting or questioning someone who is already paying X dollars a night in the hotel seems contrary to the hospitality industry’s general attitude towards the customer.
I wonder at these loyalty programs- you get a great segment of your customer database, but is it worth setting up an entirely different experience, and managing the data, which can go awry like in the example above? WellsFargo has a very easy Rewards system that happens very passively from the consumer point of view, no unique number, just a link you click on to agree to the terms, and then you start accruing points.

Strategies for Smooth Social CRM Implementation, Part 1

The most important strategic imperative for a successful social CRM implementation is an organizational culture and structure that is aligned with Customer 2.0. The social customer has evolved into a more mature, demanding, informed, willing and value-adding business partner who seeks a long-term association with the brand or enterprise. The traditional CRM approaches are no longer acceptable.

Customers' buying behaviors and businesses' engagement models are shifting. Traditional is out, next-gen is in. Today it is the customer who influences and forces the evolution of business models. Cloud-based Internet peer networks drive the buying decisions for large segments of customers. Enterprises will inevitably need to adopt mobility and social media platforms to keep up with the next generation.

Today's consumers already have globally visible footprints in terms of their opinions, feedback, and perceptions of various brands. Collective sentiments developing on social networks and in peer communities are influencing consumer choices and buying behavior. Social media platforms will be the next-generation battleground of brand and customer loyalty.

The importance of Customer 2.0
Is your organization ready to do business with "Customer 2.0"? Social CRM gives you a real-time sense of customer preferences and opinions. Social CRM helps you listen to relevant social media conversations so that you can take proactive steps to create untapped business opportunities.
With Social CRM, you can leverage your customer's trusted peer network to create widespread positive brand perceptions and generate new leads. You can engage customers in conversations through social media networks to provide a more personalized experience. Finally, you can make the consumer your partner in product co-creation for win-win outcomes.
Many conversations on this theme have grabbed the attention of those at the C-level. Across the globe, consumers are hooked on social networking. The way they interact with brands is changing. The way they make buying decisions is changing. Consumers have moved beyond consuming information -- now they share experiences, knowledge and activities on new platforms. Hence, it has become critical for organizations to interact in a way that is more relevant and appealing to them.

How Organizations Are dealing With Customer 2.0

Different industry segments have reached different levels of adoption and maturity of their social media for CRM functions. Business-to-Customer (B2C) businesses seem to be on a steeper trajectory when compared to Business to Business (B2B) firms. Most of the early adopters of social CRM are consumer packaged goods, telecom, high tech, manufacturing and services industries. However, all industries leverage social media for their marketing, sales and service functions at varied levels, based on the customer behavior and sales cycle.
Banks and financial services have been relatively moderate in their adoption rate of social CRM, restricting its usage primarily to listening, analyzing and meeting customer needs apart from customer support. Issues such as data privacy, user authentication and sensitivity of bank information, coupled with regulatory stringency, make social CRM an initiative that needs to be implemented with forethought and strategic vision.
A snapshot of key activities of the leading banks and FIs in the social CRM space:

	Community (Peer networking)	Customer Service	Marketing Campaigns	Customer Education
Wells Fargo	Virtual world	The Wachovia unit uses twitter		Dedicated blog posts for different loan offerings/virtual world/twitter
American Express	dedicated forums	using Twitter
Intuit	communities/forums			Blog posts/communities
Scotia Bank	communities/forums	using Twitter
Fidelity			You Tube videos	Using Twitter
Charles Schwab	communities/forums	Using Twitter

Figure 1 highlights the range of social CRM activities that financial services organizations are currently undertaking. Communities, microblogs and other social media essentially act as another communication channel with the customer, where socially enabled marketing, sales and customer service processes are executed to generate lasting business and customer value. In general, the activities performed in the social media space can be mapped to the traditional CRM pillars.
Marketing: Brand-related references from communities and other content management sites (like YouTube) are converted into specific customer experiences/campaigns. Microblogging sites (Twitter, etc.) are also used for launching campaigns
Sales: Before making a purchase, today's consumers often seek the opinions of like-minded peers and experts on discussion forums and consider product reviews/ratings/tags. Such social conversations can lead to sales.
Service: Microblogging sites replace the traditional phone/IVR channel to make an instant connection with the customer to address an issue even before it becomes a problem.

Social CRM: Strategy or Tool?

The marketplace is abuzz with debate over whether social CRM is primarily a strategic concept or just a tool to be implemented. In fact, it is a balanced amalgamation of business insights realized by astute IT implementation.
It is also a strategy and an art from the perspective that Social CRM

• is still an emerging area where thought leadership, frameworks and models are in a nascent stage;
• requires clear foresight in terms of goal setting and expectations;
• requires judgment and realistic assessment of an organization's readiness to adopt and adapt to the new media;
• requires deep analysis of the nuances and uniqueness of social customer behavior; and
• forces adaptation to cater to the emerging and diverse needs, traits, responses, demands and attitudes of the social customer.

