Castle Bongo's Customer Relationship System - Case Study Example

CASTLE BINGO Introduction Customer relationship management is a business strategy crafted to increase profitability and reduce costs through solidification of customer loyalty, satisfaction, and advocacy. Customer relationship management consolidates data from data sources within and outside the organization in order to portray a holistic view of each customer. Customer relationship management has evolved to permeate the entire organization. It involves technology, processes, and people. The strategy is applied in getting exhaustive information about the behaviors and needs of the customers for the purpose of coming up with relationships that are stronger with the business. Business success is guided by the relationship that exists between itself and the customers. Customer relationship management seeks to perfect this relationship (Lior, 2005). Customer relationship management makes it possible for Castle Bingo to keep pace with changing trends in the market and therefore address the needs of the customers. Good relationship with the customers is enhanced through customer relationship management since customers are being as important stakeholders. Castle Bingo has the mandate of providing a conducive and relaxing environment that will help the clients to unwind after the bustle of everyday city life. The customers will be understood through the information that they provide and what has been stored in the database of the business. Economic times are every changing and the great recession that was witnessed in the world from 2007 is still biting (Greenberg, 2009). Castle Bingo does not have to introduce something that will not be acceptable among its customers and, therefore, leading to losses. Information gathered from customers can be used to predict what will work for customers. Main Findings Castle Bingo as the main trading arm of Castle Leisure has to come up with a customer relationship system that will seek to consolidate information about the customer. In order to spice up the games offered at leisure events, the management has to have full knowledge of the preferences and needs of the customers being targeted. Having been incepted in 1911, Castle Bingo stands a chance of attracting many games owing to the reputation and history of the company. Customer relationship management system is very crucial for giving any type of business a competitive edge. The management is able to keep in touch with reality by evaluation data bases that contain clients’ information (Rajola, 2003). Customer relationship management increases the interactions with customers as well as prospects. It entails the use of technology to automate, organize, and synchronize processes of business particularly sales actions. Other elements include customer service, technical support, and market. It enables the business to win, attract, and find new clients, create loyalty, and come up with new services that excites the potential customers (Dyché, 2002). Former clients are enticed to come back while targeting to reduce costs of client service and marketing. Customer relationship management system plays an important role in coming up with management tools like the Decision Support System. Management can make accurate decisions after analyzing the information provided by the customer relationship management system. Managers many times postpone difficult decisions and seek to find more information after trying in vain to comprehend the information that is available to them. Decisions Support System provides a chance for managers to exhaustively use the information available (Peel & Gancarz, 2002). This information is made possible through the existence of customer relationship management system that has databases that contains massive information about clients and potential markets. The principles of Big Data and metrics have to be developed by Castle Bingo because they are important in customer relationship management. Castle Bingo stands to gain when there are databases that contain colossal amount of information on clients, prospects as well as potential market. The application of consumer data for the purpose of market analysis has been used from ancient times during shipment of olive oil in Mesopotamia to the Greece Empire. Business intelligence requires that strategists have to analyze the past with the aim of predicting or forecasting the future (Cieslak & Bob, 2006). The use of predictive models is made possible by the use Big Data and metrics which enable the business to access detailed data about the customers. Accurate and sophisticated predictive models can be developed and hence making the business to save a lot of money that could have been pumped into advertising. The goals of data mining and business intelligence are enhanced through databases that contain detailed information about the customers. The clustering of related groups of customers gives the business an opportunity to forecast what could happen in future (Pennington, 2007). Business intelligence that involves gathering accurate data about the clients is enhanced through customer relationship management system that is supported by databases maintained by the business. Castle Bingo can predict the next move of its current customers by analyzing the past actions and involving the new trends in the market like competition and new product introduction. The management through teams of expert can find out what arouse the passion of customers in gaming and find ways to improve the quality of the game. The prizes being offered are attractive as well as competitive. Expert systems and Decision support system can all result from proper organization and automation of data by the company. Expert systems carry out decisions and recommendations without incorporating the human expert input (Cappel & Huang, 2007). This aspect can be applied in business management particularly the area of database management system. Resource consumption trends can be predicted in the database management system. The advantage of having huge customer databases give Castle Bingo an advantage over its competitors since the management can foretell what the customers want and switch to something that is passionate and more interesting than before. Decision support systems have been used by businesses to aid managers in decision making. Alterative solutions that are desirable are developed through decision support system and experts analyze the options to settle for the best as well as the one that is economically suitable (Roebuck, 2011). Decision support systems recognize that human intuition is important in the process of decision making and the final decision lies with a human expert. Decision support system offers the decision maker with sufficient information from the problem domain and leaves the human expert to make the final decision. This system can be used by Castle Bingo to