A MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

ON

A study on the Customer Relationship Management in Apple Inc.

Submitted in partial fulfillment of requirement of Bachelor of

Commerce (Hons.) (B.COM (H))

B.COM (H) Semester VI (MORNING)

Batch 2018-2020

Submitted to: Dr. Ruchi Singhal Submitted by: Pallak Sharma

Designation: Associate Professor Enrollment no.: 02514188818

JAGANNATH INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT SCHOOL

KALKAJI
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 STUDENT UNDERTAKING

I, Pallak Sharma, student of commerce from JIMS, Kalkaji hereby declare that I have
completed MAJOR PROJECT REPORT on “A study on the Customer Relationship
Management in Apple Inc.” as a part of the course requirement.

I further declare that the information presented in this project is true and original to the
best of my knowledge.

Pallak Sharma

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 CERTIFICATE BY SUPERVISOR

This is to certify that, PALLAK SHARMA, pursuing B.COM (H) from Jagannath
International Management School, Kalkaji has completed her Major Project Report on “A
study on the Customer Relationship Management in Apple Inc.” on her own. Her
work is up to my satisfaction.

Dr. RUCHI SINGHAL

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Any accomplishment requires the effort of many people and this work is no different.
Racing against time and fast approaching deadlines, the fact that I was able to complete
this project on time would not have been possible without the help and support of many
people. I thank all of them whose patience and support was very instrumental.
I also thank them for making me learn the ethics and culture of the corporate world. The
kind of value addition that I have done to my existing knowledge base is exceptional
and I will cherish all these moments throughout my life. I am fortunate to have had this
opportunity to undertake this project report on the topic “A study on the Customer
Relationship Management in Apple Inc.”
I would like to take this opportunity to еxprеss gratitude to my mentor, MS. RUCHI
SINGHAL for providing me an opportunity to work on this project. Her constant guidance
and support made this work an enriching experience for me.

I would also like to еxprеss my dееp sense of gratitude towards the institute, Jagannath
International Management School for providing me an opportunity and necessary
resources for the successful completion of my project. Along with my family and friends
for providing me with monetary as well as non-monetary support, as and when required.
Their trust and patience is now coming out in form of this.

Last but not the least; I would like to thank all of them who directly or indirectly helped
me in completing the project that will go a long way in my career, this project is
knowledgeable and worth cherishing.

Pallak Sharma

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 CONTENTS

DESCRIPTION PAGE NO.

Student Undertaking 1
Certificate by Supervisor 2
Acknowledgement 3
Contents 4
Executive Summary 5
Introduction to topic 6
Company Profile 31
Objectives 35
Literature review 36
Research Methodology 46
Analysis & Findings 61
Limitations 71
Recommendations and Conclusion 73
Bibliography 79

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The following project is made on the topic –

A study on the Customer Relationship Management in Apple Inc.

In this project, we will get to know about the biggest challenge that the management has
to face in todays globalized world i.e., to serve and maintain good relationship with the
king – the customer. Customers were taken for granted in the past, because they were
not demanding nor had any alternative source of supply. However, today there is a radical
transformation.

The dynamic business environment is characterized by economic liberalization, increase

in competition, high consumer choice, demanding and informed customers, greater
emphasis is given on quality of the product and the value of purchase etc. These changes
have shifted the producer’s from the traditional marketing approach to modern marketing
that involves much more than only developing a product, pricing it, promoting it and
making it accessible to target customer. It requires building trust, a binding force and
value added relationship with the customers. The process of developing a cooperative
and collaborative relationship between the buyer and seller is known as Customer
Relationship Management shortly called CRM.

Thus, through this report I have tried to understand and explain what CRM is all about
and try to study the role CRM plays in making Apple Inc. reach its customers in an more
impactful way and help it grow as a company.

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 INTRODUCTION TO TOPIC

CUSTOMER

A customer is an individual or business that purchases another company's goods or

services. Customers are important because they drive revenues; without them,
businesses cannot continue to exist. All businesses compete with other companies to
attract customers, either by aggressively advertising their products, by lowering prices to
expand their customer bases or by developing unique products and experiences that
customers love.

In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer is the recipient of a good, service,

product or an idea - obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction
or exchange for money or some other valuable consideration.

A customer is a person or company that receives, consumes or buys a product or service

and can choose between different goods and suppliers. The main goal of all commercial
enterprises is to attract customers or clients, and make them purchase what they have
on sale. They also try to encourage them to keep coming back. At the core of marketing
is having a good understanding of what the customer needs and values.

We often refer to customers who have a relationship with the supplier as clients. Also,
people who hire the services of a professional are clients, not customers. For example, a
lawyer has clients.

When a customer buys something, the seller immediately focuses on the next one.
However, with a client, the aim is to cultivate the relationship. In many cases, the client-
supplier relationship becomes similar to a partnership. This does not tend to happen with
customers.

Regardless of what industry you are in or what kinds of products and services you sell, a
customer is the most important part of your business.

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Without the customer, you do not see any sales. As a result, they are a critical factor
when developing your marketing messaging and strategy.

