CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AT MARRIOTT INDIA Submitted by:
PGP 2012-14 (Group 5) Dheeraj Dhee raj Kumar Ku mar (121118 (1211180) 0) Gautam Punj (12111 (1211186 86)) Parambrahma Panda (12112 (1211282 82)) Vishrut Vi shrut Shukla Shuk la (121131 (1211314) 4) Ravi Purohi P urohitt (121104 (1211049 9
Executive Summary
Marriott has long been preferred by its customers due to its exceptional services as well as strong brand reputation. Marriott employs various CRM practices like Marriott Rewards, corporate account management, guest satisfaction surveys and software solutions to deliver fulfilling and unique experience to its guests. Marriott’s hotel loyalty program serves as the foundation for company’s customer relationship strategy. It has more than 28 million members worldwide. This huge database of customers helps the hotel in targeting marketing messages and using this critical data to predict future business potential. Marriott has implemented ‘strategic account management’ strategy through which it deploys proactive sales efforts towards key top accounts to manage their complex needs, travel plans and to deliver non-traditional business solutions. Marriott takes customer feedback on ongoing basi s through the sophisti cated GSS, which is tailored for each brand. Marriott provides innovative products and high quality services to enhance the guest satisfaction. These products and services are continuously monitored and improved through their best practices and quality assurance systems. ‘Information resources’ which is Marriott’s technical division provides technology solutions to create memorable experience for i ts customers by actively soli citing inputs from its guests. The objective of this project i s to understand objectives, structure & process of Marriott’s customer relationship strategy, identify the CRM practices foll owed by Marriott in various stages of the sales cycle i.e. pre-purchase stage, purchase stage, usage stage and post-purchase stage and understand the customer perspective on usefulness of Marriott’s CRM efforts. We have divi ded our study into four basic categories i.e. acquiring customers, servicingthem, retaining them and finall y evaluation of the customer relationship initiatives at Marriott. Acquiring corporate customers differ from other le isure customers which is explained i n this section. Servicing guests includes activities like reservation, check-in, stay at the hotel and check-out. Under each of these activities, we have included one section referred to as the ‘enablers’ which includes the agents/hotel staff/systems which helps i n fulfilli ng that service. For example, during a guest’s stay at one of the Marriott property, there are various departments like housekeeping, room controller, food and beverages, recovery, front desk which are involve d in making the stay of the customer comfortable and delightful. Retaining guests at Marriott includes incentivising them through their loyaltyprograms, providing special and unique services and provi ding consistent services across their hotel properties. In the final section of the report, we have provided a brief summary about how Marriott evaluates their various customer service initiatives. Finally, based on secondary research and predictive analytics, we have tried to identify the customer feedback on Marriott properties. Marriott CRM initiatives have been fairly successful in driving their growth. Their customers have shared that Marriott by way of identifying them and recognizi ng their statuses have made them feel valued. Marriott’s platinum members constitute 15-20% of their total guests and contribute nearly 50-60% of their revenues consistently through many years, which speaks vol umes about successful differentiation between their customers through robust CRM practices. In the e nd, we also identify a few areas of improvement in their CRM operations which we have recommended to increase cohesiveness and engagement with Marriott’s trusted customer base.
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Introduction: Marriott International ope ned its first hotel ‘Goa Marriott’ in India in 1999. Today, it is represented by various brands like JW Marriott, Marriott, Courtyard by Marriott, Renaissance and Marriott ex ecutive brands in India. Marriott has a long standing tradition of “doing whatever it takes to take care of its customers”. i It is evident from the following words of the founder of Marriott Corporation, J Will ard Marriott: "When you take good care of your people, they'll take pride i n their work. And when they take pride i n their work, they'll take good care of the customers and if you take good care of the customers, the customers will come back and back and back. And the business will take care of itself. Primary Research: In order to understand the CRM initiatives at Marriott, we carried out primary research by visiting the following two properties of Marriott Hotels in Bangalore. i)
ii)
J.W. Marriott: Located in central Bengaluru next to U.B. City, this five star luxurious hotel features contemporary guest rooms and is laced with the latest technology to provide a unique experience to its guests. About 50% of i ts customer are business professionalsand the other set are leisure travellers. On our visit to this property, we interacted with Mr Suraj Singh who is an ‘Account Sales Executive’ at J.W. Marriott. He let us observe the CRM process, answered our queries and provided us an ex tensive tour of the property. Marriott: Located in Whitefield Bengaluru, this high end property provides premium accommodation primarily targeting the business travellers. Mr. Shivam who is a ‘Sales Manager’ at Marriott Whitefield, provided us with the tour of the property and also interacted with us regarding the CRM initiatives at Marriott.
Based on our secondary research and inputs from our field visits, we have mapped the complete CRM business cycle and process at Marriott in the form of the following framework:
Marriott’s Guest Cycle :
Post-stay marketing
Generating leads
Feedback Billing and settlement
Acquiring customers Departure
Pre-arrival
Check out
Guest needs (food, room services)
Occupancy
Recovery/ Emergency Maintaining guest accounts
Reservation of guests at Marriott
Door man and porters
Arrival
Room allocation Key issuance Welcome by hotel staff Page 3
