Marriott has long been preferred by its customers due to its exceptional services as well as strong

brand reputation. Marriott employs various CRM practices like Marriott Rewards, corporate
account Management, guest satisfaction surveys and software solutions to deliver fulfilling and
unique experience to its guests. Marriott’s hotel loyalty program serves as the foundation for
company’s customer relationship strategy. It has more than 28 million members worldwide. This
huge database of customers helps the hotel in targeting marketing messages and using this
critical data to predict future business potential. Marriott has implemented ‘strategic account
management’ strategy through which it deploys proactive sales efforts towards key top accounts
to manage their complex needs, travel plans and to deliver non-traditional business solutions.
Marriott takes customer feedback on ongoing basis through the sophisticated GSS, which is
tailored for each brand. Marriott provides innovative products and high quality services to
enhance the guest satisfaction. These products and services are continuously monitored and
improved through their best practices and quality assurance systems. ‘Information resources’
which is Marriott’s technical division provides technology solutions to create memorable
experience for its customers by actively soliciting inputs from its guests.

Key operations, processes and value addition in those operations.

There are four types of operations i.e. acquiring customers, servicing them, retaining them and
finally evaluation of the customer relationship initiatives at Marriott. Acquiring corporate
customers differ from other leisure customers which are explained in this section. Servicing
guests includes activities like reservation, check-in, stay at the hotel and check-out. Under each
of these activities, we have included one section referred to as the ‘enablers’ which includes the
agents/hotel staff/systems which helps in fulfilling that service. For example, during a guest’s
stay at one of the Marriott property, there are various departments like housekeeping, room
controller, food and beverages, recovery, front desk which are involved in making the stay of the
customer comfortable and delightful. Retaining guests at Marriott includes incentivizing them
through their loyalty programs, providing special and unique services and providing consistent
services across their hotel properties.
Guest (customer) life cycle

1. Pre-arrival

Generating leads

Acquiring customers

Reservation of guests at Marriott

2. Arrival

Door man and porters

Room allocation

Welcome by hotel staff

Key issuance

3. Occupancy

Guest needs (food, room services)

Recovery/ Emergency

Maintaining guest account

4. Departure

Post-stay marketing

Feedback

Billing and settlement

Check out

Four key operations

Acquiring Customers:
Marriott serves both ‘individual’ as well as ‘corporate customers’. Marriott strategy to attract
customers differs for the both categories. Further Marriott sales and marketing team is divided
along two aspects – Proactive and Reactive. Corporate customers: Marriott follows ‘Push
marketing strategy’ for corporate clients.

Corporate customers: Marriott follows ‘Push marketing strategy’ for corporate clients.

i) Property level services: Marriott has separate portfolio of hotels i.e. Marriott
Courtyard and Marriott executive apartments (presently only in Islamabad) for
business/corporate customers. These properties are for pure business purposes with
no frills like swimming pools or other amenities. Corporate clients who need to stay
in a city for a long time could opt for Marriott executive apartments which have
separate kitchenette in their room thus providing them the facility to prepare their
own food.
ii) Corporate account managers: Marriott has corporate account managers to deal with
their corporate clients providing a dedicated support to a portfolio of companies.
Their role is to maintain business relationships with key buying influencers in the
companies.
iii) Corporate deals: Corporate account manager is responsible for tailoring the deals for
corporate customers considering their requirements. Deals might include special
negotiated rates, complimentary services like lunch and multimedia services.

Individuals/family/leisure customers: Marriott follows ‘Pull marketing strategy’ for these

guests.

i) Property level services: For leisure travellers, Marriott has ‘J W Marriott’ which is a
luxury hotel equipped with all the amenities like swimming pool, high end
restaurants, services like spa etc. Then there is ‘Fairfield Inn’ which is a lower cost,
economy brand of Marriott and is targeted at those customers who require a place
with fewer amenities.
ii) Promotions via ‘Brandworks’: In order to attract customers to these properties,
Marriott uses various consumer channels like print media, digital media like
‘Facebook’ and ‘YouTube’, TV advertisements etc. Marriott has created an
automated online portal referred as ‘Brandworks’ which makes it quick and easy for
users at various properties to create customized marketing content. With this system,
each property of Marriott can hone their marketing strategies to better appeal to their
target customers.

