NTCC SEMINAR REPORT SUBMITTED

TOWARDS PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF UNDER

GRADUATION DEGREE IN BACHELORS OF
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

TOPIC:- “CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

IN HOTEL INDUSTRY”

AMITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

AMITY UNIVERSITY
NOIDA,UTTAR PRADESH

SUBMITTED TO:
Mr. RAJESH YADAV

SUBMITTED BY:
SHUBHAM GUPTA
A3906414269
B.B.A (GENERAL) 2014-2017
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible
without the kind support and help of many individuals and organizations. I would
like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them.

I am highly indebted to AMITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS for their guidance and

constant supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding the
project & also for their support in completing the project.

I would like to express my gratitude towards Mr. Rajesh Yadav who guided and
supported me to achieve the aim of project.She was my project guide and guided me
during the preparation, till final completion of project.She always had time to answer
all my questions concerning my project and provided a helpful feedback. I sincerely
thank her for all her efforts to make this report successful.
 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that Shubham Gupta (Enrolment No.A3906414269), a

student of Bachelors of Business Administration,Class of 2014-2017,Amity
School of Business,Amity University,Uttar Pradesh,has undertaken project
titled “CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT IN HOTEL INDUSTRY
” under my guidance.
To the best of my knowledge, this piece of work is original and no part of this
report has been submitted by the student to any other Institute/University
earlier.

Mr. RAJESH YADAV

PROFESSOR
AMITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The project is a brief report on Customer Relationship management in Hotel Industry. A brief
research is done on the CRM in hotel industry for which data has been collected through online
sources. The project streamlines the basis information about CRM, service industry,Hotel and
crm. It helps to explain why customer expectations are needed to be satisfied and what are the
touch points which can result in delightment of customer.
The project will help us solve following questions:
 How CRM help’s in retention of customers in a hotel industry?
 What are the new marketing strategies and approaches in a hotel industry?
 Affective administration of CRM?
However the basis objective of the study is to :

 To study “CRM in the Hotel Industry”.

 To gain insights about the programs and practices of CRM used by the leading hotels in
India.
 To study how to build a better relationship with the customer/guest in the hospitality unit.

The project will also explain what strategies the key players are using to maintain a strong
relationship with its customers and how this is helping them to retain customers.
 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1-Data collection

The data is mainly collected from online sources which includes documents,e-books, blogs,
research paper and various websites. Research is completely based on data collected through
online sources.

Research Questions:

 How CRM help’s in retention of customers in a hotel industry?

 What are the new marketing strategies and approaches in a hotel industry?
 Affective administration of CRM?

Scope of the Study:

 The study will provide an insight of the hotel industry and different actions being taken by
them to improve their relationship or terms with customers and guests.
 Study reveals a picture of present scenario reflecting the practices and programs being
followed by the leading companies in the sector and the actions taken by them to enhance
customer retention,satisfaction and loyalty.

Objectives of the Study:

 To study “CRM in the Hotel Industry”.

 To gain insights about the programs and practices of CRM used by the leading hotels in
India.
 To study how to build a better relationship with the customer/guest in the hospitality unit.
 Findings, suggestions and recommendations regarding the future growth prospects of CRM
in hotel industry.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

 Lack of time to understand the full working of organization.

 The information obtained is not complete, as confidential organizational matters and
information are not fully disclosed to outsiders.
 The study is not in-depth study and hence have a limited scope.
 Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Introduction:

Customers are the king of market and their satisfaction level is termed as a key business philosophy
which leads to creation of value by managing their expectations and satisfying their needs.
Customer satisfaction plays a crucial role in a service industry where the success majorly depends
on quality of service offered.
Winning customers and retaining them is the key for success for a company. Nowadays companies
are facing a tough competition to win their customers, make them a loyal, ask them to repurchase
and finally retain them. To manage all these companies are being proactive and are finding new
ways and means to satisfy customers more than their desired expectation. Companies are working
hard for positive customer relationships and preventing the loss in customer turnover. They are not
just attracting a bunch of customers but a working to build a long term of relationship with their
customers,partners,suppliers,employees,distributors and the public.
CRM regulates and streamlines the interaction of businesses with their customers. It uses
information technology as a medium to streamline the process of interaction and helps to regulate
and monitor it. For businesses, CRM is proving an important factor to mage customer relationships
and retaining their potential customers.CRM strategy is helping businesses to build a long term
relationships and increase their service quality by right management of customers.

