Technical advancements and uses have made it possible for many new implementations to move on to the Internet and the web. Already the web, web 2.0 and mobile platforms are starting to shape the future of eCRM. As eCRM spring directly from the core concept of CRM the idea and philosophy is still the same and according to Sigala (2006), “there is a general consensus on the eCRM aims and focus in developing and retaining relations with profitable customers through value creations processes (Sigala 2006a).
“As guests become more critical and demanding and competition intensifies, eCRM has been proposed as a vital necessity for competing and surviving in the global sector. However, there is a paucity of studies investigating eCRM ‘s ability to enhance service quality levels and the critical eCRM factors for achieving this” (Sigala, 2006)
In fact, it is the natural evolved development string brought on by the technical evolution and society. This is also supported by Sigala (2010) when arguing that “When these activities and techniques are delivered via internet-based media then e-CRM is applied (Lee-Kelley, David & Robin 2003). Forester (2001) also recognized eCRM as the process of transferring CRM on Internet and as a way for synchronizing customer relations across channels, functions, and audiences. Sigala (2006b) also demonstrated the integration of the classical CRM with the eCRM practices is required to enhance customer service quality standards and perception.” (Sigala, 2010)
However, there is far more potential and use for eCRM than just digitalization and internet adaption of information. This is also the argued and supported by Sigala (2010) describing weaknesses in earlier studies, “web 2.0 further enables firms and users to generate customer value and build customer relations through social networking, co-learning, co-production and collaboration” (Sigala, 2010)
“eCRM is mainly about aligning business processes with strategies aiming to create customer value and that are supported with ICT (Rigby, Reichheld, & Schaffer, 2002) Indeed, previous studies have used the ways for creating value as a criterion for identifying (e.g. 43 items by Fjermestad & Romano, 2003) or classifying (Sigala, 2006a) the numerous websites providing eCRM functionality as follows: (Sigala, 2010)
• Website interactivity
• Shopping convenience
• Care and service
• Relationship cultivation
• Website character,
• Community building
• Collaboration and personalization
As evolution never will stop both people, as well as organizations must keep up with the increasing pace. Rethinking the concept of relationship marketing and marketing in general is a large part of that just look at the job of the marketer 50-60 years ago. People were excited to get a call from someone, came earlier to the movies to watch the commercials, and the whole family was gathered in the living-room to sing the jingles when the TV ads came on. In these days not much looks like that, au contraire, call blockers, ad blockers, TV ad skipping through digital screening are gadgets and functions in every home. The marketer’s work has become to a large extent how to surpass this technology through innovative, exciting, and engaging ways.
This is where social media creates such a great advantage and surpasses many of the techniques used for blocking commercial communication, with the customers’ own permission (permission-based marketing). This is also a turning point where customers seek you out and take on the responsibility of keeping updated instead of the other way. They have given you as marketer permission (permission-based marketing) they have also shown great trust in you to deliver interesting and valid information.
It has been suggested that people do not actually need marketing anymore and by experience this is indeed true. People need information though and they are participating in conversations, giving recommendations, as well as feedback so the companies better start to listen to them. Not just when the company wants but always and when the customer has time and chooses to engage on the bus, in the car or on the flight. With web 2.0 and mobile solutions you can get access to the customer without getting stuck in their filters because you are invited into their life.
This gains further support from Volpe arguing that “marketing has changed and the outbound way where companies send out messages does not really work anymore. It has been changed to an inbound marketing style: (Volpe, 2011)
This is what is going to make a huge difference especially when looking at the emerging markets and during startup periods to build up brand awareness even before the product is in play. This is further supported by the Alcatel-lucent report stating that, “establishing social media in the emerging markets (i.e. in the golden BRIC countries) and customer service touch point, ensuring that the companies capitalize fully on that touch point to deliver a satisfying customer experience.“ (Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, 2011)
The modern customer does not sit still many times people have to be on the move, not just for business but also for leisure, as they always want to stay connected. Mobility has changed a lot over the years in the way we do business, in infrastructure and our lives in general. In an Alcatel report from 2011 it is argued that “Among a company’s customer touch points – which include phone, e-mail, chat, SMS/MMS, web based self-service, and in store experiences – social media is unique in that customers end up interacting directly with marketing staff.”
Customer touchpoints are important and so is the fact that firms and organization adapt to be able to handle this. It is going to be crucial for the success and the Alcatel-Lucent report suggest that, “lack of integrations between marketing and customer service is preventing these companies from being able to effectively extend their customer service efforts to social media touch points, and this is having real world impact on the business” (Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, 2011)
Today referral marketing, trust and previous experiences from contacts within your social networks are among the most important. According to the Alcatel-Lucent report, ”74% of the consumers say they choose what companies to do business with based on the service experience their friends share on social media sites.” The report later continues stating the fact that “Social media represents an increasingly important customer touch point that should be an integrated part of your customer service mix” (Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, 2011)
With the notion that the customer is mobile and has access to all these technical aids to block out unwanted marketing messages and at the same time stay in contact with the information they do want. Therefore, permission marketing is so important and the fact that we are invited into their home and close vicinity. Well in their circle of friends and even through mobile technology brought along at all times. Nevertheless, this is all based in adding value to their life and if you can present interesting enough content loyal followers will gladly help you spread your messages.