Servicing Customers:
All the activities of Marriott after acquiring a customer are focused towards providing superior
personalized services to guests in order to retain them. In this section, we would focus on the
remaining portion of the guest cycles, that are:
  Reservation
 Check in
 Stay at hotel
 Check out

Reservation:

Marriott offers various channels for making reservation to its hotel portfolios. All the
reservations are made through its central reservation system. New customers are prompted to
enroll in the Marriott loyalty program referred to as ‘Marriott Rewards’ system, whereas
repeat guests are prompted to enter their membership number while making reservation.

Benefits of enrolling into ‘Marriott Rewards’ before one’s stay at hotel: Marriott Rewards
provide the foundation for Marriott’s customer relationship strategy. Marriott Rewards
membership is divided in three different levels - Silver, Gold and Platinum depending upon the
points one has earned through qualifying nights stayed at various Marriott properties. After
getting enrolled to Marriott Rewards, members enjoy several benefits like faster reservation due
to preference remembrance by system and other member exclusive offers. In addition to it,
depending upon the membership level, guests enjoys following benefits-

Silver Benefits – Elite reservation line, exclusive guest service line, silver exclusive elite offers

Gold Benefits – Gold exclusive elite offers along with above mentioned services

Platinum Benefits – Guaranteed room availability (operationally possible since some rooms are
kept unoccupied exclusively for such members), dedicated platinum reservation line and
platinum exclusive elite offers .

Check In:

Marriott provides a smarter way to check in through mobile which simplifies the check in
process. Through a dedicated mobile app, customers can do check in up to 2 hours before arrival,
receive automated notifications when the room is ready, directly go to the mobile check in desks
to collect their keys and can skip the front desk, thus enjoying an enhanced arrival experience.
We came to know that in case of no room availability, guests are referred to the other Marriott
hotel or in some of the cases recommended to other hotels chains also. Further ‘Marriott
Rewards’ members can enjoy ‘priority check-in’ facilities
Stay at the hotel:

For repeat customers, Marriott already has the details and preferences of the customers loaded in
their CRM software. Each Marriott customer can be identified through a unique membership
number which helps the staff to serve their guests with more personalized services. E.g.
information regarding guest’s food preferences, newspaper choice, and drink preferences are
already available with the hotel. Thus repeat guests/members are greeted with personalized
services. Marriott Rewards along with the CRM software helps the hotel chain to capture and
analyses volumes of customer data, because of which Marriott has built up a reputation for
knowing what their customers wants and needs.

While staying at a Marriott property, all needs of the guests are taken care of by the front desk,
referred to as AYS (At your service) i.e. it serves as a one point contact for every need of the
guest. Other facilities available to the guests are 24 hour concierge and room service, laundry,
dry cleaning, catering and banquet services, wireless and internet connection and other services

Business facilities:

Apart from the above mentioned services, Marriott business hotels include meeting rooms at
every floor, conference center with ballrooms, event space and exceptional event menus.

Further depending upon the membership level, guests enjoy the additional services which
include:

Silver Benefits – Discounts at gift shops, weekend discounts, free of charge access to lounge

Gold Benefits – Free internet access, free liquor and light snacks in the lounge, discounted long
distance phone calls

Platinum Benefits – Room up gradation in addition to above mentioned benefits, VVIP

treatment, and birthday/anniversary celebration at hotel

Check out:

At the time of check out, Marriott Rewards points are added to the guest’s account depending
upon the number of room nights stayed. Further, the number of reward points accredited doesn’t
depend upon the type of Marriott property (JW Marriott, Courtyard Marriott, and Fairfield
Marriott). Guests will get the same amount of points for their stay per night irrespective of the
hotel property. Further minimum points required to redeem vary according to the hotel property.
Certain benefits like priority late check outs and bonus on reward points are available to the Gold
and Platinum members. Guests can also avail of their mobile check out facility to save their time.
Guest Satisfaction Surveys (GSS): Marriott takes customer feedback on ongoing basis through
the sophisticated GSS, which is tailored for each brand. Marriott encourages their guests to
provide them feedback through their guest satisfaction surveys in order to evaluate their hotel
and staff by identifying strengths and areas for improvement. If a guest is not able to fill the
feedback during their stay, they are encouraged to fill the same through e-mail after their stay.
Marriott takes the feedback of customers very seriously and always strives to score higher on all
the parameters.