CRM is now being implemented in wide range of organisation such as financial services,
manufacturing, consumer package goods, transportation, medical services, products and others.
The fast growth of CRM shows the return and success for the user. CRM is certainly showing its
effectiveness and efficiency in managing relationships by doing task faster and in less cost and
thus leading to higher returns.

Each customer is unique and has its own understanding so companies are personalising services
& products, treatment and to make customers feel special. Basically a normal customer has 5
needs:
Generally speaking, the five needs of customers are:-
 Service
 Price
 Quality
 Action
 Appreciation.
Customers might have more needs and the CRM helps to draw them out. Satisfying the known and
unknown needs of a customer will lead to delight and earn their loyalty. This will also lead to
upselling and cross-selling of products and services thus creating more return out of same
customer.

CRM also helps to manage the ego-mending of customers and if it is amended efficiently it soothes
the negative emotions of the customer due to the not standing with the expectations regarding the
product or the service.
What is CRM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) enable organizations to serve customers better by

managing their needs and making the interaction process more efficient. A successful CRM
strategy is not just implementing a set of CRM based hardware’s and software’s to support CRM
process. An efficient and effective CRM approach includes training of human resource, a modified
business process based on flexible needs of customers, a set of relevant IT software’s and
hardware’s which strengthen the core CRM process.

Majorly CRM focuses on personal information gathering,service automated processes &

processing and self-service. CRM tends to integrate and automate the various customer serving
processes related to a company.

Application architectural of CRM can be explained as follows:

 Operational :Business process automation ( automation in processes of marketing, sales,

operation etc)
 Analytical: Researching customer buying pattern, behaviour and analysing the results to
draw out understanding of a customer needs, satisfaction criteria etc.
 Cooperation: Communication and feedback with customers (phone, email, fax, web...)

Importance of Customers

A rumour about CRM is that CRM is some kind of a phenomenon of technology only but its
doesn’t stand anywhere. A large number of organisations who have installed highly technological
sets for their CRM initiatives but have forgotten to maintain a highly close relationships with their
customers. This situation arises when the management fails to consider the importance of their
customers and their satisfaction level and hence results in low profits and sales.
A thumb rule of marketing claims that “An unhappy customer tells 10 more potential customers
about his negative and unhappy experience”.

In past period, companies focused mainly on higher productivity through more efficient employees
and machines, attracting customers through low prices and class advertisement techniques such as
news paper ads,mass e-mailing etc. The sudden expansion of services has proved that these now
are not converting into profits, as expected. Because of the emergence of cheaper,faster and more
efficient techniques of transport ,communication and information technology has made the
business enterprises to adapt with the innovation. This has changed the business environment and
the importance of making customers loyal so that they don’t switch. Companies now have a clear
understanding about the importance of serving the customer expectations and needs with a higher
quality.
CRM and Technology:

Functions of CRM are collecting customer data & information,analysing it and making
relationships with customers based on the collected information. The main function of CRM is to
make direct contact with customers and draw out one to one relationship.

With new CRM techniques the businesses are trying to provide a consistent,tailored customer
experience across all the touch points of the customers.

APPLICATION OF OPERATIONAL CRM:-

 Customer Service and Support (CSS):

These applications automate the support and service functions of an organization, helps in
analysis and also provide workflow engines that facilitate effective and efficient solution
for issues and inquiry, tracking, monitoring and resolution.

