Critically Evaluate the Extent to Which Customer Relationship Management Strategy and Processes Can Achieve Effective Customer Intimacy for the Mutual Benefit of Both the Organisation and the Customer, Making Reference
1) Introduction
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become a main focus for businesses with today’s markets becoming more saturated and competitive.
‘Customer Relationship Management is the ultimate challenge for marketing experts in any business. A successful company will use customer information wisely to build relationships with their customers, on the level that together they will work together towards a long-term relationship.’ (Xu et al. 2002)
High customer Intimacy can be produced from these processes and strategy. ‘Customer intimacy is an essential factor in the Customer Relationship Management value chain’ (Buttle, 2004). This marketing strategy consists of a business using ways to get close to clients with benefits for a business including improved highly tailored problem solving capabilities and greater adaptation of products to customer needs, as well as higher customer loyalty levels. This customer intimacy has a major impact on the success on a company and we can see this in modern organisations.
We see that customer satisfaction alone is not enough,’Oglivy Loyalty Centre found that, although 85% of customers reported being satisfied, only 40% repurchased’ (McKenzie,1995) and therefore customer must use CRM to help improve their customer intimacy. However, to what extent does the strategy and processes involved with CRM help achieve this customer intimacy and in what was are these processes seen as beneficial for both the customer and the company. The focus of this paper is to look at the ways in which organisation use various forms of CRM strategy and processes in order create better, and lasting relationships with their customers.
2) Membership Cards
One way in which many companies, especially retail, aim to increase their customer intimacy is through membership card schemes. These can come in many different forms from and offer a variety of advantages for the customer to use. The main feature of all of these
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become a main focus for businesses with today’s markets becoming more saturated and competitive.
‘Customer Relationship Management is the ultimate challenge for marketing experts in any business. A successful company will use customer information wisely to build relationships with their customers, on the level that together they will work together towards a long-term relationship.’ (Xu et al. 2002)
High customer Intimacy can be produced from these processes and strategy. ‘Customer intimacy is an essential factor in the Customer Relationship Management value chain’ (Buttle, 2004). This marketing strategy consists of a business using ways to get close to clients with benefits for a business including improved highly tailored problem solving capabilities and greater adaptation of products to customer needs, as well as higher customer loyalty levels. This customer intimacy has a major impact on the success on a company and we can see this in modern organisations.
We see that customer satisfaction alone is not enough,’Oglivy Loyalty Centre found that, although 85% of customers reported being satisfied, only 40% repurchased’ (McKenzie,1995) and therefore customer must use CRM to help improve their customer intimacy. However, to what extent does the strategy and processes involved with CRM help achieve this customer intimacy and in what was are these processes seen as beneficial for both the customer and the company. The focus of this paper is to look at the ways in which organisation use various forms of CRM strategy and processes in order create better, and lasting relationships with their customers.
2) Membership Cards
One way in which many companies, especially retail, aim to increase their customer intimacy is through membership card schemes. These can come in many different forms from and offer a variety of advantages for the customer to use. The main feature of all of these