Retaining Customers:

Marriott carries out an extensive set of activities to retain customers once they have visited any
one of their properties:

i) Loyalty programs: Marriott ensures that their gold and platinum customers remain
loyal to them by wishing them on their birthdays/anniversaries through
gifts/vouchers. Further invitation is sent to the members for various events held at
their properties.
ii) Consistent level of service across all the hotel properties: Marriott customers can
rely on Marriott’s level of service, which is same across any Marriott brand
irrespective of location. Customers expect hotel chains to have same information and
provide same level of service which eases their decision making process.
iii) Cross selling additional services: Some Marriott properties provide ‘Personal
planning service’ to their guests which creates personalized vacation itineraries for
guests well in advance of their arrival.

Multichannel Strategy

Marriott offers various channels for making reservation and service provision in its hotel
portfolios. All the reservations are made through its central reservation system. New
customers are prompted to enroll in the Marriott loyalty program referred to as ‘Marriott
Rewards’ system, whereas repeat guests are prompted to enter their membership number
while making reservation.
Following are the multiple channels for reservation and queries (providing services)

1. Marriott website

Marriott International was the clear winner of the ‘Website analysis’ section, but shared
first place with Hilton Hotels in the ‘social presence’ analysis.

However Marriott International is the overall winner when it fought back in the Google
search section ranking particularly high for all five key terms.

2. Mobile

This hotel cleverly directs user to an app that one can navigate to from the mobile site.
This is a great tool to increase potential subscriptions. The design of the mobile site is
streamlined, simple and clean with user-friendly links. Hilton Hotels came in at second
place with 83%. Starwood Hotels was the only hotel that did not have a mobile site, this
meant that the design was not user friendly for those on mobiles and it was difficult to
navigate.

3. Travel Agents

Marriott International Inc. recently announced a new global campaign entitled “Love
Travel Agents,” which it describes as an effort to promote and educate travel leaders and
customers of the important role that travel agents play in the industry. The backbone of
this new campaign relies on virtual tutorials, training sessions, and town hall meetings
between local travel agents and Marriot executives, as the company works to educate its
staff on the needs of agents and how they can improve their interaction.

4. Call Centres

About half of lower level employees are reservations agents. And almost half of the 2,500
employees in the 16 call centers are in Asia. Some of the reservation offices employ only
a handful of people. Marriott said. And the standard is an "absolutely fantastic" 50
percent "conversion rate," he said, which means Hotel agents turn half the incoming calls
into reservations.
 Costs on CRM

Below is the chart of CRM expenditures in different stages of implementation

1. Structured CRM Buying Process

The assumption used for this cost is loosely based on what Marriot charge thier clients for
CRM planning and selection services. Unlike the other assumptions, their charges are not
based on number of users. Rather, they’re based on variables such as number of interviewees,
the number of systems and the number of CRM functional areas to be addressed.

2. Core CRM Subscription Expense

It is an expense of $100 per user per month.

3. Add-on Product Subscription Expense

Is an average expense of $20 per user per month.

4. The Initial CRM Implementation

It is assumed $1,000 per user (for VIP or corporate customers) as the one-time
implementation fee. This is to cover data migration, which can be the most expensive
component of a CRM implementation.

5. Ongoing Administration

It’s not unusual for a company with over 50 CRM users to require a full time administrator.
However, we assumed a part time role.

