2009/07/22

Group project for assignment 2

Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these processes; information about customers and customer interactions can be entered, stored and accessed by employees in different company departments.

For example, feedback received by customer support agents can provide other staff members with information on the services and features requested by customers. Typical CRM goals are to improve the quality of services provided to customers, and to use customer contact information for targeted marketing.

CRM includes many aspects which relate directly to one another:

• Front office operations — Direct interaction with customers, e.g. face to face meetings, phone calls, e-mail, online services etc.

• Back office operations — Operations that ultimately affect the activities of the front office (e.g., billing, maintenance, planning, marketing, advertising, finance, manufacturing, etc.)

• Business relationships — Interaction with other companies and partners, such as suppliers, vendors and retail outlets, distributors, industry networks (lobbying groups, trade associations). This external network supports front and back office activities.
Operational CRM provides support to "front office" business processes, e.g. to sales, marketing and service staff. Interactions with customers are generally stored in customers' contact histories, and staff can retrieve customer information as necessary.

The contact history provides staff members with immediate access to important information on the customer (travel history, customer favour etc.), eliminating the need to individually obtain this information directly from the customer.

The Columbiana Discovery is here to serve you, the Columbiana visitor. As service consultants, we not only handle your general queries but also provide comprehensive tourist information which helps you keep abreast of the latest happenings and attractions in this vibrant city.

The Columbiana Discovery is pleased to provide you with some valuable planning resources. To get the big picture of Columbiana as a destination, Columbiana A traveler's guide captures much of the history, culture, sights, sounds and tastes awaiting your arrival. The Columbiana Map folds into your pocket to help you navigate must see attractions in and around Columbiana. Cultural Kaleidoscope introduces you to a variety of activities hosted by the city's cultural connoisseurs, giving you a chance to view the Columbiana known only to the locals. Use them to help turn your Columbiana Vacation into the trip of a lifetime.

To help you plan your itinerary, please also visit our Tour Planning Reference Manual section, which lists Columbiana special interest tours or products (grouped in different categories) identified by Columbiana Discovery as viable and saleable. In addition, the Regular Tours section lists the great varieties of tours you can feature in your itineraries.

Columbiana has introduced a user-friendly online tool, named Interactive Trip Planner, which enables visitors to create personalized itineraries before arriving in Columbiana. The Interactive Trip Planner presents the total Columbiana experience, combining recommendations on sightseeing, culture and heritage, as well as local tours.

Visitors can also change, add and mix and match activities best suited to their interests, or choose among the five themed itineraries. These include first-timers' finds, family fun, culture caravan, islands and green, and transiting thrills. Try the Interactive Itinerary Planner now!

Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. Customer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means called self-service. Examples of self service are Internet sites.

Customer service is normally an integral part of a company’s customer value proposition. From the point of view of an overall sales process engineering effort, customer service plays an important role in an organization's ability to generate income and revenue.

Columbiana Discovery invites passengers to send text messages whilst riding the bus or cruise. This has been shown to be useful as it allows companies to improve their customer service before the customer defects, thus making it far more likely that the customer will return next time.

Twine is a new way to collect content and connect with people who share your interests. Use Twine to track, find, and share what interests you. Twine ties it all together by topic, so you can have it in one place. Post comments or add images, videos and bookmarks to a twine. The Twine bookmarklet tool makes it easy to share a bookmark to any twine instantly.

Campaign management combines elements of Operational and Analytical CRM. Campaign management functions include:

• Target groups formed from the client base according to selected criteria

Whether you are a Vacationer, Nature Lover, Cultural Explorer, Family Vacation, Romantic Vacation, Spa & Massage or Senior Travelers, Columbiana Discovery can cater for your every desire. Discover the myriad things to see and do in one of the most diverse and exciting destinations in the world.

• Sending campaign-related material (e.g. on special offers) to selected recipients using various channels (e.g. e-mail, telephone, SMS, post)

Columbiana Discovery has offer vivid videos and RSS feeds that take you to the heart of the action. You can also subscribe to our newsletter, download photos of European city, and more. We have the interactive Corner: e-Newsletter, Videos, Virtual Tours, Photo & Video Sharing, RSS, Webcam, and Columbiana Discovery Photo Gallery.