When you have an idea of who they are and what they need, businesses can develop
products and services that are tailored to helping customers solve their problems more
effectively. If you are not creating offerings based on customer needs, you may not be
able to sell them. Knowing who your customers are also helps businesses to develop
highly customized messaging that resonates with their customers. However, businesses
often have many different kinds of customers, so it’s difficult to know whom to specifically
target with their marketing.

Understanding Customers -

Businesses often honor the adage "the customer is always right" because happy
customers are more likely to award repeat business to companies who meet or exceed
their needs. As a result, many companies closely monitor their customer relationships to
solicit feedback on methods to improve product lines. Customers are categorized in
many ways. Most commonly, customers are classified as external or internal. External
customers are dissociated from business operations and are often the parties interested
in purchasing the final goods and services produced by a company. Internal customers
are individuals or businesses integrated into business operations, often existing as
employees or other functional groups within the company. Understanding customers
enables businesses to create effective marketing and advertising campaigns, deliver
products and services that address needs and wants, and retain customers for repeat
business.

Studying Customers -

Businesses frequently study their customers' profiles to fine-tune their marketing

approaches and tailor their inventory to attract the most customers. Customers are often
grouped according to their demographics, such as age, race, gender, ethnicity, income
level, and geographic location, which all may help businesses cultivate a snapshot of the
"ideal customer" or "customer persona."

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This information helps companies deepen existing customer relationships and reach
untapped consumer populations to increase traffic.

Customers are so important that colleges and universities offer consumer behavior
courses dedicated to studying their behavioral patterns, choices, and idiosyncrasies.
They focus on why people buy and use goods and services and how it affects companies
and economies.

Customers vs. Consumers

The terms customer and consumer are nearly synonymous and are often used
interchangeably. However, there exists a slight difference. Consumers are defined as
individuals or businesses that consume or use goods and services. Customers are the
purchasers within the economy that buy goods and services, and they can exist as
consumers or alone as customers. Customers are often also consumers. In other words,
they are often the ultimate users. The terms ‘customers’ and ‘consumers’ mean the same
thing if the person who buys something also consumes or uses it.

Even though the two terms are very similar, there is a basic difference. Customers are
human beings, companies, or entities that purchase goods and services. As soon as
customers consume what they purchased, they are also consumers. For us to class
anybody as a consumer there must be some consumption or usage. Sometimes
customers and consumers are not the same people.

For example, if you buy baby food, you are the customer, but your child is the
consumer. She consumes the food, not you.

Customers, unlike vendors or resellers, are usually (but not always) the end users of any
good or service that they have paid for.

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Customer Service

Customer service is the interaction between the buyer of a product and the company
that sells it. Good customer service is critical to business success, ensuring brand loyalty
one customer at a time.

Customer service, which strives to ensure positive experiences, is key to a successful

seller/customer dynamic. Loyalty in the form of favorable online reviews, referrals, and
future business can be lost or won based on a good or bad customer service experience.
In recent years, customer service has evolved to include real-time interactions via instant
message chats, texting, and other means of communication. The market is saturated with
businesses offering the same or similar products and services.

What distinguishes one from another is customer service, which has become the basis of
competition for most businesses.

Why is Customer Service Important to a Company?

Customer Service has many different roles in a company but the most important role they
have is being an informant for the company and to the company.

Front of House:

Customer Service agents represent the company to prospects and customers alike. The
way they portray the company will help customers in their decision to do business with
the customer. Therefore, agents must be courteous and informative, while also answering
questions correctly.

Defuse Situations:

Customer Service deals mostly with negativity and the need to find a way to turn this into
positivity in order to make the customer happy. Negativity could mean a faulty product or
confusing instructions, but regardless of the issue, the role of customer service is to
calm the customer down and provide information that will please them.

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Customer Oriented = Customer Experience:

When a customer is looking for a product and more than one vendor can provide a high-
quality product at a good price customer service can be the deciding factor. Customer
Service agents that go above and beyond to make a sale possible can be the reason a
customer spends more to buy from that company.

Reputation Management:

Customer Service agents are normally the first to hear about faults in products and can
alert departments to issues before they are even aware of them themselves. This ability
to relay information in real-time can save your business thousands in reputation
management costs as you can fix problems, issue press releases, and pull products off
shelves before things get worse.

Real-Time Reviews:

On the other side of reputation management, customer service departments receive

positive reviews of the business on a daily basis. These reviews can be showcased on
your website, social media, and anywhere else where people can see them. Building a
good communication structure into your business so your customer service department
can provide feedback to the right department quickly is so important to the long-term
success of your business.

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Customer Relationship Management

Every business unit emphasizes on spurting a long-term relationship with customers to

nurture its stability in today’s blooming market. Customer’s expectations are now not only
limited to get best products and services, they also need a face-to-face business in
which they want to receive exactly what they demand and in a quick time.

Customer Relationship Management is an upright concept or strategy to solidify relations

with customers and at the same time reducing cost and enhancing productivity and
profitability in business. An ideal CRM system is a centralized collection all data sources
under an organization and provides an atomistic real time vision of customer information.
A CRM system is vast and significant, but it be can implemented for small business, as
well as large enterprises also as the main goal is to assist the customers efficiently.