Nevertheless, with all these different platforms and time spent on them it is suggested that you start with the major once as they have a huge audience. The Alcatel-Lucent report, “With recent findings from the Nielsen Co. indicating that the customers nearly spend 23% of their time online visiting social media sites, it’s clear that sites like Facebook, and Twitter have become the predominant online platforms for sharing and communicating” (Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, 2011)
There are many ways to divide social media. However, if you look at the main uses within marketing Mike Volpe suggest dividing it according to the functions of Publish, Share and Networking. (Volpe, 2011)
The function of publishing is the content and material the company uses to send out to the audience. It is straight forward and the part that are the most similar to the classical one-way web page where people can read but not interact with the company. In this case Mike Volpe during his seminar gave three main tips regarding content publication; publish everything you can, everywhere you can, monitor what others publish, and promote it, and finally, empower your customers to publish (Volpe, 2011)
Social share is the most important component of social media when it comes to viral marketing, referral marketing and eWOM. This has a lot to do with the potential reach and impact that can be generated over short time periods.
• Investing in infrastructure and upgrading of Technology
• Facilitating connectivity,
• social Share,
• geo-location marketing
To be able to Mike Volpe is talking about other content this is a source that is a truly underestimated source for example: (Volpe, 2011)
• Monitor what’s being shared about you
• Find out where your audience hangs out
• Promote your content and other content
• Produce content your audience will love
This is one of the high impacts, low-cost strategic decision for e.g., paying/ or not for common area wireless internet… the questions of free Wi-Fi a competitive advantage, today it is a basic requirement in most hotels 5 star or not, for business, as well as leisure guests The problem is so far that it has been seen solely as a cost. However, this dissertation argues that it should be seen as a potential advertising opportunity (viral marketing, social share, and geo-location-based services), adding prospects, potential connection to the hotel services and online merchandising web.
A value that in most 5-star hotels should exceed the investment made in internet technology or loss in internet charges. What is the value of the potential social media buzz created, the effects in viral marketing, and eWOW. In these concepts the hospitality industry has a lot to learn from the retail industry where many of the trends are concept malls where free Wi-Fi together with multiple phot opportunities in art, sculptures or through the shopping itself generate thousands of photos per day, being shared all over the world. This is a one of the marketing ideas created in symbiosis with the marketing department where part of the ad purchases has been crowd-sourced to the visitors and their mobile devices.
Networking in social media is important especially for sales and marketing departments to get out with their message. However, it is just as important to network with corporate accounts to expand your reach and markets. No matter how insignificant or basic these recommendations can sound you many people I have meet in the hospitality industry missed out on opportunities because of this.
Nevertheless, to get a good start Mike (Volpe, 2011) highlights that making friends to expand your reach is the main objective, especially when launching a social media endeavor. Mike suggests starting in any way you can to speed up the process: through existing connections, through groups, add to email signatures, blogs articles, bio or profile, etc. (Volpe, 2011) As your aim is to make friends the rules of engagement and to cultivate you relationships are not very different from real life so keeping a good tone, follow netiquette and be helpful is key. (Volpe, 2011)
One of the first rules of engagement you have to learn in the world of social media networking is the fact that “Everyone can connect, with everyone, from everywhere” (Volpe, 2011)
The common denominator between the three parts in social media is content, a constantly increasing flow of content. Now there are foremost two types of content: company generated, and user generated and the balance is shifting towards an increasing production of UGC by the minute.
Before content used to be about what content the company decided to communicate to the world over their web and online channels. This have like everything else been affected by the power shift from company to consumer.
User Generated Content (UGC) refers to any material created and uploaded to the Internet by non-media professionals, whether it’s a comment, a YouTube video or a fan page on Facebook.
The power of content is no longer controlled by marketers it has over the last years changed into the hands of the consumer. At the same time, it has also become a great motivator and way of getting the audience to participate, interact and engage in what your company processes.
You could say that User Generated Content (UGC) and social networks together with the increase in quality, affordable technology, and the popularity of the same along with UGC sites have forever changed the way we communicate over the web. Social networking together with user generated content holds more potential for growth than any other form of content on the Web today.
Take for example, blogs and wikis where anyone can participate and make themselves heard or be red and followed by others. The model of today’s model is collaborative, collective, customized and socially shared. The consumer has now been promoted to creator, consumer and distributor of a large part or the content. Thanks to technology advances, investments in infrastructure, increasing availability of high-speed Internet and entry of powerful search engines’ anyone can create and publish content.