 Sales Force Automation (SEA):

These are tools automate the process of sales and sale related task, basically automation is
done on process of collection and distribution of all types of sales or sales related
information. SEA manages design of sales teams based on particularly defined need and
importance. Activity management,Calendar management,sales reporting,forecasting,lead
distribution and tracking of sales contacts with all the customers.

Analytical CRM - How It Functions?

Analytical CRM analyse and interpret large amount of functional data collected from the customer
activities occurred at the front-office. The data is regularly stored in a data warehouse, so that it
can be accessed by different sources in the organisation to facilitate business analysis. Majorly
data analysis are of following types:

1) Online Analytical Processing (OLAP): OLAP is one of the most popular and used type
of decision-support analysis. If functions by allowing the average user to explore data with
the sole objective of extracting detailed data at a lower rate and low level of data hierarchy.
It includes generating an online report, analysing the results and preparing a detailed
understanding which can be accessed by the company for its benefits.
2) Data mining: Data mining tools helps to identify data patterns and deliver valuable
information which increases a company's understanding of itself and its potential
customers. It is used to help data analysts search for information, often involving no
hypothesis.

3) Click stream analysis: Analyzing the click streams of an internet user, one can understand
how the user interacted at the site, how long he stayed,what he did during his visit and
when he returned. The process is pretty similar to a camera which records the activity of a
customer in a store.
 HOTEL INDUSTRY
A service sector industry. The hospitality industry is subdivided into various sectors
includes event planning, lodging, theme parks, transportation, cruise line, transportation and others
fields of tourism industry It is a multibillion-dollar Sector that depends on the availability of
leisure time. It is a unit such as a hotel,restaurant,Club or an amusement park and is itself a
cooperation multiple groups like facility maintenance and direct operations.

The Hospitality industry avails an opportunity of a huge potential for Social CRM.The industry
works on two basic factors- Segmentation & Uniqueness. Other than common promises of
customer satisfaction, but the personality of the hotel plays a crucial role in the decision of
customer.

Every hotel spends heavily to enhance customer experience through various marketing strategies.
Mostly they offer loyalty programs and other exclusive benefits to attract the customer. But, they
result on heavy damage on their budget. By including Social CRM in their operational framework
will result in a significant cut-down in costs and it will also minimize the outreach efforts because
of social media’s targeted reach.Social media is steadily being used by companies from the
Hospitality industry.

The InterContinental Group of Hotels was one of the first companies who successfully adopted
social media to target market and boost sales. Hospitality industry depends heavily on Word-of-
Mouth, Social CRM is a technologically upgraded version of Word-of-Mouth.

Negative feedbacks from customers can act as a dynamite and affect sales, and the brand value of
itself..Customer relationship is valuable and should be managed efficiently and effectively as each
customer offers an opportunity for repurchasing and recommendations.

Why CRM??????
Customer relationship management (CRM) helps companies to know the insight behaviour of their
customers so that they can modify their business strategies and operations to ensure that customers
are delighted with the service experience. CRM helps companies to understand customer’s value
and work on improved customer relations. The better one can understand his customers, the more
he can work on satisfying customer needs and expectations.
CRM in an organisation can be achieved by:
• Finding purchasing opinions ,habits and preferences of their customers.
• Monitoring and training individuals and groups to market your brand more effectively and thus
result in sales increase
• Helps to make changes in way of your operations to improve customer service.
Benefits of using CRM in Hospitality Industry

 Increased customer satisfaction level and retention.

 Increased customers share of category spend
 Increased in referral from customers.
These results only come through strategies based on strengthening customer relationships by
constantly satisfying customer and generate more value out of it.