Usually an organization consists of various departments, which predominantly have

access to customer’s information either directly or indirectly. A CRM system piles up this
information centrally, examines it and then makes it addressable within all the
departments. This system is not only used to deal with the existing customers but is also
useful in acquiring new customers. The process first starts with identifying a customer
and maintaining all the corresponding details into the CRM system, which is also called
an ‘Opportunity of Business’. The Sales and Field representatives then try getting
business out of these customers by sophistically following up with them and converting
them into a winning deal.

Customer Relationship Management strategies have given a new outlook to all the
suppliers and customers to keep the business going under an estimable relationship by
fulfilling mutual needs of buying and selling. Customer Relationship management is the
strongest and the most efficient approach in maintaining and creating relationships with
customers. Customer relationship management is not only pure business but also ideate
strong personal bonding within people. Development of this type of bonding drives the
business to new levels of success. Once this personal and emotional linkage is built, it is
very easy for any organization to identify the actual needs of customer and help them to
serve them in a better way.

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It is a belief that more the sophisticated strategies involved in implementing the customer
relationship management, the more strong and fruitful is the business. Most of the
organizations have dedicated world-class tools for maintaining CRM systems into their
workplace. Some of the efficient tools used in most of the renowned organization are
BatchBook, Salesforce, Buzzstream, Sugar CRM etc.

Importance of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

 A CRM system consists of a historical view and analysis of all the acquired or to
be acquired customers. This helps in reduced searching, correlating customers,
foresee customer needs effectively and increase business.
 CRM contains each and every bit of details of a customer, hence it is very easy for
track a customer accordingly and can be used to determine which customer can
be profitable and which not.
 In CRM system, customers are grouped according to different aspects according
to the type of business they do or according to physical location and are allocated
to different customer managers often called as account managers. This helps in
focusing and concentrating on each and every customer separately.
 A CRM system is not only used to deal with the existing customers but is also
useful in acquiring new customers. The process first starts with identifying a
customer and maintaining all the corresponding details into the CRM system which
is also called an ‘Opportunity of Business’. The Sales and Field representatives
then try getting business out of these customers by sophistically following up with
them and converting them into a winning deal. All this is very easily and efficiently
done by an integrated CRM system.
 The strongest aspect of Customer Relationship Management is that it is very cost-
effective. The advantage of decently implemented CRM system is that there is very
less need of paper and manual work which requires lesser staff to manage and
lesser resources to deal with.

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  The technologies used in implementing a CRM system are also very cheap and
smooth as compared to the traditional way of business.
 All the details in CRM system is kept centralized which is available anytime on
fingertips. This reduces the process time and increases productivity.
 Efficiently dealing with all the customers and providing them what they actually
need increases the customer satisfaction. This increases the chance of getting
more business that ultimately enhances turnover and profit.
 If the customer is satisfied, they will always be loyal to you and will remain in
business forever resulting in increasing customer base and ultimately enhancing
net growth of business.

In today’s commercial world, practice of dealing with existing customers and thriving
business by getting more customers into loop is predominant and is mere a dilemma.
Installing a CRM system can definitely improve the situation and help in challenging the
new ways of marketing and business in an efficient manner. Hence, in the era of
business every organization should be recommended to have a full-fledged CRM
system to cope up with all the business needs.

Figure 1 – Importance of CRM

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Reasons to use a CRM system –

 Extensive Customer Data

A CRM system will have the whole history of customer trends and habits, even of
those you had acquired before installing the systems. This information is crucial
for the analysis of the wishes and tendencies of each customer. Once you know
this, you will know what to offer them. This will help you acquire more customers
and be ready to serve the freshly acquired and previously acquired customers.
Also, you have a record of your leads and contacts and you can access them
whenever you need. You will never lose these leads.

 Customer Oriented Products

The CRM system will not only have the basic purchase history but all the details
of the customers, so you can even track the purchase details and resources of the
customers. When you analyze the data and know what price category, what
brands, what products, and what time of the year or day the target customers like
to shop, you will be able to present the right thing at the right time to the right
people and you can never go wrong with that.

 To Help you Get Service-Ready

The CRM systems group customers according to their price group preferences,
product preferences, and location. With this information, you can smartly allocate
customer managers or account managers to different areas and equip them with
the required products and teams. This will help you promptly serve every
location.

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 Optimize Conversion Probability

You will also be able to track down the time of the day; each customer is more
likely to visit a site to make a purchase. You will know the festive season or any
time of the year, that is most likely to raise demands of a particular product in a
particular area. Since you know the details of the customer preferences now, you
will not waste time researching and collecting data about what they are looking for.
This way, by the time your rivals figure out what the target audience is looking for,
you will have already presented it to them.

 Retention Of Customers

With CRM, you can gather information from numerous sources including social
media and keep it composed in one spot, so you can utilize it when the need be.
By giving mindful client assistance, reacting to demands auspicious and taking into
account the client needs consistently, a business can improve levels of consumer
loyalty.