According to Salary.com, the median salary in the U.S. for a CRM administrator is over
$83,000.We used $40,000 per year as the expense associated with a 50% FTE CRM
administrator.(for serving fifty to hundred users)

6. Post Implementation Modifications

While a trained administrator can handle point and click tasks, Marriot work with a third
party for developer-level tasks such as complex data migration, data integration and
implementing complex business logic.

Software Solutions

FRONT DESK facilities

•Warm welcome

•iPad at reception

•Soothing music and art display

FRONT DESK requirements

•Faster billing

•Reward point accreditation

•Reward point redemption

CRM software system for front desk and office management

Marriot uses SIEBEL CRM SYSTEM that provides:

•Visibility across all the hotel properties

•Driving Marriott Rewards customer loyalty program

•Developing customer itinerary based on request & already stored guest preferences from
past visits

A year into its implementation of Siebel Systems Inc.'s customer-relationship-management

package, Marriott has put the tool in the hands of 2,000 salespeople and events-booking
staffers. If a group is interested in the Manhattan Marriott Marquis, but the property is sold
out, the software helps salespeople cross-sell other Marriott properties.

Marriott also relies on Newmarket International's NetMarketplace sales and catering software
to link the inventory at its hotels into a single database that allows for cross-selling and
centralized account management of business groups and meetings. Competitors Meristar
Hotels and Resorts Inc. and Hilton Hospitality Inc. use the software to offer a unified image
of inventory and lead generation. By using XML-based APIs, companies can link the
software to traditional travel agency supply chains, as well as convention and visitors'
bureaus and meetings-oriented Web sites like PlanSoft.com and Starcite.com, which let
organizers post automated requests for proposals for their group business.

Evaluation of CRM Initiatives (performance indicators)

CRM initiatives are evaluated quarterly at each of their property level in terms of number of
repeat guests and new guests. Further ‘Guest Satisfaction Surveys (GSS)’ are evaluated and
analyzed for each of the property. Parameter rating trends are evaluated for improvement in
services. Feedbacks are provided to each team for improvements. It is the job of individual
departmental head to ensure that their scores are high. Platinum members constitute 15 to
20% of their total guests and contribute nearly 50-60% of their revenues. Thus, their focus
and priority is to retain these members.
Customer Feedback:
Marriot collect customer feedback both from primary and secondary sources for Marriott
Hotels. For primary data they interview various customers at the property itself. Some of the
quotes about their experiences with Marriott that they get from the customers at J.W.
Marriott property are as follows:

“Facilities, room ambience and staff services are just mind blowing, I would recommend this
hotel to everyone in my company to try.” - Businessman from Europe

“Kitchen on the ground floor is a great experience and has a great variety of food except in
wines.” - Samuel, Italy

“They upgraded me to a suite as soon as they arrived which was a nice surprise. The hotel
also has a wide selection of cars if you want to go on business.” - Mike, Platinum Customer

They try to capture customer sentiments through secondary sources and social media to
gauge the effectiveness of CRM initiatives by Marriott.

At Trip Advisor, 140 people reviewed Marriott, Whitefield property and most of them liked
the hotel and the majority of feedbacks were from business travellers, the target set for that
Marriott brand. A snapshot summary of the results is shown below (Captured by phone):

On Social Mention, a free social media monitoring tool the results for Marriott (globally)
were quite encouraging considering the fact happy customers generally do not write much
about the experience. The search results include blogs, microblogs, YouTube and
Facebook mentions.
Results at Social Mention tool:
Strength 3% - It is the likelihood that brand is being discussed in the social media.
Calculation method is phrase mentioned in the last 24 hours divided by the total possible
mentions.

Sentiment 9:1 – It is the ration of the mentions that are generally positive to those that are
generally negative.

Passion 23% - It is the likelihood that individuals talking about the brand will do so
repeatedly.

Reach 39% - It is the measure of the range of influence. It is the number of unique authors
referencing the brand divided by the total number of mentions.

One of the reason for such encouraging numbers lies in the fact that Marriott’s relationship
managers are there on most of the social media and travel advisory sites and they answer the
complaints and queries by the customers immediately and in a courteous manner.