Social CRM Strategic Imperatives

The most important strategic imperative for a successful social CRM implementation is an organizational culture and structure that is aligned with Customer 2.0. The social customer has evolved into a more mature, demanding, informed, willing and value-adding business partner who seeks a long-term association with the brand or enterprise.
The traditional CRM approaches of enterprise-driven marketing efforts, aggressive sales pitches, or less-than-satisfactory customer support are no longer acceptable. In fact, it has been shown time and again that such approaches can often publicly backfire in the new social world.
Mckinsey's 7-S framework can be leveraged to prepare an organization for the social CRM bandwagon:

McKinsey's 7-S framework and Social CRM Strategic Imperatives
Skills	Marketing : Sentiment Analysis, Customer-driven Brand Building, Elicit Customer Insights from social conversations, Sales: Relationship oriented selling , Network-led prospecting, Word of Mouth referrals and Predictive Analytics for Cross/Up-sell Customer Support: Pro-actively addressing customer complaints, minimizing product issues, deftly handling irate customer, prioritizing service request resolution based on potential impact
Strategy	Deep-dive research on organization's Social Customer behavior, Competitor analysis on Social Media , SWOT Analysis and Business Need to leverage social Media Cross-leverage Social Media / CRM initiatives with Offline efforts Establish strong business case with ROI model Implement social CRM projects in pilot mode, reap benefits and broaden reach and scale
Structure	Streamline: Re-align the front-office to be more agile with clear focus on prompt response to customer Boundary-less: Flatten walls between business functions to enable faster discussions and decisions
Systems	Multi-channel Consolidation Predictive Analytics Social listening , Social Analytics and Social Intelligence
Style	Collaborate, Co-create and Communicate with Partners , Suppliers, Employees and Customers
Staff	Genuinely customer centric empowered by sophisticated tools providing deep social customer insight and a 360 view of customer touch points across channels (social media, phone, web or offline)
Shared Values	Customer centricity Pro-active issue resolution Community ownership as against siloed approach toward corporate brand building Transparency and Fairness in all transactions across customer touch points

Don't Forget B2B CRM

B2B relationships are certainly different than B2C ones. Relations with consumers are more likely to take an emotional tone, for better or for worse. Businesses, on the other hand, make purchasing decisions solely for the purpose of making or saving money -- it's nothing personal, it's strictly business. The two types of relationships both need CRM, it just needs to be applied differently.

While we're on the subject of the customer relationship, it's important, even vital, that we do a better job of teasing apart customer types. It seems to me that the vast conversation about social CRM and the social customer has focused on the end consumer -- the business-to-consumer (B2C) relationship -- not the business-to-business (B2B) one. That's probably a smart over-reaction to the fact the about two-thirds of the economy consists of B2C transactions.

What might not be smart is assuming that the other third of the economy operates more or less like the consumer economy and that B2B customers are the same and can be addressed with the same tools and methods. The most popular business organization model is still some form of hierarchy, and businesses often make decisions based on the consensus of people up the ladder. Other people have input in the decision, but very often, final approval comes from people higher up who have budget responsibilities.
Businesses spend money for only two reasons: to make money or to save it. If a purchase, and the ongoing cost of repair, maintenance and upgrade, cannot be justified on these grounds, or if the purchase cannot flat-out make more money than it costs, there is no reason for it. This reality puts a box around most B2B relationships, which prevents them from becoming emotional in a B2C sense. It also lets a business relationship operate more along operational lines where objective measures like price, on-time performance and quality standards dictate the health of the relationship.

What's the Dif?
Over the years, vendors have had varying degrees of difficulty dealing with the differences, since they are often in B2B relationships with suppliers as well as B2C relationships with consumers.
There's more room for bruised egos in a business-to-consumer (B2C) relationship than in a B2B one. A consumer can take offense at a vendor's behavior, while in a similar B2B situation a behavior might be shrugged of as "just doing business."
With all that said, it ought to be easier to produce B2B CRM systems focused on operational standards, yet deployment of good operational CRM systems seems to lag right now. Exceptions show up in customer service in companies like RightNow (kudos for the Magic Quadrant), Salesforce and others dedicated to building knowledge bases that are accessible and searchable from multiple channels.
In the best examples of B2B service, vendors are using social technologies to capture customer needs and collective solutions and then make them useful and available to others. This neat trick enables vendors to actually capture intellectual property (IP) from normal conversations. The IP is recycled through the cloud support infrastructure, resulting in lower service costs and, presumably, customers that are happier because their issues are quickly resolved.
Salesforce, with its Sales Cloud, also applies social ideas to B2B selling with positive results. Here the company gathers social IP from all sales encounters and distills common ideas from numerous encounters that can be applied in the future.