 Easy Access Of Data Anywhere

The data on an integrated CRM system is centralized, so that it is available at any

time and to any authorized person on any authorized device whenever needed.
You don’t waste valuable time or a great opportunity waiting for the system to
upload or the data to be extracted. This increases productivity which not only
directly translates into increased sales, but also creates a reputation for your
business.

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 Growing Business Reputation

Talking about reputation, a CRM system helps you with everything so that you can
perform with perfection and promptly, without any delay at all. The brand image
will be brilliant. Customers will look at your company as one of the most efficient
ones in the market. Your team will be the best. It doesn’t matter that most of it will
be due to a software system. The point is, the human employees must know how
to use it right and the business will flourish.

 Boosting Brand Image On Social Media

A loyal customer base is crucial for the success of any business and a steady
CRM system brings to you more customers and shows you how to sustain a
relationship with them and turn them loyal to your brand. They will do mouth
publicity for you over social media platforms in which they are active. Not even
this, the organization can make testimonials of their user and upload on social
media platforms to gain trust from others. So, the CRM system not only helps the
present business and profits but also helps you secure a steady future for your
business.

 Training Employees

A CRM system helps the employees figure out how to go about the customer
relationship management part, so they gain experience in the field while learning
from a software. The system also teaches these human employees how to analyze
important data and which data to focus on. Overall, the system makes your
employees and the management teams more experienced and more efficient
compared to what they were, when you employed them. This way the
performance of each employee will keep improving with every passing day
without any external investment on your part to train him or her.

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 Helps In Reduce Cost

Another important point about why a CRM system is good for you is that it is very
cost-effective. You will obviously wonder how is that even possible when these
tools are actually premium and don’t come cheap either. Well, look at the price
cuts you are getting to make, as your efficiency will increase. Once you understand
how to use CRM according to your needs your daily work will become easy and
will not take much time as well.

 Automation Of Every Day Assigned Task

The best designed CRM system helps in taking away various regular works. There
are various works which are required to be done on a daily basis for smooth
functioning. Works like sending emails, addressing legal issues, taking up calls,
Created reports. After taking off these works off, the representative will work on
closing the leads.

 Increase Coordination Among Multiple Teams

With the help of the CRM system, various teams can access the same information
at one place without any hindrance. For instance, sales team and customer service
team can share the same information for closing the deal more rapidly or even to
satisfy with the after sale service. Each department now can tag the right
individual for that particular information.

 Upliftment of Revenues

It is very important for every employee to understand the concept and need of
CRM. Once it is done the output from, CRM will increase and hence results in
achieving more sales target.

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 You can now increase the additional products and services offerings to clients.
This results in more client satisfaction which was the ultimate objective of yours.

 Fast Sale Conversion

Usually the conversion of sales takes a lot of time and this is where the role of
CRM increases. Sale conversion is a time that company takes for completing a
single sale. It starts from the time when representatives first contact with a lead to
convert that lead to customer.

CRM with a sales team could be very beneficial, as representatives will get information
through the system. Through the sales CRM software, conversion time is reduced and
become quicker.

Benefits of CRM for business organisations

1. Improved customer relations –

One of the most important benefits of using a CRM is obtaining improved customer
satisfaction. By using CRM, all activities involving servicing, marketing, and selling the
products to the customers can be carried out in an organized and systematic manner.
One can also provide better services to customers by better understanding of their
issues/needs and this in turn will help in strengthen customer loyalty and decreasing
customer agitation. In this way, one can also receive continuous feedback from your
customers regarding their products and services. It is also possible that the customers
also recommend the products to other users once he himself is satisfied with the
product and service.

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2. Increase customer revenues -

By using a CRM strategy for the business there will be a sharp increase in the revenue
of the company. Using the data collected, the company will be able to populariz e
marketing campaigns in a more effective way. By using the CRM software, the company
can ensure that the product promotions reach a totally different and brand new set of
customers, and not who had already purchased the products, and thus effectively
increase the customer revenue.

3. Maximize upselling and cross-selling -

A CRM system allows up-selling which means giving customers premium products that
fall in the same category of their purchase. CRM also facilitates cross selling which
means offering complementary products to customers, on the basis of their previous
purchases. This is done by interacting with the customers and getting an idea about
their wants, needs, and patterns of purchase. The details obtained are stored in a
central database, which is accessible by all the executives of the company. So, when an
opportunity is spotted, the executives can promote their products to the customers, thus
maximizing upselling and cross selling.

4. Better internal communication -

Following a CRM strategy helps in building up better communication channel within the
company. The sharing of customer data between different departments will enable the
company to work as a team. CRM will help in increasing the company’s profitability and
enabling better service to the customers.

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5. Optimize marketing -

With the help of CRM, the company will be able to understand the needs and behavior of
the customer, thereby allowing it to identify the correct time to market its product to the
customers. CRM indicates the most profitable customer groups, thus the company can
use this information to target prospective buyers timely. This will help in optimizing the
marketing resources efficiently and will ensure that there is no wastage in time with less
profitable customer groups.