Business benefits of CRM

Customer relationship management (CRM) implementation is a solution which involves less time and
expense to manage customer relationships. CRM leads to development of better relations with existing
customers and results beneficially in the following ways:

 Increase sales using better timings by anticipating needs of customers based on their
historic trends, buying behavior and patterns.
 Identifying needs by understanding customers specific requirements and expectations.
 Cross-selling of products by suggesting and highlighting enhancements.
 Identifying your potential customers by knowing your profitable and non-profitable
customers for better marketing of product or service by :
1) Effective targeted marketing strategies aimed at customer needs
2) A personal approach for development of new or improved product or service in order
to grow more business in the future
3) Enhancing customer satisfaction level and retention of customers, ensuring a good
reputation in the marketplace.
4) Increase in value from your existing customers and reduced sales costs by supporting
and servicing them to increase overall efficiency.
5) Improved profits by targeting most profitable customers and dealing with the
unprofitable in more cost effective manner.

Once company starts to see and attend his existing customers effectively, efforts can be made to find new
customers and expand the market. The one know more about his customers, the easier he can identify
new prospects and boost sales.
 Hotel Industry in India

The hotel industry in India is the basic activity of international tourism. It contributes majorly to
overall economic sector and plays a crucial role in most countries by providing facilities for the
transaction of business for conferences & meeting,recreation & entertainment. Hotels are as
essential to economies as communication,adequate transport and retail distribution systems for
goods and services.

World Trade Organization (WTO), state that since 1960s, the world has more than 32 million hotel
beds and the total hotel capacity is unevenly distributed among different nations.

This sector shares a strong relationship with tourism sector. The development in tourism sector
will lead to improvement in the hotel industry and vice versa.The Indian Tourism industry
performance in overall global tourism industry is quite good. It is receiving a high growth in the
volume of international tourists as the revenue generation from the services. The World Travel
And Tourism Council (WTTC) has named India as one of the fastest growing tourism industry in
the world for the next 10-15 years.

The Ministry of Tourism, India has made various efforts to expand the tourism sector, its
infrastructure at various destinations. These efforts are resulting in form of traditions, legacy,
religion and eco-tourism projects that are offering tourists a holistic experience.

India holds the 10th position in Asia and 60th position in the list of the world's most attractive
tourist destinations, as per the statement in Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2014 by
the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The increasing numbers of domestic and international tourists are a motivational and
encouraging point for the Indian hospitality sector. The hospitality industry experienced a
healthy growth rate of 24.6 per cent during 2014-2015 as compared to 2013-2014.
 A CRM Based Software For Hotel Industry
Guest Ware a Customer Relationship Management System (CRMS) software designed
specifically for the hotel industry which provides personalized guest recognitions and excellent
service quality. Leading hotels and management companies are using Guest Ware to improve guest
satisfaction,lower 0perating costs,build guest loyalty and increase revenues out of it.

CRM approach to marketing solutions:

Sales and marketing professionals need to maximize their return on investment (ROI) in
marketing. Experts reports explains how targeted marketing to existing customers is the technique
to increase marketing ROI. Cost of finding a new customer is 5 and 10 times the cost of retaining
an existing customer.

Improvement Analysis –

Implementing process improvement. Surveys show that guests are less likely to return if they
experience a problem during their stay. The software’s improvement analysis tool provide with
the information to control recurring problems and keep customers to repurchase, thus result in
lower operating costs and higher satisfaction level of customers.

Comment Card Tracking :

Listening and recording the interaction with the Customer. The Guest-Ware Comment Card
Tracking tool assists the businesses to manage customer interaction and get a proper feedback. It
improves productivity in customer’s follow-up process and provide valuable information and
reports to maximize the benefits.

Communications Server :

The Software Communication Server integrates two-way messaging with a rapid Response. It
allows executives to receive & finish requests. It helps in streamlining service delivery by using
existing e-mail systems for two-way messaging.

Maintaining Database:
It maintains the database of clients and same can be used for future research.
Why database is necessary for the industry?

