Customer Relationship Management

Introduction

It is often questioned by many people that why the customer relationship management or in short CRM is said to be one of the most crucial elements or point of focus for any business whether small, medium or big. The answer comes in this ways that the customer relationship management is present in every business organisation to give an increase in the customer loyalty, to rise and improve the profitability and not to forget to successfully generate excellent words of mouth recommendation from the customers’ side to the business for their sales increase. Hence if all these facts and declarations are arranged and presented then the proper definition of customer relationship management becomes like this that customer relationship management (CRM) mainly helps every business organisations to gain a full insight view of all the detailed behaviour of their customers & audience and give a modification to their business operations for ensuring that each & every customer is served in the best possible way to satisfy them with the products & services (Soltani et al. 2018). Whether you are a small startup or a large corporation, understanding and implementing all the possible effective CRM strategies can enhance the performance of your business. If you are seeking in place to delve deeper into this subject for your business dissertation, expert guidance in business dissertation help can provide the most valuable insights and methodologies for exploring all the intricacies of CRM within different organizational contexts.

In order to give this CRM a real experience, here three companies were chosen all of which are big food brands named Burger King, McDonalds & KFC having a huge market hold of each of the business organisation. This assessment explains that how the CRM models or frameworks which make the CRM function more efficiently which includes frameworks like the IDIC Model, the Value Chain Model or the QCI model. A CRM model or framework is such a foundational strategy that a company utilises in their operations to develop the customer-centric culture focusing on the workflow guiding the overall team's interactions in between them or with the leaders, prospects or customer. Along with these, there will be presented a demonstrative explanation of the theory of e-Customer Relationship Management revolving around these three big companies related with models and frameworks regarding CRM which were applied in these organisations too is briefed.

Literature Review outlining the deep knowledge on Customer Relationship Management

Definition of CRM

Customer relationship management or the CRM is basically a fine combination of organisational practices, strategies and technologies which companies uses to manage and analyse their customer interactions and relevant data throughout the customer lifecycle. According to Santouridis and Veraki (2017) this system is software helping business owners in nurturing and reviving their relationships with their clientele group. A Customer Relationship Manager also is responsible for assisting with organisation, efficiency, time management, and impressing the clients with a good image in every step. The primary purpose of CRM is to personalise detailed business relationship, whether it’s a B2B or B2C in hopes of having a personalised and strategic touch which will result positive. The implementation of the customer relationship management system can improve a company’s customer service and increase the sales also. Valmohammadi (2017) stated that CRM can also be referred as a strategy to learn more about the customers' needs and behavioural changes with the passing time in order to develop much stronger relationships with them. As per Rahimi and Kozak (2017) CRM is such a technology that brings the managing of all the company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers to a well-furnished state. In this regard, there are some other forms of CRM is also evolving – e-CRM & the Social CRM. The e-CRM or the electronic CRM is the basic integration of all the web channels on the social platforms into an overall enterprise CRM strategy along with the target to drive the consistency within all the channels related to sales, marketing initiatives and customer service and support (CSS). Whereas the Social CRM is just the a software integrating the Customer Relationship Management with social media channels, allowing the teams to utilise the leverage social information for understanding and engaging customers, provide better customer service and gain market insights (Dewnarain et al. 2019). A Customer Relationship Management solution helps to focus on an organisation’s relationships with individual people also including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers throughout the company’s lifecycle with them, including allocating & finding new customers, winning their demands & interests and providing them support and additional services throughout the journey of relationship.