• Tracking, storing, and analyzing campaign statistics, including tracking responses and analyzing trends

We also send the questionnaire to our target customers, in order to gather more information to improve our service.
When is the best time to visit Columbiana?
Where are the best places to stay?
What are some experiences off the beaten path that should not be missed?
When are you planning to travel to Columbiana again?
Which topics and activities are of interest to you?

Columbiana excitement never ends. There will be unforgettable spectacles for you to see and share. Your feedback and suggestions are valuable in helping us provide the highest service standards. Should you have any comments on Columbiana Discovery suggestions on how we can strengthen our support for the travel trade, please do not hesitate to write to partnernet@columbianadiscovery.com.

According to our plan, we act as an consultant of government to promote Columbiana, mainly attract traveler, providing wide range of useful information in our website. Also as a middleman for the investor to build up their business in Columbiana.

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) is one of the system to be used to ours project. Let’s study what is ERP, which is: Packaged business software which is used to collect and manage information across different functional areas in an organization.

In our website, we can collect the information from the customer when they are visit us for enquiry & searching information. Visitor should sign up by fill in a Opt-in model form in the website, such as their name, number of the groups, age group, nationality, planning date for the trip etc... all these information they provide into our website, the hotel, agency of local tour whom we work with also can get the same information in ERP system, ERP allows to share common data, the same data to be used by multiple functions and business processes, for example, the customer approve given one credit card for all payment from the beginning till the end, as all parties have had the same record.

When the visitor do further searching, we can collect data by what they click to search, let say, mainly for hotel, Touring, dinning.

ERP supports integration since the entire business uses a common set of applications, supported by a centrailized and integrated database, We Columbiana Discovery is acting a centralization. Our linker cooperated also can get the same information at the same time that the customer provided in our website. The purpose is to identify the sales prospects, process the orders, manage the orders with arranging correct services & smoothly to the customers.

The extensive database provided by ERP are likely to provide the platform for decision support, data mining and supply chain management.

In our website, information given the decision support for the government in Columbiana for development for touristism, data mining for all traveler or even only for enquiry people by visit our website. Supply chain such as the hotel, day tour agency, cruise ship company or any investors of Columbiana thought us are involved. Every parties can pick up the information needed from this platform to proceed, work out their project by supportive with all these data.

Finally, the process can go smoothly, as all parties did have the same information for proceed.
Apart from ERP, Decision support systems (DSS) is one of the system is suitable to apply. Better decision making is more and more important nowadays, because New technologies and better information distribution have resulted in more alternatives for management. Rapidly changing global economies and markets are producing greater uncertainty and requiring faster response in order to maintain competitive advantages.

At the website, we have provide wide range of the useful information for the visitor. They may advise the purpose for this trip, how much they would like to spend, activities prefered etc though what they have been clicked the page. The hotel, agency of local tour also can get the same information in ERP automatically The marketing and sales department will reaction make decision accordingly, they will think of which level of room or activities can promote to this specific customer, for example, if a couples is visit for honeymoon, then the marketing of the hotel will suggest a package of LOVE, e.g. a room with full of heart decoration, candle night, and any kind of couples activities.

AS well as the we will cooperate with the hotel to get some discount or special offer, while with the credit card for more rebate, special discount if the customer arrange payment with specific credit card, It is the decision making from the sales & marketing for promotion with figure given.

On the website, there have a blogs, which is the place for the updates highlights of Columbiana, visitor can go into the blogs to share the photo, video and comment of their journey. This is another kind of present data can be kept in the ERP, and finally is one source of Management information system (MIS). we can arrange a kind of report to show the performance such as the monthly or annual figure of traveler, how much they spend in the trip, which is the most favour activity, how many people would like to driven themselves, it is another kind of source can provide for the government decision of touristism development.

We will have the data for the number of views, which is the data for the investors to decide to place advertisement on our website or not.

