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Customer Relationship Management
10 January 2002

Just when it was in danger of becoming a forgotten discipline, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been back in the travel news over the last few weeks. It was one of the central themes at World Travel Market and, more recently, MyTravel has announced it is investing in CRM technology to, in Richard Carrick’s words, “ …. have the ability to have one-to-one relationships – the same as having 1.5 million corner shops.” 

In fact, CRM is not just about technology, it is a philosophy or a culture. It is about creating the feeling in your customers that you personally care, that they are not just numbers in your computer system, that they can relax and trust that their travel arrangements will go smoothly.

This level of trust means that customers will be willing to share information about themselves. Unfortunately, some organisations are in danger of abusing this trust by passing customer data to third parties. Here is a snippet from a privacy statement hidden away on one airline’s Web site, “We may also disclose the data that we hold about you to selected third parties. If at any time you opt out, we will cease all such future disclosure of data.” If only I could figure out how to opt out!

So for the customer, what is the perfect relationship? It would be embodied in the kind of rapport he or she would have with a small travel agency that knew its customers really well. Here are some customer expectations:

“Know all my travel preferences.”
“Answer any questions I have.”
“Know about any bookings I have made with you.”
“Give me tips and ideas to make my trip more enjoyable.”
“Be interested in whether my trip went well.”

The issue for large travel companies is how best to implement rigorous CRM technology that allows it to adopt this small company culture. It is very easy to get it wrong.

For example, another airline that has clearly invested millions in its CRM system actively encouraged me to register and provide lots of information about myself to help our “one-to-one” relationship. Unfortunately, when I try to sign in on their Web site, 4 times out of 5, I get this not very useful message: “Error. Unfortunately our systems are not responding, so we are unable to process your request at the moment. We apologise for this inconvenience and suggest you try again later.” I have been trying since November. Let’s hope that their aircraft are more reliable!

Then there is the online travel company that wants to know all about me and, having used my valuable time to fill-in their forms, all the data appears to be completely ignored. Not once is it used in our relationship to help me interact with their Web site.

If your business is big, you will, like these two companies, need CRM systems; but make sure they truly help the customer. Having bad CRM technology is far worse than having no CRM technology at all. At least it won’t ruin the relationship. If your business is small, you probably already practice good CRM without any technology, so just keep it up. Remember the old marketing adage, winning a new customer costs eight time more than doing the same business with an existing one.

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