Do the Evolution

What's most interesting to me is the evolving realization that social ideas apply equally well to both kinds of relationships but in opposite directions. The B2C approach is to socialize the relationship with the customer by gathering data from the market and analyzing it for common trends. Understanding customer trends enables B2C vendors to extract information they can apply in future encounters. Sales Playbooks, a term popularized by Kadient and some others, are the distillation of customer reactions to vendor sales initiatives and materials. From a playbook a vendor can plot a sales strategy with confidence of being on the right track.
In comparison, B2B vendors are beginning to socialize the organizational, e.g. operational, response to the customer. Chatter, another Salesforce invention, socializes the vendor organization. In a B2B situation, a vendor organization knows that operational excellence is critical to most relationships. Socializing the customer relationship from within the vendor organization simply provides the necessary and immediate stimuli for personnel to take appropriate actions.
That may sound like a mouthful, and it is, but the net of all this is an easier take-away. The B2C and B2B relationships are fundamentally different and lately, we've given a lot of attention to the former and maybe not enough to the latter. The social approaches to each are diametrical opposites but once we get our heads around that essential idea, I think we'll be more successful in the B2B world.
Finally, who drives the relationship -- B2C or B2B? I think it's a smart vendor who enables the customer to believe he or she is in the driver's seat.

When B2C and B2B Worlds Collide

In 2012, companies will need to transition their interactions with customers from a handshake to a conversation to follow the changing expectations of society. In order to do this, companies will utilize real-time commerce technologies to reach not just the customer, but the end user as well.

Having spent more than 20 years in the tech industry, I've seen many trends (and related buzzwords) come and go. One trend that I continue to see each year is the "consumerization of IT." While it hasn't always been referred to by that label, consumer demand has manifest itself across a variety of sectors in the industry, from PCs and email to the cloud . Today, an obvious example of this is the desire to connect personal smartphones and tablets to a secured business network.

As this trend continues to make its way to the cloud, we're starting to see consumerization shift the way businesses interact with each other and their customers. Customers are exhibiting behavior much like employees and are leveraging consumerization of technology to find new ways to interact, obtain information, and get connected with external entities such as vendors, service providers, applications and more.
Evolving expectations around real-time visibility throughout the value chain and pressure to achieve lower TCO by deploying cloud-based business solutions will be big themes this year. This type of multi-enterprise collaboration and connecting with customers and partners, coupled with the "power of now" mentality will be pervasive.
Keeping these disruptive shifts in mind, here's what I believe is in store as 2012 unfolds:


1. Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) will focus on delivering integration networks targeting vertical industries.
In their ongoing effort to improve collaboration and process automation, both on-premises and cloud-based ERP and CRM vendors will look to the cloud to build their network communities as a way to extend their end-to-end business processes, as well as deliver incremental value to customers.
In 2012, we will see vertical industry networks increase adoption and drive tighter collaboration across participants, particularly in the areas of e-commerce and process visibility. The power of the network and the community will continue to accelerate exponentially as the number of network participants increases.
2. Global economic uncertainty will prevail and drive companies to get even closer to existing customers.
With economic uncertainty extending into next year and a major U.S. presidential election on the horizon, companies will focus on maximizing their relationships with existing customers and partners as a significant contributor to top line financial performance.
We will see greater focus on solving customer needs, adapting solutions to fit their requirements, and providing new ways to deliver value without forcing them to change the way they currently do business. Companies are flagging these areas of opportunity by finding ways to leverage existing customer infrastructures with minimal incremental investments.
3. Consumerization of IT drives real-time end user visibility tools.
With the rise of social networks, expectations for how we connect and communicate have evolved. People are accustomed to constant communication in both their personal and professional lives and will often modify old ERP systems with user-friendly tablet and phone applications.
In 2012, companies will need to transition their interactions with customers from a handshake to a conversation to follow the changing expectations of society. In order to do this, companies will utilize real-time commerce technologies to reach not just the customer, but the end user as well.
4. Cloud Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) will remain compelling: Companies will continue to adopt cloud-based solutions primarily to reduce overall IT costs.
In the new year, TCO will continue to be the primary driver of cloud adoption due to scalable costs and consumption models offered by cloud vendors that simply cannot be matched by on-premises solutions.
A close second driver of adoption will be the need to drive costs out of critical business processes through automation and integration throughout the extended enterprise.
5. Enterprises will gain confidence in the cloud and migrate on-premises apps to the cloud.
As cloud computing continues to evolve and security standards are established during the year, enterprises will see the cloud as a viable option to run business-critical systems.
As large and mid-size organizations face significant upgrades with on-premises ERP applications and carefully assess business value vs. upgrade costs, they will find compelling justification to move more holistically to the cloud.

CRM for the Tourism Industry

  As competition intensifies in the industry, tourism stakeholders increasingly rely on CRM to differentiate themselves from competitors by delivering customized offerings, and to strengthen relationships by treating their customers better. Whether you are a Provincial Marketing Organization (PMO), a Destination Marketing Organization (DMO), or a tourism operator responsible for promoting Canada or a specific region as a primary tourism destination, you can benefit from CRM technology to support your operations. Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help you:

• Leverage analytics to get a snapshot of current travel preferences and spending patterns
• Automatic calculation of marketing effectiveness and ROI
• Target investments to the most impactful marketing activities
• Enhance collaboration with other tourism stakeholders by increasing accessibility and improving communications
• Enforce consistent branding and messaging across touch points
• Create automated marketing workflows that eliminate repetitive manual tasks
• Improve inefficient processes by creating and monitoring workflows
• Capture leads, subscribers, or literature requests directly from the web
• Set-up and manage every aspect of FAM trips, conferences, or other events with powerful event management capabilities
• Monitor and analyze customers’ conversations on social networking sites
• Provide real-time status updates (event, etc.) using Twitter
• Solicit and act on customer feedback