Besides, in our website, there have a lot of tool providing to the visitors, as well as a information centre, giving a guide to the travelers. The very important is to show all the location of every attraction points, dinning place, meeting point or activities, a kind of map, a Geographic information system (GIS) are applied. Data visualization tools present data in graphical from to help users see patterns and relationships in large quantities of data. To analyze and display data in the form of digitized maps.

Government, all the investor can make decision by GIS support decisions that require knowledge about the geographic distribution of people or other resources. Such as casino location, where is the most suitatble place? we need data from the visitor, where they prefer to have a casino? For the investor, is very useful component for making decisions, and evidence to shows for discussing with government.


Summary
According to the CRM, ERP and DSS system, here we would like to take a summary action to fulfill the benefits. Columbiana is an attractive, tempting and expectative island. We, be the consultant of government to develop the island are the absolute pleasurable.

CRM is a combination of policies, processes, and strategies implemented by an organization to unify its customer interactions and provide a means to track customer information. It involves the use of technology in attracting new and profitable customers, while forming tighter bonds with existing ones.

The objectives of a CRM strategy must consider a company’s specific situation and its customers’ needs and expectations. Information gained through CRM initiatives can support the development of marketing strategy by developing the organization’s knowledge in areas such as identifying customer segments, improving customer retention, improving product offerings (by better understanding customer needs), and by identifying the organization’s most profitable customers.

To develop the island, hotel is the indispensable item. The action we take to popularize is through a web site from tourism board. According to the board, we could sitting the assigned hotel for customer research. By the ERP system, customer could search the hotel we allocated and hotel department could easy to take the follow up action. Such as, it takes their name, where the customer come from, come for business or holiday and any special affairs. Hotel department could easy to know all the information and do the relevance to harmony with customer. Also hotel department could through the ERP system to arrange the transportainment for customer.
Base on ERP system, when a new information is entered by one process, the information is also up date to other business. For example, if customer changed their mind, hotel could take the action for change a double bed room or customer could select their meal by enter their new information data. For hotel side, it could be easy to handle customers change immediately and control the disorder. Hotel sales department can achieve different sales for any customer change by ERP system. As the ERP system could get information by customer, another system CRM could be starting immediately.
CRM system achieve customer intimacy by integrating customer information. CRM is indicate to long term communicate. As hotel could through CRM system to support customer different requirement. For example, customer take a honeymoon holiday and our CRM system could get the information and fix it with special treatment. Such as, honeymoon specially room, special room service as champagne reserved. Through the CRM system , hotel sales department can co-operate with globe bank and introduce any credit card for customer get discount when they expenditure. Hotel could also take a action by using e-mail or post card for thank you customer's select. At this action, hotel and customer a making a relationship and customer would like to come back again. Sale department also can through e-mail to contact customer and make a cue for alarm customer keep eyes on our special offer. Such as room discount in special day, special function as the island take and hotel get supply for customer. Both of the action combine customer and hotel be a long term relationship.
Customer, Bank and hotel base on CRM system could take triple wins. All of them get exchange and contented what they needs. Finally, the most important system is DSS system for analytical all combine data by customer. DSS system is a model to determine the impact of change in more outcome. Hotel get the information thought ERP system, we take the action and analysis customer after DSS.
DSS is to respond what customer need and we give the relevance action. For example, hotel makes a form list for customer when they stay in hotel. The form list is to survey customer's hobby and favor that hotel and sale department can given .As customer like to gamble, we could through DSS system and send the data to government and supply the information for develop casino. When government tender to bulid up casino, customer take investment in our island and hotel can get the information form ERP and action for fulfill their business needs. Such as business room, business meal and we could transfer to government develop department for follow up action.
DSS could analysis customer's need and through ERP action and CRM to keep the long term relationship. For future planning, government develop different item, we could general the same investment machinery to keep stay in our assign hotel. Therefore, DSS, ERP and CRM could be re-cycle in future.

- Report end -

2009/07/06

Assignment marks~

Hi Jenny,

Could you advice how you mark the blogs? which is the highest points?

Completeness
Design
Content

My design got the lowest marks...I should try to do it better~ >_<

Our passing mark is 50, right?

Forgot to ask you, if we finished the IT lesson, will you continue to view our blogs?

