Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport CRM
The current competitive market requires that organizations share the right information about their services, customers, and staff—otherwise, the organization risks losing an opportunity of selling services or products. The only solution that an organization can adopt to communicate with customers or prospects effectively is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Any application of CRM by any organization is driven by the desire to understand customers’ behavior and needs and provide better quality services as a primary goal. According to Buttle & Maklan (2019), the new opportunities for building a strong relationship between the customers and the organization are captured, and existing customers as retained. The perfect CRM to use at Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport is the operational CRM.
Operational CRM is selected because of its ability to streamline business processes that entail service automation, marketing automation, and sales automation. It is also suitable because of its ability to generate leads, convert the generated leads into contacts, and capture all the required details, which helps the organization provide services throughout the customer’s life cycle. For instance, sales automation aspect of operational CRM helps the organization to automate the sales process. It will set the standards to deal with the existing customers and acquire new customers as well. The marketing automation aspect of operational CRM will help in finding out the best way of offering products as well as approaching potential clients (Rahimi & Kozak, 2017). The service automation aspect of operational CRM will help the organization provide the best services to retain customers. It will also help in building a strong relationship between the customers and the organization.
Operational CRM was preferred over analytical CRM And collaborative CRM because of several reasons. The latter two CRMs are too expensive to integrate into the business process since the cost involved in implementing them is quite high. Another reason is that they require an adaptive culture. For instance, resistance or lack of commitment to cultural change from the staff or customers may lead to significant difficulties, especially when it comes to implementation (Alexander Kracklauer & Seifert, 2019). They are also affected significantly in the event of poor communication and lack of leadership, thus jeopardizing the entire objective of streamlining business processes. However, they can also contribute significantly to the organization.
Improving customer loyalty of the Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will require that the airline adopts various measures. Digital innovations are one of the approaches. The airline will make real-time promotions as much as possible. For instance, it will make it possible for customers to pass, for example, at a coffee shop at the airport. Providing an offer like 200 points for buying something in the shop will build a good relationship and create loyalty. The fulfillment of this offer will be taking place through a quick scan of code through the mobile app of Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport. Also, even when the shop at their airport is given $1 by the airline for a cup of coffee bought by the customer, it would be pleased for additional clients as well as opportunities for cross-selling.
Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will also look internally. It has a lot of opportunities that it can take advantage of as far as providing redemption for its customers is concerned, at a low cost or even at no cost across the business. This approach will please the customers to boot. For instance, Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will start offering a menu of redemption choices onboard like a glass of champagne for 300 points. It will also begin to offer to its customers an instant redemption at the airport, for example, the priority of speed-boarding for 500 points, which will be confirmed immediately through the mobile app of the Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport. The redemptions will also be allowed to access the lounge.
The Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will also seek to adopt a win-win situation by offering the last-minute upgrades through miles. For instance, at the check-in, Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will provide immediate cabin upgrades for miles at a discount to the required numbers for upgrades. It is important to note that redemptions do not threaten the position or seat of the paying passengers. This service will be available at the kiosks and on the mobile app. Check-in staff will be tasked with prompting customers to upgrade their flights to business class at a discount, for example, for only 15,000 miles instead of the regular 25,000 miles.
With Geolocation Information and sales information, Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport may try to understand the wants, behaviors, and needs customers. Using the available information in the database, Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport could understand the trip persona, location information, purchasing data, and travel behavior. This information will be used to determine the difference between a family vacation and a business trip (Goicochea, 2017). As a consequence, Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will have an opportunity to understand its customers and design the best approach to ensure they are satisfied with the quality services and products at the airport.
Netsuite is easy to integrate with the selected CRM system. Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport can integrate Netsuite in the CRM system, including many large chains of services like Wendy’s and McDonald’s as well as subways and airlines like the Southwest, American Airlines, and the Delta among others. Studies have demonstrated that many organizations are using NetSuite solutions in customer relations management to deliver results regarding their marketing goals (Baran & Galka, 2016). The CRM tools will provide significant help to the marketing and sales teams at Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport. It will help staff at all levels to understand not only customer profiles but also craft better interactions. It will also help the organization to win more businesses s demonstrated before in this section.
NetSuite’s CRM is easy to integrate at Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport because it provides more than the traditional product suite of CRM. For instance, it covers traditional marketing, sales, and customer service functions and also handles order management, partner management, and incentive compensation. Therefore, to will not be a big challenge to Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport to bridge other systems like other airlines and fast-food chains to make sure that the customers experience the best services and products while not only at the airport but also on board. NetSuite views the customer relationship from a “360° perspective” (Reich et al., 2019). Therefore, the fact that it provides diverse data for customers is easy to implement and easy to scale as well. It also promotes transparency and allows the organization to provide services and products according to the needs and wants of its customers.
Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport can also integrate Salesforce CRM solutions into its business model of operations. It is considered because it is suitable for established companies with a reputation like Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport and provides organizations with a lot of value. It operates a full cloud platform that promotes flexibility regarding customer data (Manchar & Chouhan, 2017). Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will benefit from Salesforce since full cloud functionality makes it easy to not only scale but also utilize customer data. This way, Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will serve its customers depending on their needs and wants. In other words, the needed services and products that are not available at the airport will be sourced through collaboration with other fast-food chains or airlines. It is important to note that scalability in business is one of the things that make customers happy.
The adoption of mobile devices has driven geolocation data – an explosion of contextual user information – to become a valuable resource for marketers across all industries, including the aviation industry (Nachani et al., 2016). However, studies have shown that staff lack of technical skill set is a challenge in using this data effectively whenever they access it. Changing regulations has also presented another challenge of what kind of information the organization should obtain and how to leverage it properly.
Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will take advantage of the location data to engage in different applications of marketing, for instance, proximity marketing among customers in the airport and onboard and also in the mobile app of Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport. This approach will be used to push notifications to airport users to influence their future behavior as well. For instance, the customers with apps at the airport will receive deals, discounts, redemptions, and promotional messages on their phones about services and products as they browse. Atlanta-Hartsfield International Airport will also use geofencing or creation of zones around the airport for advertisement targeting. For instance, it will send out different promotional offers for targeted different locations on mobile devices.
References
Alexander Kracklauer, D., & Seifert, D. (2019). Collaborative Customer Relationship Management.
Baran, R. J., & Galka, R. J. (2016). Customer Relationship Management: the foundation of contemporary marketing strategy. Taylor & Francis.
Buttle, F., & Maklan, S. (2019). Customer relationship management: concepts and technologies. Routledge.
Goicochea, E. (2017, July 28). Location-based technology for airlines: Transforming the passenger experience. Retrieved June 28, 2018, from -beacons-geolocation/#.WzVnDS-ZNp
Manchar, A., & Chouhan, A. (2017, February). Salesforce CRM: A new way of managing customer relationship in cloud environment. In 2017 Second International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Communication Technologies (ICECCT) (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
Nachnani, P., Milbrath, D., Levine, S., & Levine, E. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,495,403. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Rahimi, R., & Kozak, M. (2017). Impact of customer relationship management on customer satisfaction: The case of a budget hotel chain. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 34(1), 40-51.
