Final Project

Project Requirements

1. Current Situation

A. Identify your company and provide the company's stated overall goals and marketing strategy. If the company does not have a published statement of goals and strategies, state what you believe them to be based on what you have learned and observed about the company.

B. Provide a thorough description of the company's current customer service. Use the IDIC model for managing customer relationships as your framework. Include the organizations and processes that are in place to accomplish the IDIC (Identify, Differentiate, Interact, and Customize) tasks. Comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the current processes. Include your assessment of the impact on the company's goals and marketing strategies of the way the company serves its customers. For example, if the goal is to increase customer share, does the customer service process include a way to collect information about the customer's potential need for additional services?

Do not provide a comprehensive description of the company. Only include the information required to satisfy the task at hand.

2. Redesign the Customer Service Policies and Strategies

Provide a newly designed customer service program based on the principles of the IDIC model. Your design decisions should correspond to the assessment that you performed in step 1 above. You can recommend small or sweeping changes. Sometimes one small, very insightful change can make a dramatic difference in the service a company provides. The changes could be in organization, process, training, or another category. It should support the company's goals and marketing strategy. You should explain what principles of IDIC you are satisfying with your recommendations. For example, if you decide the sales force should have access to customer complaint information, you are basing your decision on the Interact building block and the principle of integrating across touch points.

3. Design Customer Loyalty Strategies and Programs

Propose a customer loyalty strategy and create a customer loyalty program or programs. Incorporate the strategy and program(s) in the company's overall goals and marketing strategy. Those requirements and how they are to be met should be stated. Be very detailed in your descriptions. The program does not need to be extensive or complex, but it should meet the requirements of effective loyalty programs. If you have chosen a small, simply organized business, for example, you should be able to recommend at least three loyalty programs. Your recommendation would lack academic rigor if your only suggestion is that the business provide the customer with a card to be punched each time a purchase is made and the 10th purchase would be free. If, however, your recommendation involves creating a database generating real-time customer analytics used by multiple channels, one loyalty program, well worth the expense, would suffice.

4. Include Differentiation of Customers by Loyalty Segments in Your Customer Service and Loyalty Program Designs

As part of your customer service policies and strategies design (step 2 above) and your customer loyalty strategies and programs design (step 3 above), classify your company's customers according to customer loyalty differentiation categories. Include those classifications in your designs.

5. Evaluate Technology-Related Tools (CRM) That Could Support Your Customer Service and Loyalty Programs

Very clearly state the tasks you want the technology to perform for you. Identify the criteria against which you will appraise the technology (benefits, costs, features). Identify at least three CRM systems as potential candidates. Describe the purpose of each of the software and analytical tools. Decide which would best support your programs. Early on in the appraisal process, it may be clear that one or two of the three systems is not a match for the needs of your business. In this case, your comparison can stop at the point where you have eliminated the system(s) that do not meet your requirements. Complete the evaluation by showing how the remaining system meets all of your stated requirements.

6. Apply Metrics That Will Measure the Success of Your Customer Service and Loyalty Programs

Exhibit the metrics commonly used to show the value of customer service and loyalty programs. Illustrate how they would be used to measure the success of your particular programs. For example, if you recommend implementing a customer service training program, the goal of which is to prevent customers from leaving and taking their business elsewhere, show how many customers you predict you will save and what the saved revenue impact is for your program. Show the cost of the program. Determine the break-even point. Select at least three sets of metrics to apply to demonstrate the value of your recommendations.

Submission Requirements 

Academic Style

This is a formal, academic written assignment. As such, it should comply with MLA, APA, or another style guide. MLA is the style most frequently used in business, and APA is the style most frequently used in graduate programs. You can decide which style you prefer to use, but you must consistently apply one style throughout your paper.

Length Requirements

There is no minimum or maximum length requirement. However, a good goal should be 10 pages of text, excluding the title page, table of contents, bibliography, and any exhibits you wish to include. If you are adequately analyzing the case and designing the improvements, reaching 10 pages should be relatively easy to accomplish. If you are having trouble reaching 10 pages, it might be an indication that you do not have sufficient depth to your analysis or specifics in your design. If your analysis greatly exceeds 10 pages, be sure to edit carefully. One way to reduce length and, perhaps, make your paper more readable is to include exhibits. For example, you can perform your CRM tools evaluation and include it as an exhibit. You can reference the exhibit in your paper and state which one is most appropriate, and why. Or you could create a flowchart to depict the details of your processes and discuss them at a higher level in the body of your paper. The same would be true for your SWOT analysis of current customer service practices.