“In today’s globalized, fragmented economy, winners will increasingly be separated from losers by their ability to collect, analyze and derive actionable insight from consumer data”
Rick Ferguson, VP Knowledge Development, Aimia (2012)
What is happening now is a shift in generations, technology (in itself nothing new) but together with the flattening of the world, the globalization, the economic downfall of 2008, as well as the generations shift in customers and culture impact from the golden BRIC among this shift will affect and make the hospitality industry have to take control of the change faster, as well as find new liaisons in the IT industry.
The main aim of this dissertation is to guide and assist 5-star hotels in constructing a solid and long term strategy towards their loyal customers. It is also to develop a plan that can guide and assist the same in the implementation phase of launching a holistic eCRM strategy that will benefit both the company and the customer in a win-win situation, as well as strengthen all their online customer relationships.
To make this into a more realistic approach (not only theoretical) the second aim also includes highlighting the potential benefits, as well as the challenges and implications that can occur in the increasing competition and rapidly escalating and ongoing globalization.
The study and research for this dissertation was mainly conducted over a 12-month time period from a 5-star chain in Asia. However, the name of the 5-star hotel chain cannot be revealed due to privacy issues although the findings of this study are applicable to all 5-star hotels.
The findings indicate that the core concept of customer loyalty has not changed much but the world around it has. We have now gone back to basics and put a lot more focus on the actual relationship and the trust created between the customer and the company. It is not so much about the individual pieces and programs anymore but how you can utilize the benefits of all to work in synergy and fit together across organizational functions, departments and multiply over customer touch points through web 2.0 and social media facilitating customer interaction, engagement and participation.
By using a framework like the Loyalty Triangle this gives the possibility to rank, evaluate and measure- , as well as to plan future customer loyalty strategies. Strategies later to be refined even further to ensure profitability and actively develop the customer towards deeper loyalty and make them the best they can be benefitting both customer and company.