Thanks,
Samantha

2009/06/25

Session 5: Assignment One Question



Think of the small database we used in our lab exercise - Products and Suppliers. Briefly describe how this database observes any two of the four design principles outlined above.

Ans as below:

A database management system (DBMS) is a special type of software for creating, organizing and assessing data from a database. It is a centralization and management of data which have a single, consistent source form all their data needs. The most important feature of the database is its ability to separate the logical and physical views of data.

Access is a relational database management system. In a relational database, you divide your information into separate, subject-based tables. You then use table relationships to bring the information together as needed.

From the above example, we entry the data in tables made up of one or more columns. Each table has a special field called the primary key which contains a unique value for each record. We divide the product and supplier table separately, the divides information into subject-based tables is to reduce redundant data. The data stored in each column must be of a single data type, such as text, character, this can protect the data more accuracy and integrity.

There have two principles for the relational database, duplicate information, correctness and completeness of information which is very important and we can't make any mistakes on it. Otherwise the reports will contain incorrect information.

As the unique record have to be retrieved, updated and sorted, the column of the data must be uniquely indentifies.

We select the fields to be included in the report. From the Product table, choose Product Category, Product Name, Selling Price, Quantity on Hand and Reorder Level. From the Supplier table, choose Company Name - this is the name of the supplier for that product.

Accommodates the data processing and reporting – using database can get the report by simply sort the information that you need. From our exercise, we group the report according to Product Category and sort the data in each product category by Product Name. At last we choose a layout and page orientation for the report as needed.
In conclusion DBMS can enhance the operation performance by increase data independence, minimize storage redundancy and increase data integrity.

2009/06/22

Session 4: Assignment One Question

Find one example of Internet marketing that you think is particularly effective and one example that is ineffective.

Explain your reasons, for example, you can describe how well the effective example takes advantage of the Internet's properties (e.g. interactivity, personalization, greater hold on user's interest). For the ineffective ad, you may describe how you can improve on it.

NOTE: You are free to use your own examples, or any of the examples I shared with you in class or in the class blog.

Effective sample as below:

Internet-based marketing will include the use of a company website in conjunction with promotional techniques such as banner advertising, direct e-mail and links or service from other websites to acquire new customers and provide services to existing customers that help develop the customer relationship.

With traditional media, the same message is broadcast to all customers. On the Internet, it is possible to send personalized or targeted offers based on the customer’s profile, needs, locations and behavior.

Nokia is one of the famous brands among Hong Kong which is an effective and successful Internet marketing example.

The Nokia website is not just for Hong Kong, it targets to worldwide therefore it provides with different language and supporting. Customers usually search the new information and product from company website. With an easy click, you can find all the necessary information from Nokia website.

The products on the Nokia website have been classified in different category and functions. The information shows about new product, mobile images, device category, design, key feature, and advanced features like GPS navigation and global roaming support.


It also has the details about the Nokia information, opening hours, support and maintenance. There is also a function called product comparison which help customer knows the differentiated of products, so that they can easily choose their desire model.

Once you registered, you can download the mobile maps, mobile games, ringtones, music, photos from the web-site which can be personalized.

Nokia Care ensures you get the very best services from Nokia. And now, you can also visit the closest Nokia Care Centre. The location of the stores can be found on Nokia’s website. You can find the store easily, as the website clearly indicated the address as well as the map.

To best utilize the full range of advanced functions of your Nokia handset, you will first need to learn about its different settings. Nokia pioneers the Door-to-Door service with professional handset consultants to teach you about various handset settings, explain their uses, and answer queries, helping you turn your Nokia handset into a personal computer.

The service includes:

• Helping you backup your contacts, calendar, photos and music
• Demonstrating how to synchronize your handset with your PC
• Setting up and using your handset's Wi-Fi functionality
• Installing and configuring Nokia Maps
• Setting up and assessing email on your handset

Just like DELL computer, customer can drive innovation for mobile application developers and share their feeling and feedback to the product and service in order to improve the quality of the product, this interactive action can help Nokia to make improvement and make the device more user friendly.
With Internet two-way-communicate from customers through online surveys, forums or blog can be easily captured. Marketing research information is also available when a user click the website pages, it will automation record down the movement of the customer. Company can analyzed such information in order to gain a better understanding of customer’s buying behavior.

