INTERNET EXERCISES

Chapter 6: Ensuring Total Customer Satisfaction and Managing Customer

Exercise 1 - Customer Relationship Marketing
Exercise 2 - Variance in CRM Activities

Exercise 1 - Customer Relationship Marketing

Vignette: Hard Rock Café wanted to deepen their understanding of their customers and be able to serve them better.

Featured URL: www.hardrockcafe.com

What You Can Do When You Really Know Your Customers

Hard Rock Café has 100+ cafés in 36 countries and over 28 million guests each year. Hard Rock knew it had a loyal customer base but, until it began using CRM software called "E.piphany," it lacked the means to collect and analyze the data needed to fully understand the different types of customers it serves and their tastes and preferences. E.piphany has allowed Hard Rock to gain a single view of its customer, launch a loyalty program, personalize its marketing campaigns, and dramatically improve the efficiency of its customer service. Hard Rock is excited about using E.piphany to further extend its capabilities and strengthen its loyalty program. According to its Director of Loyalty and Customer Relationship Marketing, "The more we know about our customers, the more we're able to show them what Hard Rock has to offer."

Activity

1. Visit the featured website for Hard Rock Café. Tour the site, noting Hard Rock's various products, such as cafés, hotels, and casinos.

2. Analyze how Hard Rock uses this site to gather information about its customers and therefore to continuously expand its knowledge of them. Locate and list the ways that customers can either intentionally or unintentionally provide specific information about themselves to Hard Rock. Don't forget to consider whether and how their community-based activities serve this purpose.

3. Go into the "membership" portion of the site and make a list of all of the aspects of Hard Rock's loyalty program. Based on this, define Hard Rock's target market and the specific needs they appear to have. Are you a member of this target market? Does Hard Rock's loyalty program meet your needs?

4. Consider how Hard Rock might achieve its goal of strengthening its loyalty program. What other features or elements could it add to this program?
   

Resources

Other loyalty programs:

Chapters Book Stores: the iREWARDS program
Westin Hotels: the Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program

JTK Research and Consulting, Inc.: a Canadian CRM agency - this site includes a list of their clients and an LCV calculator
Maritz Loyalty Marketing: a U.S. CRM agency - this site includes "case histories" (examples of client situations and CRM projects)
Elliance: a U.S. CRM agency - this site includes "case studies" (examples of client projects)
Kingfish Media: a small U.S. CRM agency - this site includes examples of their recent work

CRM Daily: this site includes current CRM news, including full articles on key issues facing the CRM industry and recent CRM study results.

Exercise 2 - Variance in CRM Activities

What CRM Activities Can You Undertake With Limited Resources?
Global companies like Hard Rock Café have the financial resources needed to set up and maintain complex CRM programs. They can afford to hire full-time Directors of Loyalty and Customer Relationship Marketing whose responsibilities include continuously expanding their company's CRM programs, and managing the regular updating and upgrading of sophisticated websites. However, smaller business organizations generally cannot afford this level of investment. As a result, some of them may strive to do the best they can with their available resources, while others may feel that they cannot move at all toward a more relationship-oriented approach to dealing with their customers.

1. Visit the featured websites for Jamieson Laboratories, a Canadian company that specializes in vitamins, and Sea Silver USA, a small U.S. firm. Search specifically for elements in each website that fall under the five categories of CRM activities: (1) listening to customers, (2) customizing marketing communications, (3) performing "customer care" activities, (4) customizing products, and (5) rewarding loyal customers.
   

2. Based on your findings, assess how much progress each of these businesses has made toward taking a relationship-oriented approach with their customers. If there is a spectrum that runs from operating with a strictly transactional view of marketing to operating with a strictly relationship view of marketing, where would you place each of these firms on that spectrum?

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