Importance of CRM in business organisations

There is a saying that has been frequently heard and said in the business world which is "customer is king" and this is true also. With the core meaning, the CRM tool creates a simple user interface for the collection of data which helps businesses to recognise and communicate with every customer in a measurable & scalable method (Mahafzah et al. 2020). In this regards there are quite some e-CRM frameworks and models which are nowadays the most prominent in utilisation for increasing the customer relationships such as IDIC model of CRM & the QCI model too. The IDIC model abbreviated from the Identify-Differentiate-Interact-Customise is developed originally by Peppers & Rogers in the year 1995to help in assessing the expectations and demands of the customers and to identify their value for the business. The components of this framework can be elaborated into four aspects which this model fulfils – identifies the customer expectations, differentiates those customer expectations, does customer interactions & also does customisations to meet customer (Aluri et al. 2019). Another one is the Quality Competitive Index Model or the QCI model which is also a customer management model representing different activities, organisations must perform to acquire and retain their customers. It is basically an e-CRM that describes the technology usage in the customer relationship management assisting process which is performed in organisations. Some of the CRMs also offer the ability to track deal stages and reasons for closed-lost and closed-won deals too. In today’s current market position for all the business organisations, CRM rose being a crucial part of the operations and some of the prominent reasons why it has become crucial are –

It creates a bond with the existing customers ensuring that companies won’t have to work on getting them again.

It places a bond with customers increasing the chances of making numerous purchases so that, that bulk of first-timers might not get limited before perishing.

It makes customers feel welcomed every time even after purchase & against that they too start feeling loyalty towards the brand.

Since till here a brand image is already created, customers have something to relate to or look up to when they make multiple purchases.

It maintains a strong bond by letting the customers know how valuable they are, the customers also become loyal friend.

With a prolonged good customer relationship management, customers feel obliged or happy to advocate the brand to others also and that’s how a business rises to success and permanence.

Some of the major ways in which CRM accomplishes this goal are listed as:

Organisation - CRM turns businesses more efficient by organising and automating certain aspects consisting from sales processes to marketing campaigns and business analytics as well as customer data for businesses. This allows the businesses to organise their processes into a simpler, easier to understandable data (Kiss et al. 2019).

Learning - CRM aware businesses to learn about their customers, including who they are and depending on what they purchase a specific brand’s products as well as being in trends with customers' purchasing histories which presents that an effective use of customer relationship management provides strategic advantages.

Optimisation - CRM software optimises their customer interactions by simplifying and streamlining many of the more complex customer interaction processes increasing customer satisfaction (Zerbino et al. 2018).

Although, the original definition of customer relationship management is much more complex, it has different meanings in different sectors according to various perspectives. In recent past years, the businesses have faced lots of ups and down in the market where one most prominent and important aspect came up as the “Word of Mouth Marketing” for recommendations which proved to be best in today’s market where the core CRM teaches brands how to create strategies for social media engagement & boost skyrocket referral sales (Taylor and Francis Online, 2019). The Word of mouth marketing in short WOMM, also known as word of mouth advertising, is simply the social media era’s version of recommendation by simple word of mouth from nearby people (Dewnarain et al. 2019).

Statistically researchers have found that around 92% of the population trust recommendations from friends and family more over any other type of advertising about any brand which has proven its effectiveness in conversion also. Beyond friends and family, approximately 88% of the target audience trust online reviews, feedbacks, comments that are written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts. Apart from this, as revealed by Haenlein and Libai (2017), 74% of consumers identify the word of mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions & despite such numbers of success, only 33% of today’s businesses actively seek out and collect reviews from such mediums to include in their strategic plans of marketing and CRM. Despite the fact that a little can do a lot & with such great results coming from the WOMM method of improvising the CRM action, some specific case studies showed analysed results & researchers also found that merely a 10% of increase is found in word-of-mouth marketing method of CRM including both off and online ways which are later translated into sales lifting it in between 0.2 – 1.5% as final results (NGUYEN et al. 2019). In relation to CRM, there’s much more left untouched & unused in the word of mouth advertising and marketing method than just doing a good job and hoping for good referrals which is engaged and indulged in can give great and impressive results from the customer relationship management perspective by increasing the customer loyalty & engagement, improving the business profitability and will also generate excellent words of mouth as strong built-up and trust-worthy recommendation about a brands products and items to customers (Guha et al. 2018).