Regarding the contact methods, if customers have any complaints, opinions or inquiries, they can always send it by e-mail; forum; blog; phone to hotline; visit the center themselves. The customer service representatives will give the prompt respond to the customer in order to solve the problem and gain trust so as to maintain a long-term relationship and gain profit maximization.



Obviously, Nokia is not only updating their products, but also improve their product and provide good service. Nokia can hold customer interest and attract more loyalty customer in the company as they provide the useful information and their excellent performance. With the attractive advertisement, Nokia can promote their product and increase their market sales accordingly.

That's the reasons why I think Nokia is an effective brand by using information marketing.

Reference link:

Nokia website:

Forum for Nokia:

Calling develoers:
Ineffective sample as below:

Giordano website is a roughly and simple ineffective internet marketing for demonstration. Since its website just shows a traditional push marketing with one-way communication, it provide simple information on their branch address and company background. Moreover it doesn’t provide any services to fulfill customer expectation which can’t hold customer interest and result in losing customer loyalty.

As you know, style and image, product and design are important to the fashion industry which is the main factors to attractive potential customer and existing customers to continuous support to the company.

There is limited information provided, beside the WWS membership information from the website, there is no product information, promotion issue, price list, etc. Certainly everyone who clicks in such website will definite close the window as there is no motivate to continues to search any information from such a joyless page.

Below are some suggestions to the website:
We should design a user friendly and up-to-date webpage in order to gain the awareness of customer. We can segregate in different category, such as adult, men, women and kids collection. Update news from the coming season, like Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter collections.

Briefly information of the product is necessary as well, beside the type of clothing, size, color and fabric materials and price list. With the fabulous picture image and details, we can retain customer to keep searching the web pages.

Giordano can also post some video and set some hyperlink to make it more interesting and attractive, in order to draw attention to the customer. With more advertisement, it can increase the sales so as its profit.

The location of store and address should be including in the website, which can let customer find the nearly shop easily.

Since Giordano already have the VIP scheme, they should well use of this valuable information to retain the customer loyalty. They can provide discount or coupon to member when they purchase certain amount, so that customer will enjoy shopping in Giordano.
Once customers apply the membership, they can get customer’s personal information, then they can send the up-to-date promotion to them.

For more effectively way, they should send some survey periodically to their customer to collect the feedback and opinions. A blog or forum can also be added for customers to give their comments and feedback in daily basis. This two way communication can enhance the relationship with company and customers.

To be honest, nowadays customer is difficult to serve compare with past 10 years, company should try their best to satisfy customer’s needs and maintain profit, so that they won’t driven out by the fierce market.

Giordano website:
http://www.giordano.com.hk/web/HK/index.html

2009/06/19

adding the widget on blog

Hi Jenny,

Just back home for a nice dinner at Kowloon City...Vietnam food~~ :)

I thought we just have to finish three Qs of the assignment one, so I didn't do the rest of them...haha...and now I understand that we have to finish at least four of them by next week so that we can gain a higher marks.

Yesterday we had hang out the assingment one for Economic, as a result I am so tired and lazy to start work by today, I should work hard for the coming weekend.

Just want to thanks you for teaching me to add the Dilbert widget on my blog. The strip is funny and nice. I think I might love them as well.

Time to take a little break before go to sleep.

Have a nice dream. :)

Cheers,
Samantha

2009/06/09

waiting the solution~

Hi Jenny,

How comes you still haven't give any feedbackto me??

I guess you need times to go through our blogs.

Nevermind take your times.

Thanks,
Samantha

2009/06/08

problem for amend the content~

Hi Jenny,

I think I have missing some of the icons when create a new document, I had capture the new page screen for your refernce. That's why my assignment not looking good, since I don't have the justify, font, size icons on the layout.

Could you please advice where I can get it?



It is good that I can finish the assignment before the due date. :)

Thanks,
Samantha