 Creating attractive promotions and using direct mail to promote these campaigns is a major
use of database marketing. The direct e-mailing is used as a principal tool to reach
customers.
 Database mining is used as a process to distil the target customers groups out of the massive
data.
  Knowing your customer and using the same information to bond with them. Creating a one
to one personal relations can be done easily by extracting information from database and
helps to retain your old customers and increase their satisfaction level.

CRM Strategies Top players Of Indian Hotel Industry

The study is descriptive in nature and seeks to identify the present day scenario of the strategies
adopted by the leading hotels brands in India for their enhancing customer satisfaction,retention,
and loyalty.

THE OBEROI GROUP OF HOTELS

CRM has become essential in the hotel industry. The Oberoi enjoys a superior position with its
core product offering and supporting services. It has an excellent brand value and a bunch of high
paying loyal customers due to its exceptional services.

The Oberoi has earned an outstanding brand value which strongly helps in selling the hotel solely
on its brand name. It has a very loyal relationships with its guests, and has ensured a higher market
share in the high-paying segment of the market

About nine years back, Oberoi was not having any form of competition, so sales & marketing team
did not have to put more efforts to acquire and attract potential customers but today the scenario
has changed because of globalization and economical development. International hotel chains have
emerged into the market and are giving tough competition. Due to high competition Oberoi market
share has gone below due to price wars and low cost strategies of five star hotels.

CRM PROCESS AT THE OBEROI GROUP OF HOTELS:

Oberoi don’t have a separate department for CRM as relationship marketing is being used inter-
changeably.The fumctions of CRM process are integrated in the Sales and Marketing.

They are using a wide variety of after sales techniques for customer bonding, loyalty and drawing
a one to one relationship with them. The Oberoi is using the following programs to seek the loyalty
of its customers.

The Oberoi Plus

An end-user program with an enrolment fee of Rs.675 only. A reward seeking beneficial program
for guests who are availing the services of Oberoi. Every time a customer spends he earns loyalty
points and same can be redeemed for other services. With the help of program the hotel ensures
that they build a greater bonding with customers for long-term customer retention.
Travel agents Program

Agents are an important medium in making an actual sale therefore they need to be
motivated to push the sale of hotel when the reservations are made through a
corporate account. Each time when an agent gives a reservation to the hotel he gets
credit points for that and a tied commission.

Parties and Food Festivals

The Oberoi conducts various parties and food festivals on regularly basis and sends
the invitations to its profitable and potential customers.This result in their regular
visits and increase return from the same customer.

Tie-Ups

The Oberoi sends invitation to his top clients like CEO, Managing Directors,
Managers and other known personalities of different fields for social evenings and
get together specially arranged to further enhance the Customer relationship
management functions.

THE TAJ GROUP OF HOTELS

Taj group of hotels has the largest chain of hotels in India- with number of hotels on international
platform too. The parent Hotel of Taj group is The Taj Mahal Hotel,Bombay which is rated among
top ten hotels in the world.

Rewards programs offered by Taj Group:

1. Taj Inner Circle Program

A frequent guest program which allows customers to earn points whenever they spend for the
services rendered by Taj and these points can be redeemed in the future for free stays with Taj
Group.

2. Taj Epicure Plan

An add-on dining plan to the Taj inner circle plan through which members earn epicure points for
their expenditures incurred on food and beverages.
3. Differentiated Taj Inner Circle Program

Customers are differentiated in three levels of memberships has three membership, which includes:
Blue,Silver and Gold. Customers on starting join at the Blue level and start earning on their stay
and gradually with time and spending’s they grow to other membership level.

Implementation Of CRM
VisiGlobe a solution provider offers variety of CRM solutions for hotel industry. Customer
satisfaction proves the most important approach of VisiGlobe based on CRM. VisiGlobe performs
by lining the touch point of i.e customers’ requests are monitored regularly, efficiency improved
services are provided seamlessly, tracking staff performance and customer satisfaction surveys.
VisiGlobe continuously proved its importance in the hotel industry by helps hotels in improving
customer satisfaction at least by 20% and is also resulting in 7% increase in revenue.