Analytical Review of Customer Relationship Management

This research material includes three big food chain companies who are largely spread all across the globe with a huge fan base of their products and items having numerous customers from the market as well as they are competitors of each other also holding great share of the food industry market – Burger King, Mc Donald’s and KFC. Each of these three companies has a considerable and prominent customer relationship management in their organisations handling all of their happy customers and attracting more audiences with eth passing time.

CRM of Burger King

Burger King is basically an American multinational chain of especially hamburger fast food restaurants with their headquarter in Miami-Dade County, Florida & spread in many more paces on the world map. Burger King Corporation is the second largest fast-food chain in the United States, trailing only McDonald's. The Burger King Company or BKC was originally founded in the year 1953 with the name of Insta-Burger King which was a Jacksonville, Florida based chain of restaurants (Burger King Corporation, 2019). The primary motive of BKC is to provide good food to their customers in reasonable prices, attractively and with maintaining hygienic. But Burger King's relationship with its customers has not always been happy & harmonious. Many occasional negative disputes and claims have caused numerous issues, which several times has degenerated their reputation & dragged them into precedent-setting court cases. The first major addition to the menu was the Whopper which is a sandwich and has become Burger King's signature item (Burger King Corporation, 2018). Though not all introductions have got the success like the Whopper still BKC continued introducing many new products some of which have failed to catch hold in the marketplace & some got the catch. These things eventually sometimes hurt the company's financial underpinnings and cast negative relationship with customers. Some of the negative reviews, poor rating and bad feedbacks that showed the importance of customer relationship management necessary in BKC are like:

One customer gave 2 stars rating to BKC because they didn’t have what they wanted and they have to wait for too long also (Image 2 Appendices) (ConsumerAffairs, 2021).

Another customer gave merely a 1star rating because due to bad recommendation of the restaurant staff they ordered bad food which made them sick even after 24 hours of having the food (Image 3 Appendices) (ConsumerAffairs, 2021).

One more customer reviewed BKC 1 star rate because they found a 6” long hair in their food (Image 4 Appendices) (ConsumerAffairs, 2021).

The current reports presents that from the last three months, Burger King's customer retention score has remained steady at the rate of 60/100 ranking 4th place among the other top four competitors of the same market which includes names like KFC, McDonald's, Hardee's and Luby's (COMPARABLY, 2021). These latest reports are the proofs that Burger King bounced back from its declining customer retention rate & sales rate which had gone down to a decline of 2.8% from the year 2019 due to the sudden pandemic impact.

CRM of Mc Donalds

Second example of a big food chain spread across the world is Mc Donald’s, which is also a fast food offering chain of restaurants. McDonald's is also originated as an American fast food company, founded as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States (McDonalds, 2020). Much different from the way of Burger King, Mc Donald's customer relationships with their audience are much healthier, friendlier and continuously improving day by day with their efforts. Despite having such an amazing CRM, they also have complaints like unhealthy food compositions which made McDonald change their products on regular intervals & bring something new that have low fats or sugar and nutritious way healthier. According to the reports, Mc Donald’s always retained their customer year over year but after the pandemic period it got affected a lot. Most of the products of Mc Donalds are currently having labels indicating towards the nutritional levels along with that they began to use organic food materials also (PhD Essay, 2021). However, they also have dominated in promoting their food items especially to children that have led to obesity in children. Some negative reviews of MC Donalds are like:

One of their customers rated them with 1 star only because that customer experienced with very bad tasted food (Image 5 Appendices) (ConsumerAffairs, 2021).

A customer found difficulty due to the English language unawareness of the restaurant staff members and faced difficulty in ordering with issues related to the prices of the items too & rated 1 star (Image 6 Appendices) (ConsumerAffairs, 2021).

One more customer reviewed with lowest 1 star rate because of the unsatisfied service of the restaurant which took too long to deliver and they customer was also not happy with the food (Image 7 Appendices) (ConsumerAffairs, 2021).

