Customer Loyalty Program Management †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Customer Loyalty Program Management. Answer: Introduction A group of ten hotel chains decided to merge their business and create a new chain of hotels Stay Together that will provide accommodations at lower prices. The increasing competition and market pressure have led the companies to take this decision. The report presented here will critically evaluate the decision of the company, and the main focus of the report will be on the four major decisions taken by the management to attract customers and increase the business for the chain of hotels. These decisions are taken mainly to create a brand image, attracting customers, creating loyalty, and affecting the customer choice of hotels(Bagger Tranberg, 2015). The decision taken are correct or not will be discussed in the report along with some recommendations and suggestions that will help in improving the decisions taken by the company. A conclusion will help in understanding what the report want to reflect and provide some more suggestion on other streams that management can explore to ma ke its business better(Capaldi, 2016). The market is turning global, and many big competitors are eating the small businesses by providing better facilities at lower prices. For a single company, it was becoming difficult to handle the increasing pressure of providing lower priced accommodations in the hotel. Therefore, thegroup of ten hotel chains has decided to merge their businesses and create a new chain of hotels known as Stay Together. This Stay Together chain of the hotels that includes thousands of hotels falling in the categories of backpacker, bed breakfast homes to luxurious suites spread across the world. The hotel rooms could be hired from popular websites, but that will reduce the profits and may affect the corporate image of the company negatively(Ergin, Par?lt?, Ozsacmac?, 2011). The company has decided to use a single website that will provide higher prices for hotel rooms in the peak seasons. Other than this the management has decided four programs that will according to them help in increasing the com petitive value of the company and gain customers. The decisions of the management are discussed below: - Customer Loyalty Scheme- the management has decided to launch a customer loyalty scheme called Stay Together Loyalty scheme. Under this scheme, the loyal customers will be getting customer rewards like airport transfers, free nights, and car parking on the sites. Loyalty programs are highly acceptable and one of the most used technique to attract customers by the corporate companies(Jarrah, 2015). A loyalty scheme affects the decision-making process of a customer. It is true that travelers select their stay according to the price and place, but loyalty programs bring back the customer to the same hotel again and again. This works well especially for those who are frequent traveler or commute between cities for work. It could include more features like referring the hotel to a friend will provide points and easy accommodations. The loyal customers should be regularly informed about the offers and discounts hotels are offering to increase the customers(Jayakanth, Adalarasu, 2016). Free Buffets Breakfast and Dinners- Every customer looks for the scheme by hotels that are value for money and certainly getting a free breakfast and dinner is a great deciding factor that will attract customers. For a hotel providing meals in buffet system is less costly than serving individual table as different people have different choice. Now the hidden factor can be that the hotels can include the costing of the meals in the price of the room and reflect it as free for the guest. The free word and that to food attracts the customers, and that will increase the booking for the hotels(Kapera, 2015). Though customers are smart enough as they understand that nothing comes for free and the amount of food will be added in the room prices, but many people prefer to eat at hotel as they do not want to go out and find good restaurants at late hours. Also, the prices for them eating individual dinners will be higher than what customers will pay at hotels. The only issue is the choice of food people have and a correct number of people that will be using the benefits of free meal. This calculation is very important for the hotel(le Roux, Pretorius, 2016). Rebates- if a customer uses a particular airline than he will get some rebates that can be used for a free meals or nights. The offer is good and attractive as there are many people who will try to use a particular airline to get a rebate. The company can get in a contract with airlines and promote their hotels through that company. This type of promotion is more beneficial in the areas that are connected with airports, or the hotels that include luxurious suits that are hired by high-income people who regularly travel through flights(Lipponen, Wisse, Jetten, 2016). This scheme will attract only a limited section of the customers. Also, this scheme is more beneficial for the airlines company rather than the hotels as the airlines company is gaining the customers and the hotels are giving the rebates, though the promotion technique will be attracting customers, it will be paying all expenses there is no surety of that. Corporate Social Responsibility- Every person want to corporate in performing his or social responsibilities. Many of them wants to do something, but they dont get the means to do it. This scheme of donating a percentage of the total bill of the customer to a charity is a great thought. Thiswill increase the CSR of the group of hotels, and people will appreciate the efforts company is taking to help other. Though, it is a great thought and people will appreciate it, but will it attract more customers is doubtful. People when coming back from there stay to remember the fun they had and what facilities they enjoy, but such donation process is forgotten by them. Thus, using it as a scheme for attracting customers is quite low as compared to other three management decision(Mansour Ghazi, 2016). After analysis the four decisions that the group took to increase the competitive value of the company in the hospitality industry it is clear that out of four only three decisions will help the company to gain the competitive value the company aims for. Stay Together group of hotels aim to gain the market share against