CRM TDI Case Study

Travel Dynamics International (TDI) provides luxury cruises based around cultural and educational themes. For 10 years, the company relied on a custom-built reservation and booking system. However, this system lacked built-in tools for sales, marketing, and customer service. Employees used a variety of nonintegrated applications to perform daily tasks, restricting TDI’s ability to automate processes to improve efficiency. After spending an average of U.S.$50,000 a year to maintain its aging system, the company opted to implement a customer relationship management system. TDI chose Microsoft Dynamics® CRM based on its ease of use and the flexibility offered through xRM, the application development framework that underpins the solution. Now, TDI has seen a four-fold increase in workforce productivity, improved its customer service, and projects year-over-year sales growth of 10 percent.

Situation

Given the business model of Travel Dynamics International (TDI), it seems fitting that two brothers from the Greek island of Rhodes—site of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—came together to form the company. Founded in 1969, the Manhattan, New York–based company pioneered the fusion of luxury cruise travel and theme-based education covering a range of topics, including ancient and medieval civilizations and the voyages of modern explorers.
TDI has a fleet of three small to midsize cruise ships with occupancy ranging from 34 to 114 passengers. The 40-person company sells an average of 60 trips a year—serving approximately 4,000 passengers annually—mainly through its partnerships with nonprofit-sponsoring organizations, such as the Association of Yale Alumni and the Smithsonian Institute.
From its inception, TDI has earned a reputation for its personalized service and exquisite attention to detail. The company provides elaborate catering and amenities, such as spas, exercise facilities, and private butler services.
To meet its sophisticated passenger reservation and program-planning needs, TDI engaged an independent software firm to develop a proprietary reservation system. Although this system, which TDI relied on for 10 years, met basic requirements for storing passenger and trip information, it did not include marketing, sales, or customer service modules. The lack of support for these functions hampered efficiency, limited visibility into customer and sales data, and introduced opportunities for error. Specifically:

• Sales staff only sporadically tracked leads, using stand-alone spreadsheets, which prevented real-time visibility of prospects and analysis of conversion rates; this practice also meant that sales staff spent up to an hour each week compiling and rekeying data to create reports.

  TDI operates cruises to exotic locations worldwide.

• Accounting staff needed to manually reenter data from the reservation system into the company’s Sage Accpac accounting system. 
• Customer service staff relied on a paper-based system for generating and distributing precruise mailings to travelers, which occasionally led to delays and missed deadlines.
• Marketing coordinators often had to sort through dozens of records retrieved from multiple, nonintegrated systems to find the information they needed, complicating the process of building targeted campaigns.

Attempts to add functionality to the existing system to standardize and link business processes and simplify information sharing across departments proved costly. In one three-year period, the company spent an average of U.S.$150,000 to maintain and extend its aging system, with minimal return on investment.
Company leaders knew that TDI had outgrown its custom reservation system. But, they were initially skeptical that anything but a custom-built solution could serve its specialized business model. Also, the company hesitated to abandon a decade’s worth of investment in its former system. After several months of deliberation, the company ultimately considered the option of a packaged customer relationship management solution.

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we can ensure that no leads fall through the cracks. And with more efficient and more targeted marketing, we’re better equipped to turn leads into loyal, long-term customers. Nikos Papagapitos, Manager of Technological Development and Special Projects, TDI

“We were looking for a solution that combined core sales and marketing automation functionality with maximum flexibility,” says Nikos Papagapitos, Manager of Technological Development and Special Projects at TDI. “We needed to be able to quickly modify the system to handle our reservation process so that we could connect all the parts of our business—from sales and booking, to managing trip itineraries, to marketing—to drive customer loyalty and repeat business."

Solution

TDI evaluated customer relationship management solutions from Microsoft, Sage, Salesforce.com, and Oracle. The company ultimately chose Microsoft Dynamics® CRM based on a number of factors, including ease of use and integration with the desktop productivity and communication applications that TDI staff use each day, including Microsoft® Office Word and Microsoft Office Outlook®.
Another key decision driver for TDI was the extensibility offered through xRM, the flexible application development framework of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. With its deep expertise in tailoring Microsoft Dynamics CRM to fit a variety of unique business models, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Infinity Info Systems effectively demonstrated this capability to managers at TDI. “The ability to quickly build new line-of-business applications through xRM was something the other customer relationship management solutions couldn’t match,” says Papagapitos.
Managing Reservations Infinity Info Systems helped TDI make changes to the database and user interface components of Microsoft Dynamics CRM to optimize its reservation-booking process.
The team modified the data model to support a passenger-centric approach to handling reservations, a change that TDI deemed too difficult and costly to complete in its former system. Now, customer profile data is automatically associated with tour package information in a single database, enabling TDI agents to complete and update bookings more quickly. This change also enables the company to track shared data across its customer base on a number of specified dimensions, such as a passenger’s connection to a particular travel agent or sponsoring organization. In addition, TDI can now track passenger transaction history data to more precisely market tour packages based on individual preferences.
“xRM simplifies access to powerful application development resources, such as Microsoft SQL Server® and the Microsoft .NET Framework. So, we were able to help TDI build its reservation management application on Microsoft Dynamics CRM much more quickly than if we tried to custom build it ourselves,” says Infinity Info Systems’s Matthew Bogan, who oversaw the TDI engagement.
Tracking Ship Inventory and Tour Program Details
TDI uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM to track cabin inventory across its fleet. This information, which is automatically updated each time an agent completes a reservation, is instantly available to employees throughout the organization:

• Company managers can log on to the system to obtain a snapshot of inventory utilization.  
• Booking agents can see current inventory by ship and easily access details about available suites, such as square footage and whether or not the cabin offers a private balcony.
• Sales associates and managers can access up-to-the-minute sales figures to determine what packages need to be further promoted.

TDI also uses the solution to track itinerary and tour program information, including lecture schedules, details about presenters and guides, shipboard entertainment activities, land tours, and the various excursions available through each themed vacation package. Previously, the company maintained this information in as many as three nonintegrated applications. Now, the company stores it in a centralized database and any updates are automatically propagated throughout the system.
Providing a Hub to Connect Business ActivitiesFor TDI, the solution serves as a hub to link all of its core business processes:

• Sales associates use the lead-tracking tools to record detailed information about prospects and to organize and prioritize follow-up activities for each new opportunity.
• Customer service and tour program teams rely on automated workflows to guide the creation, review and approval, and distribution of precruise mailings to booked passengers.
• Marketing coordinators use the system to drill down into customer profiles, examining transaction and correspondence histories and identifying key relationships among its customer base to create targeted campaigns.

To more tightly connect its business activities and streamline operations, TDI integrated Microsoft Dynamics CRM with its Sage Accpac accounting system through the Scribe Insight connector. Now, sales orders are automatically converted into reservations and recorded as invoices—all inside Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Accounting staff can then flow invoice data into the Sage Accpac system to update accounts payable records and reconcile the general ledger.

Benefits

“Since deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM, our people can complete tasks up to four times faster than before. And we’re projecting a 10 percent year-over-year gain in sales volume through improved sales lead–tracking and marketing capabilities,” says Papagapitos. In addition, TDI can now provide more responsive and consistent customer service because its people share access to current, accurate information stored in a centralized database. And, with the ability to quickly modify and extend Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the company has dramatically reduced its IT maintenance costs and is better able to adapt to changing business needs.
Increased Productivity by Up to 400 PercentThrough streamlined reporting, the elimination of numerous manual workflows, and seamless integration between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and applications in the Microsoft Office system, TDI has boosted productivity across its operations by up to 400 percent.

• Agents can book reservations up to four times faster because customer information is automatically linked in the system with tour package details. 
• Sales associates can create a weekly sales summary report in a matter of minutes, which previously took up to an hour to complete. 
• Customer service personnel have cut the amount of time needed to complete delivery of customer mailings by 50 percent by relying on automated workflows and the ability to quickly merge mailing lists with documents.
• Marketing coordinators can now search a single database to create targeted campaigns, saving an average of 10 hours of development time for each initiative. 
• Accounting staff avoid hours of duplicate data entry each week through the connection between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the company’s Sage Accpac system.

The ability to take advantage of xRM to quickly build out new applications makes us more agile as a company.  Nikos Papagapitos, Manager of Technological Development and Special Projects, TDI

Projected Annual Gain in Sales Volume of 10 Percent
TDI projects a 10 percent year-over-year increase in the number of tour packages it sells based on several factors. Lead-tracking tools in the system provide a way for sales people to track and prioritize opportunities in a more systematic way. Moreover, company leaders now benefit from real-time visibility into all leads contained in the system. They can contribute their own contacts and advise sales associates to follow up on an emerging opportunity based on new information. “We’ve already improved our conversion rate on new leads based on the ability to track them in a centralized database, and we expect this trend to continue,” says Papagapitos.
In addition, the company’s marketing team uses the system to identify shared relationships, buying trends, and key referral sources to build more sophisticated and effective direct-mail campaigns. “With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we can ensure that no leads fall through the cracks,” says Papagapitos. “And with more efficient and more targeted marketing, we’re better equipped to turn leads into loyal, long-term customers.”
Improved Customer Service
Because sales associates, tour program managers, and customer service staff all work in the same system, TDI provides high-quality and thoroughly consistent service at every touch point with its customers. The company processes and confirms reservations more quickly, delivers its precruise information packets on schedule, immediately provides itinerary updates to passengers, and avoids sending contacts duplicate marketing materials. “Because Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps us connect our people and our business in practically every way, we can provide the kind of outstanding service and attention to detail that our customers expect,” says Papagapitos.
Saved $50,000 a Year Through Greater IT Self-Sufficiency
By moving to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, TDI immediately eliminated the annual expense of maintaining and upgrading its former system, which totaled an average of $50,000 a year. This cost included regular system maintenance and a number of ongoing IT projects that outside consultants performed. In addition to removing this expense from its annual operating budget, TDI can now handle the majority of its IT needs with internal staffing resources. Papagapitos attributes this in large part to his team’s familiarity with the technologies exposed through the xRM application development framework alongside training and support from the Infinity Info Systems team. “The ability to take advantage of xRM to quickly build out new applications makes us more agile as a company,” he says. “And because we don’t have to outsource these projects, we can retain complete control of our data. That’s a huge win for us.”