All these type of negative points somehow impacted their CRM since a financial analyst revealed in an article of 2019 that before this pandemic situation when everything was normal, at that time, the major highlighted key problem fund is continuing decline in the guest counts in McDonald’s (Forbes, 2020).

CRM of KFC

KFC is also an American fast food restaurant chain, just like Burger King & Mc Donalds, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky which mainly specialises in fried chicken food items. It has been labelled as the world's second-largest restaurant chain after McDonald's, with 22,621 locations globally in more than 150 countries as of 2019 and this chain of KFC is majorly known to be the best subsidiary of Yummy food items. KFC’s primary items are chicken pieces, wraps, salads and sandwiches (KFC, 2019). KFC uses their strong customer relationships with their customers very cleverly & gives them stamps in variety depending and based on the food that the customers buy at any KFC outlets. Moreover, the points-based system at KFC which is offered by their official website app enables the company to directly have chance to communicate with all of their different customers as per their past behaviour and purchasing pattern. According to the latest reports of Business Today, KFC just to stay relevant with the new situational circumstances have changed many of their discounting strategies to increase their average order value with the help of lots of digital media campaign and more promotion of their brand website which is one of the types of e-CRM strategies for them (Business Today, 2021). KFC in order to satisfy their loyal customers & attract more new audiences from the potential population, continuously improves their position in their customers' minds and hearts slowly grabbing the market with KFC’s authentically produced which are the finest, freshest and purest food (Management Pedia, 2020). This strategy of them makes the customers talk positively about their food products and services to other people which work as recommendations to KFC as being a major part of their CRM. Some of the negative impactful reviews of KFC are like:

One of the customers has been found to be very unhappy with the food packaging, price of the items and the quality of the food too and hence rated 2 stars as feedback (Image 8 Appendices) (ConsumerAffairs, 2021).

One more customer review went negative due to the bad food quality serviced by KFC and due to a bad presentation of the item also (Image 9 Appendices) (ConsumerAffairs, 2021).

Recommendation

With the overall information that was gathered while doing this research about all these three top leading food restaurant chains Burger King, Mc Donalds and KFC, it was found that all of them have used their customer relationships very well still there remains some of the loopholes and gaps which in turn gave them negative reviews and poor brand image. This can be changed if the two e-CRM models which were mentioned above can be efficiently adapted by all the three brands Burger King, McDonald’s and KFC in their operations. This will ultimately boost their customer relationships giving increase in their profitability and sales. Along with this it will create a strong bond with their loyal existing customers attracting new audiences too with the use if tactful strategies of the customer relationship management functions among them.

Conclusion

The conclusion of this above paper can be summarised as CRM can also be referred as a strategy to learn more about the customers' needs and behavioural changes with the passing time in order to develop much stronger relationships with them. The CRM systems can facilitate the understanding of what the customers want and what they will want in the future also with the changing trends. CRM is necessary in every business to build a strong bond of relationship with their customers & in turn it creates loyalty and customer retention on the priority basis. Since customer loyalty and revenue both are those qualities that affect a company's revenue & CRM is that management strategy which results increased profits of a business. The Word of mouth marketing in short WOMM, also known as word of mouth advertising, is simply the social media era’s version of recommendation by simple word of mouth from nearby people. The BKC menu has evolved from the basic items of burgers, fries, sodas and milkshakes to a larger & more diverse set of food items that includes several variations of chicken, fish, salads and breakfast which is also a CRM strategy of them to attract more audience with increasing interest of the existing customers. Mc Donalds have always responded towards the customers’ interests and have strived also to bring the same to the customers’ table too. Despite having such an amazing CRM, they also have complaints like unhealthy food compositions which made McDonald change their products on regular intervals & bring something new that have low fats or sugar and nutritious way healthier. And KFC in order to satisfy their loyal customers & attract more new audiences from the potential population, continuously improves their position in their customers' minds and hearts slowly grabbing the market with KFC’s authentically produced which are the finest, freshest and purest food. Finally some of the recommendations were added for all these tree chains to be implemented for a far better CRM experience in their business.

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