Types of CRM Solutions

CRM solutions can be classified into three broad categories that are as follows –

1. Operational CRM

Primary motivation behind this sort of CRM is to produce leads, convert them into
contacts, catch every single required detail and give administration all through client
lifecycle. Operational CRM streamlines the business process that includes Sales
automation, Marketing automation and Service automation. An operational CRM gives
you a complete view of each customer’s interactions with your company. These sales
CRMs use sales and marketing automation to save you time — and make sure no
contacts or tasks fall through the cracks.

Example: SugarCRM, Salesforce CRM

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Features and Benefits of an Operational CRM –

i. Contact Management

With an operational CRM, you can manage your contacts in a central platform.
There is no need to keep track of leads in your head. Each time a contact interacts
with your company, the CRM automatically updates their contact details. You can
track every interaction and pick up where someone else left off, making sure no
contacts slip out of your funnel.

ii. Lead Scoring

Operational CRMs can automate lead scoring and win probability so that you know
which leads to nurture with automations or a personal touch.
Lead scoring helps you figure out:
o Which leads are the highest priority?
o Who is most likely to become a customer?
o Which leads will spend the most over time?

iii. Sales Team Automation

An operational CRM can stop sales tasks from piling up or getting forgotten.
Automatically assign tasks to your sales team based on customer actions or deal
value.

iv. Marketing Automation

An operational CRM can help you automate how you market to leads and
prospects. You can drop people into email funnels based on the information you
have about them.

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 What information can you use to automate?
o Account size
o Purchase history
o Product/service interest
o Type of organization
o Organization size
o Estimated close time
o Interaction with your sales team
o Interaction with your marketing messages
o Visits to specific pages of your website
o Almost any other info you can collect

If a lead has spoken with a sales rep several times and downloaded content from
your site, they already know who you are. They are known as a “warm” lead.

2. Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM depends on catching, translating, isolating, putting away, changing,
handling, and detailing client-related information. It additionally contains inside business-
wide information, for instance, Sales Data (items, volume, obtaining history), Finance
Data (purchasing history, financial assessment) and Marketing Data (reaction to battle
figures, client dependability plans information). It gives point-by-point investigation and
tweaked reports. An analytical CRM gathers, organizes, and analyzes your customer data
and sales data to help you make better business decisions. This data can include the
average deal cycle, customer retention rates, monthly recurring revenue, and any other
information you collect.

Examples: Pipedrive

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Features and Benefits of an Analytical CRM –

i. Data Mining
An analytical CRM serves as a data warehouse: it stores your data in one central,
organized, easy-to-analyze database. Data mining uses statistical analysis to find
patterns and relationships in your data. One common use of an analytical CRM is
cluster analysis.
With cluster analysis, you can segment your customer list based on:
o Age
o State
o Education level
o Gender
o Marital status
o Past purchases, etc.

This lets you target the right people with the right messages. Other common
analyses include linear, logistic, and multiple regression. Analytical CRMs do the
math for you, so you don’t have to create the world’s most complicated
spreadsheet to identify sales trends.

ii. Cross-sell and Upsell Opportunities

Analytical CRMs give you insight into your customers’ behavior and past
purchases. This gives you the perfect setup for cross-sell and upsell opportunities .
Which customers want to buy which products? An analytical CRM can help you
find patterns in purchase history – so you know exactly which people to target with
upsells and cross-sells.

iii. Buyer Persona Building

When your CRM gathers and analyzes a new piece of customer data, you can
build a more complete view of your customers. Understanding your customers’
wants, needs, and personalities can help you improve your marketing.

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 When you personalize the customer experience with personas, your customers
know you understand them.

iv. Sales Forecasting

Analyzing data on your company’s past sales trends can help you predict future
demand.
What kinds of sales trends are important?
o If sales spike in the summer and dip in the winter, you need to manage
seasonal inventory and staffing
o If some months are historically higher or lower performing, you can
incorporate that information into your sales targets and quotas
o If contracts tend to get signed at the end or beginning of a specific quarter,
you need to know the right time to follow up
o Sales forecasting makes sure that you aren’t surprised by predictable
long term trends.

v. Attribution
Analytical CRMs help you figure out which touchpoints led someone to become a
customer. This helps you figure out where your best customers come from – and
how to sell to them better.
Touchpoints include viewing or clicking on an ad, visiting your website, and any
other interactions a potential customer has with your business.
o First-touch attribution links revenue to a lead’s first interaction with your company
o Last-touch attribution links revenue to a lead’s last interaction with your company
before becoming a customer
o Multi-touch attribution links revenue to more than one touchpoint. An analytical
CRM with multi-touch attribution assigns different weight to each touchpoint across
the buyer journey.

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3. Collaborative CRM
Collaborative CRM is an arrangement of assets and systems between discrete
organizations for distinguishing, securing, creating, holding, and keeping up significant
clients. It is utilised in B2B situation, where numerous organizations can direct about item
advancement, statistical surveying, and advertising mutually. Collaborative CRMs (also
called “strategic CRMs”) share customer information across teams. This includes internal
and external stakeholders, such as other departments, suppliers, vendors, and
distributors. A collaborative CRM focuses more on customer service, customer
satisfaction, and customer retention than customer acquisition.

