5/ E-marketing: providing a reliable and useful
customer database
5.1 The Marketing research perspective
The Internet is much more than the automation of online
business transaction, it is a way of getting a vast amount of information which
were not available in the past. As Marketing is an information processing
activity, the Internet is a great source of marketing intelligence constantly
up to date. The company's own site makes possible to get information about the
customers need and their value.
Consequently, the Internet is a highly valuable tool in the
building of a customer information database. The use of cookies, web forms or
email feedback is possible. In addition to that simple tools, some software
such as Aurum Software's Web Trak are available. With the information gathered,
the work force can easily identify prospects, get a better understanding of
customer needs and even customised resources in order to increase the customers
service level. An online database of transaction histories can be considered as
the primary marketing resource of tourism companies. This online database can
help to determine what kind of travel products can be delivered, what market
segments are the best served, and the lifetime value of each customer to the
firm.
5.2 The Customer databases management practises
Developing a better understanding of the customers means that
tourism organisations must bring together data from different sources. To that
purpose KPMG developed a model for the evolution of customer databases:
-The fist stage of the model implies the storage of data in
electronic format by each department of the organisation or by different type
of application without the possibility for cross-checking and information
sharing.
- The second stage consists in the linking of the different
databases in order to automatically passes the information to the others
whenever the customer's record is updated in one system.
- The third stage which is the most advanced one implies the
development of a data warehouse system. The data warehouse system must be able
to analyse customer data and assess its value.
It seems that the vast majority of the tourism companies are
maintaining different databases and thus remain at the first stage of the
evolution model. These customers databases are mostly used for e-mails sending
and notifying customers of future promotions. This lack of consolidated
customer databases is due to the development and completion of e-CRM projects
which are still underway. In addition, the consolidation of customer databases
is a time consuming process which implies significant financial resources due
to the high degree of fragmentation of existing data sources.
From a practical point of view, the consolidation of customers
databases represents a huge task. It needs to bring together the booking
system, the customer knowledge database and the database of the website. It can
represent a huge amount of data. However the e-CRM success key is to obtain a
coherent view of customers' attitudes and buying habits.
If we examine the practice of the firms, it seems that
sometimes the information collected from customers are not enough detailed and
do not allow them to target specific customer groups or to provide one-to-one
marketing campaigns. However, customers' choice tracking which is a technical
function available at most web sites can bring in informative data about the
browsing, the concentration of breaks down and thus help to adjust the
offers.
Some companies set up web facilities in order to enable
customers to create, update and modify their own personal profile. The
customers can get information about their travel records. They can also choose
the information received, the frequency and the preferred medium (e.g: e-mail,
SMS, WAP, printed newsletter).
Other companies implement customer loyalty programmes. The
customers are enabled to apply for a subscription card or a "ticket book"
online. Then, the customers data are stored in the company's customer database
and used in order to offer information about discount, company news...
In addition, we must take into consideration the
characteristics and attitude of the customer base. As a matter of fact,
customers seem to be less interested in the other services offered online such
as newsletter, promotions or additional information.
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