its competitors using these four decisions, and they will help in gaining the competitive advantage. The scheme of stay together loyalty program is the best option to attract the customers and also retain them with the company. The other decision of giving free breakfast and dinner is also a good option to attract customers as they prefer taking an accommodation that provides meals and if it is free, then the stay for them becomes the value for money(Massey, Barreras, 2013). The third decision of providing rebates on using selected airlines is not a very effective process as it will provide more benefits to the airlines rather than the group of hotels and also it can target a very limited segment of customers. The fourth decision is very good in term of personal sanity and responsibility of the companys social responsibility and will be appreciated by the customers, but will it attract customers in taking the stay in the hotels has no surety. Hence, it is important to again go through the decisions taken, and better programs should be introducing to attract customers(Mathe, Scott-Halsell, Roseman, 2016) Information System and Information Technological Issues the Company will Face It is assumed that the company has developed its website for making the bookings for the hotels and the company staff will be operating it to make the reservations. There are many issues that the company will face due the new procedure that the company will follow to book the hotel rooms in the thousands of the hotels in the company(McCall, McMahon, 2016). Some issues are discussed below: - Data conversion- with ten different groups and thousands of the hotels will have so much of data and combining all data and making it useful is a huge task. Every group of hotel would have been following its method of storing the customers data, some would be manual and some would be technical.A customer loyalty program can only have followed when all data will compile together, and the customers of all ten group of the hotels are sorted to make a single data base especially designed for Stay Together group of the hotels(Mndzebele, 2016). Technology Compatibility- the customer, is a word that includes everyone alive and has a means to use a product or services. The customers are of all kinds; they are educated, uneducated, technology friendly, or even technology haters. Thus, it is very difficult to target the customers that are not technology friendly and cannot use the application of the website to book a room for oneself. Even the staff of the hotels also have to technology friendly to exercise the changes that group has introduced in the system(Soares, Rebelo, 2012). Employment Issues- The change in company policies and the usage of new technology will increase some post in the group of hotels and will reduce some post. A lot of work will be handled by the machines that were before handled by the human being. This will make people lose their jobs. Along with it, everyone could not use machines and technology easily a trained person is required to do so, therefore need of technicians will create a new post in the group of hotels. This will raise the employment issue in the company(Woodard, Chiu, Power, Vedenov, Klose, 2017). Legal Issues- many technologies need to be patented before using if any group is using any such technology than changing the ownership will raise patent issues. Also, a new technology introduction in the company will require patents that will ask for more legal issues. Scalability issues- the increased size of the company requires the growth of advance and hi-tech system to maintain the working of the company. The change in management can raise the issue of scalability in different levels of the organization(Yu Yeh, 2013). User Interface Issues-the application used by the group of hotels has to be in accordance with users. If it is not the case, then it will create issues related to user interface. Such issue affects the customers choice as these issues affects the customers experience towards the company and also affects the customers loyalty towards the company. The management should work on making the experience of booking the hotels and later the stay user friendly and memorable to increase the customer attraction and loyalty for the company(Bagger Tranberg, 2015). Recommendations for the Company The company should opt for a CRM software that will help the company to store the data of the customers at one place and can be used by anyone who has the authority of using it. The company should use its present staff for the new post that company will create due to the merger of groups. The employees should be informed about the change that will take place in the company due to the merger. The application developed to book the hotels should be user-friendly in both ways. The customers can use it easily to book their stay and operators at the company can book the place according to the customers information(Capaldi, 2016). Conclusion In the hospitality sector the customers comfort is the top priority whether it is in the form of the services the hotels are providing during the stay or experience customers have during the booking procedure. Stay Together is a merger of ten different group of hotel to accommodate the pressure of the lower priced the hotel stay. To fight the increasing competition, the company has to work on the companys methods of attracting customers, as it will help in increasing the flow of customers and their loyalty. Thus, it is concluded that a company has to make sure that the policies company is using for developing its business should help in increasing the customers satisfaction. References Bagger Tranberg, C. (2015). Storing Information on Users Devices. European Data Protection Law Review, 1(2), 130-136. Capaldi, N. (2016). New (Other?) Directions in Corporate Social Responsibility. International Journal Of Corporate Social Responsibility, 1(1). Ergin, E., Par?lt?, N., Ozsacmac?, B. (2011). Impact of Loyalty Cards On Customers Store Loyalty. International Business Economics Research Journal (IBER), 6(2). Jarrah, M. (2015). Evaluation of Electronic Customer Knowledge Mediating by Electronic Customer Attraction on Electronic Customer Acquisition. International Journal Of Customer Relationship Marketing And Management, 6(3), 33-47. Jayakanth, S., Adalarasu, D. (2016). Dimension of Customer Satisfaction in the Hotel Business. 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