Strategic Elements of CRM:

Research explains that five crucial elements are required to be successfully in implementation of
CRM in any service organization.

In some cases additional elements can become equally important, but these are universal strategic
components:

 Data capture and maintenance

 Customer Recognition
 Channel Integration and Consistency
 Ranking and Discrimination
 Two-way Personalized Communication

Guest Recognition:

Recognize your customers by their name, face, recalling a preferred accommodation type and
giving a welcome back greeting. These seems normal in hearing but plays a great role in satisfying
customer. These are typical recognition points for a customer who repurchase your product or
service.

When recognizing a customer who is repurchasing the service the challenges expand gradually
and on other hand opportunities too. Companies to gain a competitive advantage train reception
staff to acknowledge the customer. The trick is to provide relevant information to front line of
employees.
Data Capture and Maintenance:
Keeping the data of customers who avail your service, record their buying behavior, decision
making points and what thing attracts them. Storing all information will help you to maintain a
database with clear understanding of your client. This information can be accessed in future to
recognize the customer when he visits you again.

Channel Integration and Consistency:

Many of the customers prefers to use web based systems to carry the reservation process and like to conduct
transaction online. So it is essential for hotel provider to maintain data base through PMS and have a
booking engine installed. The transaction of guests are noted and the same can be used in future to recognize
his actions.

Ranking and Discrimination

Some customers are more in worth than others and need to be invested more because they are more
valuable customers. Companies should categories their customers and make a differentiated policy
because every customer have its different value to business.

Two-way Personalized Dialogs

The Interaction should be on grounds with two way personalized dialogs this helps to build a better
one to one personal relationship with the client.

Conclusion
Implementing an efficient and effective CRM solution is not complex in nature. Proper planning
and execution,effective communication,stakeholder involvement and errors avoidance ensures that
implementation gets on the ground easily and quick.

From the study we can easily conclude that the three leading hotels in India – ITC, Oberoi and Taj
are using a well-planned and established CRM process to maintain their relationships with
customer. They understand that a happy and satisfied customer can be retained and made loyal by
improvising on the service and by mediating better relationships with them.

Key Learnings

 Relationships can be built when the service provider and the customer, work in an
atmosphere of mutuality and trust.
 Relationships, like real life are challenges to handle with customers.
 Top management must be dedicated towards relationship, as they are followed throughout
the organization.
 Cross functional teams meet the goals, where quick responses are required to handle the
situations.
 Recommendations:

In this scenario of globalization where ‘Customer is the King’, and expectations of customers are
going up which is making the situation more competitive. As the product is generic in nature, the
hotel industry can no longer go on with traditional marketing strategies to handle customers.

Customer Relationship Management is one of the key tools to tackle this cut throat competition
and to be a superior brand. On the basis of the study, I would like to recommend some suggestions
which could be implemented profitably by the industry.
 Surveys: Conducting monthly guest/customer surveys, room comment cards, toll free guest
support centers to help customer feedback and to improve in the areas where there is a lag
as suggested.
 Maintaining suggestion boxes at every point of interaction for customers.
 Taking feedback from external customers and internal customers(the employees)
 Proper check on the hotel staff’s and processes of management.
 Keeping regular check of the sales data for further growth.
 Deploying effective CRM software to improve guest satisfaction, lower operating costs,
build guest loyalty, and increase revenues.
 Having Guest History programs- keeping a databank of customer profiles along with
details as room likings, services preferred, special requests, meal preferences, wallet
services, sending birthday cards to the loyal guests and even their spouses and giving them
a trouble-free check-in procedure-like pickup and drop facilities.

 Using an efficient and effective system of complaints handling as complaints are the
opportunities to improve, to impress the customers and to turn them into loyal customers.
 Giving awards (recognition) to attract old customers.
 Giving the customers a more personalized services which builds good bond with the
customers and gives long way satisfaction and return customers.