Features and Benefits of a collaborative CRM –

i. Interaction Management
Like an operational CRM, a collaborative CRM helps keep track of each
interaction a customer has with your business. Every customer-facing team —
sales, support, community management, vendors, and anyone else who so
much as sends an email — has access to a log of customer interactions and
team notes.

When you share notes across teams, you get access to a treasure trove of
information like -
o Feedback from the support team can help you figure out how to sell to
future customers
o Conversations in your communities can help you understand what
new products your customers want
o Notes from sales calls can help you understand what language to put
in your marketing materials

Each team has information about your customers. A collaborative CRM helps
break down silos and share that information across teams.

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 ii. Relationship Management
A collaborative CRM helps you manage relationships with your customers. When
a new customer comes on board, your sales team shares that customer’s
preferences, goals, and any other information on their contact profile. Keep all
teams aligned and up to date before they interact with each customer. This gives
people a better, more personalized experience across the board.

iii. Document management

CRMs with document management systems help keep every document from every
team organized. If your team needs access to a contract, technical documentation,
or proposal, a collaborative CRM can help. You do not have to search through your
desk or pester your finance team to hunt down a pricing agreement — it is all in
one easy-to-navigate place.

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Implementation of CRM
CRM (customer relationship management) implementation is the process of deploying
CRM software for the company to track and manage its communication with current and
potential customers. Businesses go for CRM implementation to get higher sales, more
leads and increased customer satisfaction.

CRM implementation steps are as follows -

#1: Define your strategy

Every successful implementation example in ScienceSoft’s CRM project portfolio started

with building a solid strategy. It includes goals to achieve with CRM, business areas it is
to cover (sales, marketing, customer service), processes it is to support. For instance,
you may start with sales CRM implementation, if getting streamlined and automated sales
processes and improving sales results is your high-priority task. Later on, when the
desired sales KPIs are achieved, you may complement your sales CRM with a marketing
or a customer service solution.

Alternatively, if you’re ready for massive digital transformation and building all-new
business processes in sales, customer service and marketing, you may opt for the at-
once implementation of CRM solutions for all 3 business areas.

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Still, to maximize your implementation value, get increased visibility of customers’ data,
and enable better interdepartmental collaboration, you will need to integrate these
solutions and set up joint workflows. This is hardly a task to manage with your own IT
department, so involving a CRM development team is necessary.

#2: Map out the implementation plan

Creating a project plan implies breaking down the CRM project into manageable stages
with clearly set timelines. Here is a generalized outline of CRM implementation project
phases:

 CRM consulting implies analyzing your existing business needs and defining
CRM solutions that have the functionality to get these needs addressed. Mapping
out necessary customizations and integrations also takes place during this
phase.
 Data cleansing and migration mean checking your business data for accuracy
and completeness and transferring it from legacy CRM or another system (e.g.,
spreadsheets) into a new CRM solution.
 Customization and custom CRM development include tailoring your CRM
solution with point-and-click tools or code means. Customization examples include
automated workflows, custom reports and dashboards, automated mass record
updates, custom apps for internal needs, CRM integration with other systems (e.g.,
ERP, an ecommerce site, DMS).
 Testing is inspecting the CRM system for deficiencies and checking that its
functionality works according to the requirements specification.
 Deployment is rolling out the ready CRM solution to the production environment.
 User training is aimed to increase user adoption through teaching users about
CRM functionality and the ways of its efficient use.
 Post-implementation support may include monitoring CRM’s performance,
addressing system issues, and further tuning of CRM features and processes to
comply with changing business or user needs.

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#3: Assess risks

It is not always possible to envisage every CRM implementation obstacle, but based on
my experience, I can name the most common issues, like:

 Going beyond the time and budget

Even if you know the CRM features you need to introduce and clearly understand
what business processes require automation, it’s hard to get an accurate
estimation of the project’s duration without a technical team’s help. And if your
requirements are changing rapidly, and you have a lot of enhancements to
introduce to each build, the project may easily get off track. Thus, I strongly
recommend determining the project’s scope and timeline with CRM consultants’
help. They will elicit your business requirements, help map them into CRM
features, and provide accurate estimations of each project phase in terms of
working hours. Budget estimations can also be rather tricky since there are a lot of
hidden costs you may miss when calculating your overall spending. Since the
average cost of advanced CRMs is rather impressive (e.g., around $250,000 for
Salesforce implementation), you need to be especially careful with budget
estimates. Remember to include the cost of products (for sales, customer service,
and marketing) and their editions, the number of CRM users, the cost of each
implementation activity (e.g., consulting, customization, etc.) into your estimation.

 Inconvenient CRM that users do not want to use

No matter how rich and useful CRM’s functionality is, if it’s inconvenient for your
employees, they won’t leverage its capabilities to the full. To make CRM user-
friendly and widely adopted, it’s necessary to carry out a survey on the issues
employees had with a previous CRM solution and design a new one with this info
in mind.

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  Steep learning curve
Delivering feature-rich CRM is always a challenge for users who should master all
these features in one go. Since the implementation success largely depends on
user adoption, it’s essential to involve users into the project from the stage of
creating a UI prototype and train them iteratively on every piece of CRM’s
functionality as soon as it’s rolled out. Besides, hiring a dedicated CRM admin,
whom users may come to in case they encounter any technical issue, is a best
practice.