Is “Social” the Glue that Can Fix B2C CRM?

I am sure there are a lot of vendors, practitioners and users that will disagree with me – but I am not a fan of the state of B2C CRM. To explain, I think that there is a HUGE difference between effectively managing the well documented B2B sales relationships in a CRM system versus the usually anonymous, high volume transaction levels in the B2C world.
I was reminded of my feelings on B2C CRM when I read this E-Commerce Time article that noted how hotel chains are lagging in CRM adoption. I’ll get back to this in a bit.
The reason I feel so seemingly negative about B2C CRM is because up until a few years ago – it was nearly impossible to make use of the consumer data passing through B2C operations. The amount of register data, phone calls around product issues, warranty data, program registration etc. alone was too great for older systems.
And all of this isn’t even anonymous data. I started my analytic career in retail journalism, and would often cover customer loyalty programs. When I actually was able to get people to talk off the record about what kind of customer insight analysis was being performed on all the data these chains were generating – the response was usually something like “Oh, that sounds like a great idea!” There was simply too much data – enough to bottleneck any system 15 years ago.
Now, lets compound that issue with data from web traffic, email campaigns, social media, blogs etc. – and it is enough to make anyone’s head spin.
So, I am not down on B2B CRM in theory – just feel it was hard to do well in practice. And this is a completely different issue than having to give me account data 15 times to Citi when I call them.
But, is there an answer?  I think there is…maybe.
Social media does a lot of cool things. But one thing it does is allow B2C providers to finally have the ability to herd cats, as it were. A lot of B2B folks are still looking at Facebook communities with a slanted eye – and I understand that. These B2B guys already know who they’re dealing with – they only care about more leads.
Now, B2C companies have the issue of finding their user communities, and in them ferreting out advocates and other valuable customers. By finding out a) what sites your target market naturally attracts towards and b) how to create destinations they love, you have made two major strides in doing what B2C CRM could not do well a decade ago.
What social media and networks allow us to do in the B2C world is create a fluid, yet valuable database (akin to the neatly structured relational databases powering B2B CRM) of our customers. Their likes and dislikes are valuable to B2C CRM – just as past purchase history and SLAs are to B2B.
A nice example of even hotel chains “getting it” in terms of social building out their CRM initiative  Gaylord resorts (see, i told you I’d bring this all full circle). I recall CRM magazine editor Lauren McKay having tweeted about wanting cornbread while at a conference at the resort. The resort was following the hashtags and made sure to make its mark on Lauren…a great example of making the most of social to engage, and create advocates out there in your consumer base.
And again, the great thing is that if you’re in the B2C world, chances are your customers are already “out there” in the social realm, just waiting to be invited into an engagement with your brand…

Plenty of Room at the Inn for Hotel CRM Systems

Rewards programs are common among large hotel chains, but they just scratch the surface in terms of CRM's capabilities in nurturing customer loyalty. They could keep track of information on room preferences, for example. Or keep tabs on special needs such as non-allergenic pillows or other details that "tell the customer that they are valued," said Prism Partnership's Maureen O'Hanlon.

Pick a room -- any room. There are lots of choices of places to stay for travelers in the U.S. In fact, there are 4.4 million guestrooms across the country, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. And that's a problem. Competitors in the hospitality sector need some kind of an edge to gain new customers and, even more importantly, to keep their current customers coming back to the same hospitality brand whether the actual guestroom is in New York, Denver, or anywhere else.

That's where an active CRM system fits in. For the major hotel chains, utilizing CRM is a way of life.
"For the really big hotel chains, the use of CRM is very robust, but they tend to focus almost exclusively on using CRM tools for loyalty programs," Maureen O'Hanlon, senior partner at the Prism Partnership, told CRM Buyer. Hotel loyalty programs are designed to build repeat business with frequent-guest rewards, borrowing from the model of airline frequent flyer programs.
"I'd say 95 percent of the hotel programs are focused on frequent travelers," O'Hanlon said. "The hotels are trying to fill rooms that would otherwise go empty just like the airlines are trying to fill seats."

