Effective Customer Service System for Baderman Island Free Essay Example

Overview of Baderman Island

Baderman Island is a resort that offers hospitality services to its numerous customers scattered across the globe.  With its prime location, exotic natural scenery, attractive environment and other numerous attractions that draw people from various locations, Baderman Island is strategically positioned to offer guests a memorable and wonderful experience. Events such as company retreats, birthdays, weddings and various social occasions can be held with ease and expertise as a result of the quality of service and facilities which are readily available.

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In order to render unrivalled services to its numerous customers, it is necessary for Baderman Island to focus on the implementation of customer service principles across all the departments. It is also essential for the company to recruit staff that is experienced in methods of achieving customer satisfaction and in implementing a technological solution that ensures that the company remains competitive, in accordance with their vision, mission and business objectives. Implementing an effective customer service system at the resort will ensure a prompt response to customers’ questions, increased profitability, an increased customer base, a higher competitive advantage and accessibility to support at all hours of the day.

These ensure that customers keep coming back and all parties benefit from the association.

With the constant and evolving changes in technology, customers will be better served and Baderman Island will become increasingly competitive and able to deliver exquisite services to its customers at reasonable costs.  Implementing an enterprise technology solution will ensure that the company is better poised to managing the ever-evolving needs of its customers (Business Intelligence, 2006).

Explain the business value the proposed enterprise-wide solution will bring for Baderman Island and explain the value created for the firm’s e-commerce marketplace. A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Solution allows for shared and data across the organization. It enables employees to make informed decisions about major issues and also helps to reduce costs. As customers become more empowered to find their own information and place their orders, less staff is needed within the organization to support them (Customer Service Point, 2008). Increased customer satisfaction and improved customer service will all result in more customers and inadvertently, an increased profit for the business (Customer Service Point, 2008).

 Explain how prototyping will aid in improving the new system development process

Prototyping is a method of system development that involves building a model of the proposed system, analyzing its features, making relevant observations and applying corrective actions before final deployment into a production environment. It ensures that possible corrections and modifications are implemented before huge financial commitments are made.

The benefits of prototyping include the following: 1) It saves time and cost; the time and money spent on direct development and deployment of a new system would have been wasted in the event that there are mistakes with the original design. This may have serious financial implications on the project and cause unavoidable delays to the implementation schedule. If mistakes are identified early enough with a prototype of the CRM solution, then stakeholders’ fears would be allayed. A model or prototype of the proposed system would be available for conducting quality and functional tests before the actual system is built and deployed.

Identify the project activities that will be involved in implementing the new technology

CRM implementation involves taking strategic and well-defined steps. The initial stage involves defining business processes, business goals, organizational structure, management needs and the various types of customers that patronize the business (Microsoft, 2005).
A Project Management Office should be established to monitor the activities of the CRM implementation. The project team and stakeholders would consist of people who have a vested interest in the project like the business owners, key users, major shareholders, project manager, project coordinator, experts with a solid background in the hospitality industry, CRM system administrator, an IT consultant and CRM experts that can all work together to ensure that the technological solution is implemented successfully (Microsoft, 2005). The project will be divided into well-defined activities and timelines and proven project management methodologies and best practices would be adopted for optimum results.

The first stage involves conducting a needs analysis exercise. This entails gathering relevant information about the processes and key objectives of the business. The overall mission and vision of the business would be converted to specific, measurable and achievable goals. This initial analysis is what drives the CRM project. With the business process and requirements appropriately documented, it will be used as a basis for developing the project plan (Microsoft, 2005).

The project team at this point, prepares a work breakdown structure (WBS) or a statement of work (SOW) that will detail the scope and activities of the CRM Implementation Project. Uncontrolled Changes to scope can affect the time, budget and quality of the project. Once the SOW is presented to the management of Baderman Island and approval is received, software and hardware requirements of the project are analyzed to ensure adequate compatibility.

The next stage is the planning and design stage which involves creating a detailed project plan, conducting an assessment of software and hardware requirements, and installing the CRM software in a development environment. It is at this stage that the prototype is developed. The User interface is also designed and developed (Microsoft, 2005). All major processes at this stage are documented. The prototype is then submitted for review and possible modifications.

After the planning and design stage has been completed and the stakeholders have accepted the prototype as satisfactory, implementation of the CRM solution can then begin (Microsoft, 2005). The CRM will be configured based on the implementation guidelines in the software manual. There are numerous CRM software vendors in the market.  Each solution has its unique method of installation.

Once the system is in place, data migration is initiated. Integration and customization starts at this stage. The application is subsequently tested and submitted for stakeholders’ acceptance. After obtaining approval of the configurations and customizations, the application can then be deployed to the production environment. Training of staff after implementing the technology is imperative to ensure that the full benefits of the enterprise technological solution are realized.

Conclusion

A robust CRM implementation should always plan to accommodate change because CRM constantly evolves with the business. The main critical success factors for CRM implementation are effective IT, a customer-centric culture, and adopting customer-based measures. Vendor selection is also critical to implementing CRM (Business Intelligence, 2006). It is also important to understand the target customers before implementing CRM. In order to be completely effective, CRM processes need to be integrated across the marketing, sales and customer service segments of the organization (Business Intelligence, 2006). Sufficient attention should be paid to integrating people, process and technology within the organization.

References

1. Business Intelligence. (2006). Developing and Implementing a CRM Strategy. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from Business Intelligence: http://www.business-intelligence.co.uk/reports/crm_strat/summary.asp
2. Customer Service Point. (2008). Benefits of a CRM system. Retrieved October 12, 2008, from Customer Service Point: http://www.customerservicepoint.com/crm-system.html
3. Microsoft. (2005). CRM Implementation – Implementing a Customer Relationship Management System. Retrieved October 13, 2008, from Microsoft Dynamics: http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/using/12/implementationprovenprocess.mspx