International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management Customer relationship management for hotels in Hong Kong Ada S. Lo, Lawrence D. Stalcup, Amy Lee, Article information: To cite this document: Ada S. Lo, Lawrence D. Stalcup, Amy Lee, (2010) "Customer relationship management for hotels in Hong Kong", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 22 Issue: 2, pp.139-159, https:// doi.org/10.1108/09596111011018151 Downloaded by Northumbria University Library At 23:38 01 November 2018 (PT) Permanent link to this document: https://doi.org/10.1108/09596111011018151 Downloaded on: 01 November 2018, At: 23:38 (PT) References: this document contains references to 48 other documents. To copy this document: permissions@ emeraldinsight.com The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 11216 times since 2010* Users who downloaded this article also downloaded: (2001),"The relationship between customer loyalty and customer satisfaction", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 13 Iss 5 pp. 213-217 <a href="https:// doi.org/10.1108/09596110110395893">https://doi.org/10.1108/09596110110395893</a> (2015),"Service quality and customer satisfaction: qualitative research implications for luxury hotels", International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 9 Iss 2 pp. 168-182 <a href="https:// doi.org/10.1108/IJCTHR-10-2014-0087">https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCTHR-10-2014-0087</a> Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:462515 [] For Authors If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/ authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 j ournals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. *Related content and download information correct at time of download.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0959-6119.htm CRM for hotels in Customer relationship Hong Kong management for hotels in Hong Kong 139 Ada S. Lo School of Hotel and Tourism Management, Received 24 July 2008 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Revised 14 November 2008 3 February 2009 Lawrence D. Stalcup 6 April 2009 Downloaded by Northumbria University Library At 23:38 01 November 2018 (PT) College of Health and Human Sciences, Georgia Southern University, Accepted 10 April 2009 Statesboro, Georgia, USA, and Amy Lee School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate how hotels are implementing customer relationship management (CRM) practices at the property level. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 45 hotel managers from 17 hotels. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using content analysis. Findings – All participating hotels have practices in place to manage customer relationships. The most commonly cited goal for CRM is guest retention. Evaluation and control are perceived as very important activities not only to create value for the customers, but also to track the performance of the guest contact departments and the customers’ evaluations of the hotel/restaurant experiences. Research limitations/implications – The sample is probably biased towards hotels that are most interested in CRM and are heavily weighted towards higher tariff properties. Practical implications – The study modified Buttle’s CRM value chain to analyze hotels’ CRM practices. Results of the study provide a source for industry practitioners to compare and benchmark their practices and to obtain useful CRM ideas. Originality/value – CRM-related research in the hotel industry has looked at a variety of specific practices and its role in achieving overall objectives at the corporate strategic level. Yet, no research has been done to investigate CRM practices at the property level for hotels using the CRM value chain. Keywords Customer relations, Customer service management, Value chain, Hotels, Hong Kong, Marketing strategy Paper type Research paper Introduction The concept of customer relationship management (CRM) was first developed in the International Journal of mid-1990s in information technology (IT) industries (Boulding et al. , 2005; Payne and Contemporary Hospitality Frow, 2005). Innovation in information processing, more sophisticated and demanding Management Vol. 22 No. 2, 2010 pp. 139-159 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited This research was funded by the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong 0959-6119 Polytechnic University and supported by the Hong Kong Hotels Association. DOI 10.1108/09596111011018151
IJCHM consumers, and an increasingly competitive environment contributed to the development (Bell et al. , 2002; Chen and Popovich, 2003; Parvatiyar and Sheth, 22,2 2002). CRM was initially considered as a technology-only tool or simple database marketing (Chen and Popovich, 2003; Parvatiyar and Sheth, 2002). However, it has evolved into a management philosophy in which an organization concentrates its activities around the customer. Over time, it has emerged as a strategy to use IT to 140 integrate the cross functions of employees to understand and retain long-term profitable relationships with customers. The goal is to create greater value for both customers and shareholders (Payne and Frow, 2005). Many studies have been conducted on CRM in various industries in the past 20 years. However, there is still significant disagreement on its definition and meaning (Buttle, 2004). In addition, there isnotacommonly agreed frameworkforthe implementationand Downloaded by Northumbria University Library At 23:38 01 November 2018 (PT) evaluation of the effectiveness of CRM practices (Sigala, 2005). Payne and Frow (2005) proposed a cross-functional, process-based conceptual framework covering five generic processes including strategy development, value creation, multichannel integration, and information management and performance assessment. Based on the work of Payne and Frow (2005), Iriana and Buttle (2006) created a 13-item survey instrument to assess an organization’s CRM orientation in terms of strategic, operation, and analytical perspectives. Buttle (2004) proposed a CRM value chain for the development and implementation strategies. The value chain has two main parts that include five primary stages and the supporting conditions. Both are essential components for creating value for customers and profitability for the company (Buttle, 2004). Sigala (2005) suggested an integrated managerial approach to hotel CRM including the three areas of information communication technology (ICT), internal and external relationship management, and knowledge management. CRM-related research in the hotels has looked at various specific practices in isolation. They include loyalty programs, brand loyalty, customer satisfaction, knowledge management, information and communication technologies, and internal and external marketing (Bouncken, 2002; Choi and Chu, 2001; Engstrom et al. , 2003; Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2000; Lee et al. , 2005; Minghetti, 2003; Palmer et al. , 2000; Piccoli et al. , 2003; Sigala, 2005; Sigala et al. , 2001; Tepeci, 1999). The purpose of the research presented here was to investigate how hotels in Hong Kong are managing customer relationships. The study adopts Buttle’s (2004) CRM value chain framework. This was chosen for the study because other studies have either focused on the strategic view or on the role of ICT in CRM practices. Although a more recent survey instrument has been developed by Iriana and Buttle (2006), which focuses on the evaluation of companies’ customer relationship orientation in the strategic, operational, and analytical domains. Buttle’s (2004) CRM value chain provides a framework to understand how CRM practices are implemented at the operational level and how the different activities work together to create value. It focuses not only on the process, but also identifies the supporting conditions for successful CRM implementation at the property level. Furthermore, hotels of different size and price/quality level have CRM systems of varied levels of sophistication (Imrie and Fyall, 2000; Moriarty et al. , 2008). This suggests that differences in CRM practices may exist among hotels of different price/quality levels in Hong Kong. The specific research objectives for this study are to: identify the goals of CRM strategies; .
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