determine whether clients will like any change to the quality of the game that is being currently offered. Customer satisfaction can be determined by looking at the attendance during every scheduled event. Customer relationship management system will also enable data mining that provides the business with adequate information concerning the clients being served (Grünewälder & Lder, 2008). So long as a lot of information is available about the clients in the databases accurate decisions can be made by looking at past trends. There are legal and ethical implications that are involved in the use of customer information by Castle Bingo for future marketing purposes. It is ethical that the company does not use the information against the will of the customers. The customers have to be assured that the information that they provide will not in any way be divulged to a third party or used against them. However, the company will be no under any obligation to deny security authorities access to these information if a proper court order is availed. The company has to cooperate with security agencies in matters where the national security is involved (DeGregor, 2011).  The clients can sue the company for breach of contract and infringement on personal rights if information is shared unscrupulously with other advertising agencies or credit recovery agents. Castle Bingo should give the customer a reason to be loyal and to trust every action that the company will take to safeguard the interest of the customers. Any legal tussle with the customer in regard to the use of information provided can have a negative impact on the growth of the business. Other prospects may shy away from divulging their information for fear of it being used against them (Blokdijk, 2008). Client will be willing to give information when they know that such information cannot be used against them. It is important to introduce a clause that assures the clients of the confidentiality of the information provided and the legal redress provided in case of a breach of contract. Castle Bingo has to ensure that the information provided by the customer is not accessed by other parties. Proper legal procedures have to be followed before divulging any information. Conclusion Customer relationship management is very vital for any business that desires to remain in touch with reality. Databases having consumer information can be used effectively in predicting the future trend that is expected in the market. Decision support system and expert system can be developed from database systems from customer relationship management system. Customer relationship management decrease cost while increasing the profitability of the business. In cases where Castle Bingo could have spent millions of dollars in advertising, recorded data stored in the databases can be used in predicting the future trend in customer behavior. Customer relationship management provides an opportunity for Castle Bingo to store sufficient information that will help in the predicting the future behavior of customers. Making right decisions by the management can be enhanced through the decision support system by using data collected through customer relationship management system. Developing databases enables the business to keep huge information about the customers and to be ready to offer an explanation for decision made. Further research has to be carried to ensure that customers are given what they deserve. Recommendations The Castle Bingo clubs are situated in major population centers where they have to take the advantage of the situation. Databases created from all the clubs in the centers. Castle Bingo has to synchronize the activities of its centers so that one center understands what is going on in the other center. Automation of databases to link the different centers will assist in the monitoring actions taken in each center. It is important to learn from the center which is doing good and managers from the other centers should be allowed to access information from other centers so long as they do not tamper with it. Warnings signs in the performance of other centers can be used to evaluate the performance of other centers and avert the possibility of similar incident occurring (Oz, 2008). Castle Bingo can use the information from clients to know or exactly tell where to effectively advertise in order to increase the customer base. A lot of money can be saved on marketing activities by telling what should be done, where, and when. Castle Bongo can avoid guess work and use the advantage of creating conducive environment to consolidate its customer base through recruiting others (Vogt, 2009). Castle Bingo can use a string of its centers to act as referral for others which are not so famous. The attractive jackpot prize is a good course towards attracting gamers to the club. Decision making in management can be highly aided by customer relationship management systems. Both expert systems and support systems can be developed from the databases created by the huge data gathered from customers. Database management is very important for business intelligence. Business intelligence relies on the information gathered from customers to predict the next move in consumer behavior. Caste Bingo can enhance its business intelligence system with the aim of getting the correct predictions and investing money where it will likely reap benefits. Varieties should be introduced across the centers of the entertainment joints so that customers can be referred to other centers run by Castle Bingo. The information gathered through customer relationship management system should be used effectively for the growth of Castle Bingo. References Cappel, J. J. & Huang, Z., 2007, A Usability Analysis of Company Websites, Journal of Computer Information Systems, 48 (1): 117–123. Lior A., 2005, Understanding the Fatal Mistakes: .Passionate and Profitable, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York. Cieslak, D. & Bob G., 2006, Programs Provide Extensive Tools For Adaptability And Customization, CPA Technology Advisor 16 (8): 38. Pennington, L.L., 2007, Surviving the Design and Implementation of a Content-Management System, Journal of Business & Technical Communication 21 (1):62–73. DeGregor, D. (2011). Customer-Transparent Enterprise: Beyond 20th Century CRM, Motivational Press: London. Greenberg, P., 2009, CRM at the Speed of Light (4th ed.), McGraw Hill, Boston. Roebuck, K., 2011, Customer Relationship Management (Crm) Software: High-Impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity, Vendors, Emereo Pty Limited, New Delhi. Grünewälder, A. & Lder, A., 2008, Implementing CRM Systems: Approaches and Potential Problems, Springer, New Mexico. Oz, E., 2008, Management Information Systems, Cengage Learning, London. Vogt, H., 2009, Open Source Customer Relationship Management Solutions, Diplomica Verlag, Berlin. 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