CRM Implementation Challenges:

1) Absence of framework:

Without outlining the goals that have to be determined, the customer relationship
management initiative will be inconsequential as the results it would give won’t be desirable
to the business. The first challenge is to get away with the ambiguity before implementing or
even choosing the customer relationship management vendor. So foremost is to conceive a
business case for the customer relationship management initiative by determining specific
and measurable goals. It can include areas like streamlining sales and marketing and
automation to increase productivity. Also, rolling a phased customer relationship
management implementation will work in the benefit of the company as smaller
implementations are manageable and also results in quick return on investment.

However Marriot mostly uses higher level decision making to solve this issue.

2) Integration going wrong:

When going for a customer relationship management implementation if the different verticals
of a business are not integrated, end result won’t be as expected. Most implementations
require customization for a smooth customer relationship management. Proficient vendors
make for a smooth integration between different functions and also work on providing fixes
to your company specific problems in their next software upgrade.

This problem is seen in some areas at Marriot.

3) Absence of status:

Customer Relationship Management is not a technology solution; it is in fact a business

process change that is supported by technology. If business managers still consider it as a
part of IT, there are bound to be problems.

Some new managers show this attitude at Marriot.

4) Outdated or incorrect data:

Customer Relationship Management process works effectively by analyzing data. All old
and incorrect data have to be cleared post implementation to ensure that the purpose of
customer relationship management implementation is not defeated.

Sometimes data is not well refined at Marriot.

5) Change:

Anything new will face some resistance from employees, as they are pulled out of their
comfort zone. Benefits of customer relationship management implementation have to be
communicated efficiently to employees as failure to do so will result in passive resistance.

Many employees at Marriot have shown resistance to change.

Recommendations:
Based on our understanding of the CRM processes at Marriott, the following are some
suggestions to further reap benefits from the customer relationships developed by Marriott
over time and make use of more opportunities to engage with its customers:

Digital Integration, Push Use of Lower Cost Channels: Social media and mobile
applications are becoming indispensable for hospitality industry. Marriott needs to have an
integrated strategy to tap these mediums for its properties for eg: smartphone controlled room
service, instant feedback, complaints, bookings etc.

Social Media Marketing: Videos and photos are a great way to show – rather than tell –
guests what to expect. Blending this with social media use on sites like Facebook, Instagram
and Pinterest will increase interest in its properties.
Targeted Data & Behaviour-based Differentiation: Marriott currently doesn’t run targeted
marketing campaigns to attract corporate/leisure customers, which is ironic since it has huge
data on customer behavior and preferences.

Pull vs Push Marketing for Individual Customers: Marriott doesn’t initiate any contact
with regular individual customers who have not patronized its service in the last few days,
relying totally on pull from customers. To continue relation with such customers, Marriott
can drop a word occasionally or wish customers on their birthdays, anniversaries etc.

Use Customers for Referrals: Marriott is currently not running any ‘Refer your
friend/colleague’ program for individual customers, which is opportunity lost.

Metrics and RoI Tracking: GSS is the only primary metric used by Marriott at property
level to oversee how CRM is performing. It must adopt the usage of more exhaustive
techniques such as balanced scorecards to understand full impact of CRM and make
modifications as and when necessary.

Conclusion:
We have studied objectives, structure & process of Marriott’s customer relationship strategy,
identified the CRM practices followed by Marriott in various stages of the sales cycle i.e.
pre-purchase stage, purchase stage, usage stage and post-purchase stage and understand the
customer perspective on usefulness of Marriott’s CRM efforts.

Marriott employs various CRM practices like Marriott Rewards, corporate account
management, guest satisfaction surveys and software solutions to deliver fulfilling and
unique experience to its guests. Marriott’s hotel loyalty program serves as the foundation for
company’s customer relationship strategy. It has more than 28 million members worldwide.
This huge database of customers helps the hotel in targeting marketing messages and using
this critical data to predict future business potential. That is the reason Marriot is ranked 4th
best CRM practicing organization.

Supporting document/reference:
Source:
http://www.customerthink.com/article/how_marriott_says_thanks_to_build_customer_loyalt
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