Hotels Lag in CRM

 Generally, the hotel industry programs feature such rewards as extended stays at a discount or for free, or offering discounted rooms at a later date based on points accumulated from frequent stays at a facility operated by a particular hotel chain. However, moving beyond the free room concept into broader and more innovative applications of CRM has been problematic in the industry.
"The large chains and casinos are more involved with CRM than the small brands and independents," Jason Price, executive vice president of Hospitality e-Business Strategies, told CRM Buyer, "but the entire industry lags behind the airlines and online travel agents."
Regarding CRM systems, "the online travel agents get it, and devote a lot more attention to this side of the business than the hotel industry at large," said Price. "The cost and need for hotels is greater than ever, and yet hotels are still the slowest and most reluctant to apply simple CRM exercises to their daily business practice."
As a case in point, Price cites the example of a small Midwestern group of hotels that generated more than US$1 million in extra revenue by simply upselling their hotel suites through their reservation confirmation messages. After a customer made a reservation, the hotel sent a confirmation letter with the offer to upgrade from a standard room to a suite for a modest additional fee.
"Any hotel can do this, and yet most do not," Price said.
More recently, larger hotels have been tweaking their rewards programs by offering incentives beyond discounted or free rooms.
"They are getting more sophisticated and using tie-ins to the hotel gift shop, or the hotel restaurants, or other types of merchandise offers," O'Hanlon said.

Tracking Customer Behavior

However important rewards programs might be, they are still only one aspect of CRM. Equally important is the need to learn more about customer behavior so as to design offers tailored to a type of customer or even to individual customers.
"The gaming resorts and casinos have done some innovative things in terms of enhancing the customer experience," Suzanne Clayton, director of gaming and hospitality at SAS Institute, told CRM Buyer.
When guests check in at Harrah's Casinos, for example, they are given a casino card that acts like a credit card and can be used to gain access to gaming rooms and machines, the resort spa, restaurants and other places within the casino, said Clayton.
"As a result, the casino gets a real-time history of where the customer is spending his time on the site, and they can offer rewards or discounts and other promotions based on those patterns," she explained. "Because it's real-time, they can even offer the incentives during the current stay or as an inducement to gain repeat business."
The larger hotel chains are beginning to make progress in providing a better customer experience by using CRM tools, O'Hanlon said.
"They are improving the use of all the data they have on customers in terms of guest histories, and demographic or psychographic information," she said.
The hotels, for example, can break out information on room preferences that are suitable to families with small children or teenagers; keep tabs on special needs such as non-allergenic pillows or other details that "tell the customer that they are valued," O'Hanlon pointed out.
Some chains are better at such targeting than others she noted, but all seem to see the need to enhance their CRM capabilities.
The large hotel chains, of course, do not account for the entire hospitality sector. In fact, there are more than 49,000 guest properties in the U.S. that have a minimum of 15 rooms, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Second Tier Offers Big CRM Potential

"Once you get below the big outfits, the whole sector has underutilized the tools available through CRM programs," Gregg Hopkins, president of Libra OnDemand, told CRM Buyer. A little more than a year ago, Hopkins established his company to provide CRM assistance not only to large hotel chains but also to mid-sized and smaller firms in the sector.
"A lot of hotels at the mid-size level or below think CRM means using email to contact customers, and that's it," Hopkins said. However, the technology and programs exist for hospitality providers at this level to implement more extensive CRM programs.
"It's possible for these hotels to gather the necessary data to improve their customer contact and develop programs," he added. "In fact, a rewards program might not be appropriate, because they don't have a lot of units in their chain -- but there are other things they can use to improve the ability to recognize customers and provide a good experience. But right now there's a lot of educating to be done for these hotels in terms of using CRM."
SalesForce.com is Hopkins' platform of choice for CRM. The hosted model lets hotels implement programs with a modest investment, he noted.
Systems can be deployed for $75,000 to $120,000 per year for a single property, Hopkins said. In a recent advisory, he advocated the enhanced use of hotel Web sites as the focal point for building a CRM system at an affordable cost.
"Today's technologies allow Web sites, regardless of the hotel company's size, to feature CRM capabilities by seamlessly integrating the Web site with the customer relationship management application," he said. "Customers accessing the Web site can take the initiative to manage their personal information, update their preferences, and track rewards in a safe, secure environment that they control."
It's clear that computerized reservation systems and rewards programs are almost universal in the hospitality sector, but hotels at all levels can do much more in capturing and managing guest information and designing customer-friendly programs through the efficient use of CRM tools.
"A lot of money is being thrown at CRM programs," O'Hanlon said -- but that doesn't mean CRM usage has reached its full potential.

"There is a lot of data being generated, but it depends on how it is used," she emphasized. "The tools exist. It's a matter of chief executives figuring out what their goals are."  

 

CRM: difference of B2B vs. B2C model

All CRM systems are not created equal, and that's good news for companies that sell more to consumers than to businesses. However, it's crucial to understand the differences between B2B and B2C CRM in light of each company's individual requirements. Three consistent themes appear and can be used as a baseline for selecting tools to help B2C marketers: speed, process and persistence.