Regarding blogs the amount is just growing by the minute and “Lin & Huang (2006) provided evidence of the blogs’ abilities to build community of interest by assembling and social networking the internet users, whose attention, interest, desire and action (AIDA) towards the discussed tourism experiences are being enhanced because of their online interactions. Ying and Davis (2007) and Lento, Weiser, Gi, And Smith (2006) illustrate how blogs create and maintain strong online communities through their social ties tools such as blogrolls, permalinks, comments and trackbacks.” (Sigala, 2010)
“Indeed, many authors (i.e., Lin et al. 2006, Ying & Davis, 2007) have started to apply social network analysis for measuring and illustrating the social bonds, networking and communication structures created within the blogosphere” (Sigala, 2010)
“Lin and Stromberg (2007) summarize the blogs’ benefits for firms as follows: search engine optimization, e-word of mouth (eWOW); improved brand perception and visibility; instantaneous client feedback; market research and insight, increased sales efficiency, and reduced negative impact from user-generated content.” (Sigala, 2010)
“Communication through a blog for example through the Word press platform known for its spectacular search engine optimization (SEO) and easy content management. “later in the report when looking into the results it states that, “The result of the social media campaign were incredible website traffic statistics, high rankings on search engines, increased sales , and press coverage ” (Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, 2011)
The principle behind wikis is simple: All the world’s expertise, knowledge, and creativity can be harnessed through Internet collaboration. The most instructive and well-known example of a wiki is Wikipedia.
Never forget that no boundaries of time and space exist online, and that other people can listen in easily, which can be both positive and negative depending on how you decide to use that fact. Nevertheless, this fact can be utilized to the benefit of the company and PR machinery or if neglected, work against the company. Just do not underestimate the reach and power of it.
Social Media Influence, the new metric that handles the online ambassadors that can have thousands of fans and a greater reach than a medium sized company today. This is a quite new area both in literature, as a concept and in how the algorithm and measurements work, along with the experience and impact of them. So, to be able to learn about these influencers, your devoted fans, loyal customers, and online brand advocate you need to be there, to listen and to learn.
The literature further argues that it has huge potential to be one of the more important metrics in the future marketing and PR departments. The power of a social media influencer with a vast network can create, boost and have tremendous effect in creating online brand awareness. This can be especially powerful in connection with concepts like viral marketing, crowdsourcing and for creating positive eWOM. This dissertation argues that these social media Influencers will play a much more important role in the new sales and marketing organizations.
The concept of social media influence and the use of a way to measure it is supported by authors like Sigala (2010), “Such theories and techniques can be used for identifying online customers with great influence on the public opinion and/or the blogosphere (i.e. customers demonstrating a high density online network) while social network metrics (such as inbound and outbound links of an online consumer) can also be tested for identifying and measuring the techno-profile of the online customer.
“Thus, eCRM 2.0 should also take into consideration such users’ technographics profiles when segmenting and evaluating customers based on their value for the firm. Consequently, respondents advocated that the widely and traditionally applied practice to segment and reward loyal customers based solely on their economic value (that is measured based on the Frequency, Recency, and value of the customers previous transactions) cannot be simplistically replicated and applied in the web 2.0 environment for building successful eCRM practices. This is because customers that spread good eWOW within social networks , but do not frequently buy , would need to be equally targeted and rewarded as frequent customers , since the former may be able to acquire with their online activity new and profitable customers for the firm.” (Sigala, 2010)
“Word of mouth marketing is supremely effective, of course, and many companies justify their investments in loyalty programs by seeking profits from not so much the loyal customers as from the new customers the loyal ones bring in” (Werner Reinartz, 2002) and as customer satisfaction is according to Stowe Shoemaker a necessary pre-requisite to be a loyalty customer which will also make them, in most cases very good ambassadors for your brand.
“Although, it’s perhaps not surprising that people who talk more positively about the company are also more likely to sell others on the company, our findings are important for loyalty managers because most measures loyalty purely based on purchasing. To identify the true apostles, companies need to judge customers by more than just their actions.” (Werner Reinartz, 2002)
“Damianos, Cuomo, Griffith, Hirst, and Smallwood (2007) advocated that social bookmarking tools generate social media influence and community building bonds as well as create customer value by: enabling resource management, information sharing and discovery, expert finding, and social networking; providing teams with around interest areas; and feeding expertise finding & user profiling.” (Sigala, 2010)
Heather Tylor refers to the idea of social media influence as the fact that, “we are in a time of convergence. Traditionally, influence was in the hands of media. Now anyone with access to a cell phone can be engaged and influence a community. As our online identities now focus on real name, personal brand isn’t merely a celebrity worry anymore.” (Taylor, 2012)
“Three major sources of social customer value, that needs to be measured and so can also get managed, were discussed: the intangible business value of the online community (i.e. eWOW); the value of a community for the firms’ customers’ (i.e. communities can assist and enforce firms efforts in developing customer bonding and retention strategies); the intangible business value of customers adopting different web 2.0 behaviors (i.e. online customers that can be characterized as content creators, critics writers, content distributors and/or as solely content readers). Based on his/her online behavior, each type of web 2.0 customer-user generates different social customer value to the firm (which in turn can be translated into economic value).” (Sigala, 2010)