In basic terms CRM system is implemented by following the below mentioned steps:
 Data is collected.
 Data is segmented and stored.
 The data is available to access by authorized people.
 The data helps analyze customer behavior.
 The system offers solutions for efficient Digital Marketing according to the trends
as understood from the data.
 The system offers suggestions to enhance the customer experience to let your
business go that extra mile to impress.

Successful CRM implementation will likely help your business get:

 65% increased sales quota.

 74% better customer relationships.
 27% enhanced customer retention.

However, getting such impressive implementation benefits requires much effort and
investment. Therefore, if you want to apply quick and more effective implementation
practices to your project you can seek professional assistance from CRM experts.

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 COMPANY PROFILE

APPLE INC.

Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino,

California, that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software,
and online services. It is considered one of the Big Five companies in the U.S.
information technology industry, along with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.
It is one of the most popular smartphone and tablet companies in the world.

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976 to
develop and sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer, though Wayne sold his share back
to Jobs and Wozniak within 12 days. It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc., in
January 1977, and sales of its computers, including the Apple II, grew quickly.

Mission and Vision

The core of Apple’s Vision is to provide customers with user-friendly, non-intimidating

technology. It understands the fact that not all users are computer experts and makes the
user comfortable with their interface.

The Mission of the company is to bring the best personal computing experience to all
walks of people – from students to teachers and professionals.

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Operations

Apple relies on the iPhone for 50% of sales, while it’s other hardware products, the Mac
desktop and notebook computers and iPad tablets, account for 10% or less each.
Services, which includes the App Store, iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple Pay mobile
payment, is the second biggest revenue producer, 20% of revenue. The Wearables,
Home and Accessories segment, which include the AppleWatch and HomePod, accounts
for more than 10% of sales.

Apple's hardware products are tightly integrated with the company's software, which helps
its devices work smoothly, but in some ways limits its market reach and can frustrate
users who would like to have access to more third-party products including hardware. The
company's operating systems are iOS for mobile devices, MacOS for computers, Apple
WatchOS for the watch, and iPadOS for the iPad. The company generally releases
generational updates of its operating systems once a year.

Apple outsources substantially all production to contractors located mainly in Asia, while
some Mac components are made in the US and Ireland.

Geographic Reach

Apple, based on Cupertino, California, generates 45% of sales in the Americas, while
Europe and Greater China contribute a quarter of revenue and about 15% of revenue,
respectively. Japan also represents less than 10% of revenue.

The company has facilities and land for corporate functions, R&D, data centers, retail and
other purposes at locations throughout the US and in various places outside the US.

Sales and Marketing

The company sells its products and resells third-party products in most of its major
markets directly to consumers, small and mid-sized businesses, and education,
enterprise and government customers through its own retail stores and website, as well
as through a direct sales force.

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The company also employs a variety of indirect distribution channels, such as third-party
cellular network carriers, wholesalers, retailers and resellers. Direct and indirect channels
accounted for about 35% and more than 65% of Apple's revenue, respectively.

Financial Performance

Apples net revenue has been stable for the last five years after experiencing an increase
in all net sales category except for iPhone which dip to 3% 2020 as well as increase in
reportable segments except in Greater China and Japan which fell for 8% and around 1%
in the latest fiscal year. The weakness in foreign currencies relative to the US dollar had
an unfavorable impact on Greater China net sales during 2020. Net income has also been
stable and consistently climbing in the last five years except in 2019 which fell for about
7%. Total net sales increased 6% or $14.3 billion during 2020 compared to 2019,
primarily driven by higher net sales of Services and Wearables, Home and Accessories
which increased by 25% from the previous year.

The company's net income increased by $2.2 billion to $57.4 million in 2020. The increase
was due to higher sales and lower provision for income taxes.

Cash held by the company at the end of 2020 decreased by $14 billion to $191.8 billion.
Cash provided by operations was $80.7 billion, while cash used for investing and
financing activities were $4.3 billion and $86.8 billion, respectively. Main uses of cash for
2020 were for purchases of marketable securities and repurchased of common stock.

Strategy

The year-over-year growth in R&D expense in 2020 was driven primarily by increases in
headcount-related expenses. The company continues to believe that focused
investments in R&D are critical to its future growth and competitive position in the
marketplace and to the development of new and updated products and services that are
central to the company's core business strategy.

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Because the industries in which the company competes are characterized by rapid
technological advances, the company's ability to compete successfully depends heavily
upon its ability to ensure a continual and timely flow of competitive products, services and
technologies to the marketplace. The company continues to develop new technologies to
enhance existing products and services, and to expand the range of its offerings through
research and development ("R&D"), licensing of intellectual property and acquisition of
third-party businesses and technology.