CRM solutions have a long history of helping B2B marketers achieve greater ROI from their leads. Yet for companies that sell their products and services direct to consumers, CRM solutions frequently miss the mark. A quick Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) search for CRM helps prove this: The search returns plenty of B2B products, but sifting through the results to find solutions designed specifically for the B2C sale is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Why is this? To answer that question, it's first necessary to understand the unique differences between B2B and B2C sales. Of course, there are many formulas for sales and marketing success, but seven aspects that are common to both B2C and B2B sales effectively illustrate the differences between them:

1. Speed of Sales Process -- A B2C sale is typically fast, usually weeks or months; a B2B sale is much slower, usually months or years.
2. Number of Decision Makers -- There are usually one or two decision makers in a B2C sale; there may be a dozen or more involved in a B2B sale.
3. Simplicity of Buying Process -- A B2C sale is relatively simple; a B2B sale is usually more complex.
4. Quantity of Leads -- A B2C sale starts with more leads; a B2B sale will have fewer leads to manage.
5. Role of Emotion -- B2C sales frequently involve emotion on the consumers' side; a B2B sale is typically driven by a business decision rather than by emotion.
6. Value of Sale -- The total value of a B2C sale is relatively small -- hundreds or thousands of dollars; a B2B sale could be thousands or even millions of dollars.
7. Uniformity of Offer -- B2C sales are typically a uniform product offering; B2B tend to be a more customized product offering.

It is clear that there is a distinct difference between B2C and B2B sales. So doesn't it make sense that sales and marketing professionals should leverage tools that are designed to address the unique aspects of each sale? To make matters worse, there is much confusion about the definition of CRM that frequently leads B2C marketers to implement solutions that either don't work or are overkill.

 What 'CRM' Means

CRM is typically defined as a solution used to aid a company in the management of customers and sales prospects. That means that CRM can be a useful tool for a variety of business functions, from lead generation to customer service.
For companies that are specifically looking for ways to track and convert more leads, a CRM solution may be overkill. Moreover, CRM systems fundamentally are designed with a hierarchical structure that is not required for B2C companies. Consider this example:
Company A is a B2B business selling copiers to other businesses. Company A uses CRM to track its prospects and clients at a variety of stages of the client lifecycle. First, Company A is already selling copiers to a certain division of one client. It is also trying to win a contract from an entirely different division of the same company. Having a CRM system is quite useful here because the client is stored as a "company" record, and each person in the company is tied to that record as a "contact." A "company" can have many "contacts," creating a hierarchical structure.
Company B is a B2C insurance company that sells auto insurance policies to individuals or families. Company B uses the same CRM software as Company A, but is burdened by the significant overhead required to manage the hierarchical structure. Company B simply has a single record for each customer looking to get an insurance policy. Having the added capabilities of a CRM system is not useful and creates unnecessary steps in managing its leads.
Referencing the seven sales and marketing rules above as they relate to the B2C sale, three consistent themes appear and can be used as a baseline for selecting tools to help B2C marketers:

1. Speed -- At every stage, speed is essential when dealing with a B2C sale. Leads must be received in real-time and distributed to sales people quickly; initial contact must be made in minutes.
2. Process -- Having a consistent and repeatable process is critical to scale a B2C sales operation; that means everyone works leads the same way, so sales managers and marketing executives can track results.
3. Persistence -- Selling to consumers is very competitive. To be successful, B2C companies will need to have persistent long term follow-up strategies in place.

Speed Matters

The first key driver is speed. There has been much research about the importance of speed in the sales process and, in particular, speed-to-contact. A recent MIT study found that leads contacted in five minutes convert 22x more often than after 30 minutes. When evaluating tools to support B2C sales, look for solutions that offer

1. real-time lead source integrations;
2. automatic rules-based lead distribution;
3. lead management and pipeline reports;
4. email and screen pop notifications; and
5. key performance metrics tracking.

Process for Conversion

The second key driver is process. Although many marketers believe lead quality is the silver bullet for success, sales process also plays an important factor in converting leads. Long-term consistent follow-up can have a dramatic impact on overall conversion rates. B2C companies should look for solutions that offer the following capabilities to optimize the sales process:

1. easily configurable sales workflow;
2. custom lead form and call dispositions;
3. automatic lead nurturing;
4. milestones tracking; and
5. scheduled reports and email delivery.

Practice Persistence

The third key driver for B2C sales and marketing effectiveness is persistence. Multiple call attempts greatly increase the likelihood that leads will be contacted; the optimal number to maximize contact rates is as many as six calls. That means it is very important to be persistent. With persistence being a key driver for success, it's easy to see how important it is for B2C companies to have tools that support this behavior to maximize return on their marketing spend. The most successful B2C organizations leverage tools that incorporate these features:

1. lead scoring and ranking;
2. automatic call prioritization;
3. follow-up drip emails and reminders;
4. lead recycling and routing; and
5. follow-up reminders and emails.

There is clearly some overlap between what is useful for B2C and B2B marketers. For companies that borderline the characteristics of one or the other, traditional CRM may be a good fit. However, for B2C organizations that closely align with the attributes described here, there is more than enough evidence to support the need for specialized B2C tools.
The good news is they do exist. In particular, specialized B2C solutions are available in some verticals like mortgage, insurance and education. Furthermore, as more B2C companies begin to demand solutions that are specifically designed to support their unique business processes, better products will become available.
For now, start by doing research; understand what type of company you are and then look for tools that support your business processes. Ask the right questions to find tools that work for you.