Company Background

College dropouts Steve Jobs (1955-2011) and Steve Wozniak founded Apple in 1976 in
California's Santa Clara Valley. After Jobs' first sales call brought an order for 50 units,
the duo built the Apple I in his garage and sold it without a monitor, keyboard, or casing.
Demand convinced Jobs there was a distinct market for small computers, and the
company's name (a reference to Jobs' stint on an Oregon farm) and the computer's
user- friendly look and feel set it apart from others. The company's Macintosh made a
splash in the mid-1980s, driven by its Super Bowl commercial in 1984. Apple never
matched the IBM PC in total sales, but it had a cultural cachet and ease-of-use that led
to its foothold in education, publishing, and other creative industries. In the 1990s, a
succession of CEOs tried different strategies to increase sales, including licensing the
company's technology to third parties to produce Apple clones. The strategy never paid
off. Jobs returned in the late '90s as Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy. He slashed
the company's bloated product portfolio and introduced a line of eye-catching Macintos h
computers. Then came the iPod music player, which led to the iPhone, which became
one of the world's most successful products, and the iPad tablet. More than 2 billion
devices running on Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, have been sold. While Android
devices have surpassed iPhone sales, the premium Apple charges for its products have
driven record sales and profitability.

Jobs died in 2011 from pancreatic cancer. His successor, Tim Cook, has run the company
since.

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 OBJECTIVES

 To gain insight on Customer Relationship Management

 To understand and learn how CRM helps and fuels a business to grow
and flourish.

 To learn about the company – APPLE Inc.

 To acquire a knowledge of the CRM strategies and policies used by Apple Inc.

 To know how strategic CRM has helped Apple Inc. to expand its
business worldwide and improve its customer base and relations.

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 LITERATURE REVIEW

Some of the Literature and Articles that were studied while the preparation of this project
report are discussed here:

The expression ‘Customer Relationship Management’ (CRM) has only been in use since
the early 1990s. Since then there have been many attempts to define the domain of CRM.
As a relatively immature business or organizational practice, a consensus has not yet
emerged about what counts as CRM. Even the meaning of the three-letter acronym CRM
is contested. For example, although most people would understand that CRM means
customer relationship management, others have used the acronym to mean customer
relationship marketing.

The Goals of CRM are -

1. Build long-term and profitable relationships with chosen customers.

2. Getting closer to those customers with every point of contact with them.7

CRM is an enterprise-wide approach to understanding and influencing customer behavior

through meaningful communication to improve customer acquisition, customer retention,
customer loyalty and customer profitability. CRM can be viewed as an application of one-
to-one marketing and relationship marketing, responding to an individual customer based
on what the customer says and what else is known about that customer. It is a
management approach that enables organizations to identify, attract and increase
retention of profitable customers by managing relationships with them and further
identifying strategically significant customers. It reflects the comprehensive strategy and
process of acquiring, retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior
value for the company and the customer.

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In the academic community, the terms ‘relationship marketing’ and CRM are often used
interchangeably. The heart of marketing is relationships, and nurturing long-term
relationships should be the goal of marketing practice. Five macro-environmental
factors responsible for the growth of relationship orientation in marketing included the
following:

o Rapid technological advancements, especially in the field of information

technology;

o The adoption of total quality programs by companies;

o The growth of the service economy;

o Organizational development processes leading to the empowerment of individuals

and teams; and

o An increase in competitive intensity leading to concern for customer retention;

o Increased competition reduces brand loyalty, making the job of the marketers
more complex. Further, customers also become indifferent to the myriad
marketing messages being thrust upon them. As a result, marketing needs to be
more well directed and specific, because customers, whether consumers or
businesses, do not want more choices. They want exactly what they want, when,
where and how they want it, and technology now makes it possible for
companies to give it to them.

Customers have hidden or overt preferences that marketers can reveal by building a
learning relationship. Earlier, marketers were attempting to interpret consumer needs on
the basis of their buying behaviors. Now with the arrival of consumer-generated media,
which I discuss in the next section, marketers have another avenue to learn about the
consumer. The objective is to keep the consumers satisfied and keep them loyal toward
the company or brand.
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CRM, which has also been described as ‘information-enabled relationship marketing’,
comprises processes used by organizations to manage consumer relationships, which
also include collecting, storing and analyzing data, and is often termed as data-driven
marketing. CRM attempts to provide a strategic bridge between information technology
and marketing strategies aimed at building long-term relationships and profitability. This
requires ‘information-intensive strategies’.

For decades, businesses tried to determine what their customers wanted using focus
groups that offered feedback about how well customers liked certain products. As the
business world got more complex and markets became more competitive, the kind of
information that could be gleaned from focus groups became inadequate for most
businesses. They did not provide enough information, nor was the information valuable
after a product was already released.

Realizing the limitations of focus groups and similar marketing practices, companies
decided that they needed to know more about who their customers were, how they
interacted with the company and how the company could reach out to customers in a
meaningful way. This idea of getting a ‘360° view’ of customers was a nice concept, but
it was never achievable within the limited spectrum of marketing and communication tools
that were available. This is where interactive marketing had a vital role to play. Marketing
has moved from a transaction-based effort to a conversation, and interactive marketing
can be defined as the ability to address the customer, remember what the customer says
and address the customer again in a way that illustrates that we remember what the
customer has told us. The collaborative web is evolving as a significant interactive
marketing tool and the ability to remember what the customer has said is made easier
when we can collect customer information online and communicate with the customer
easily using the connectivity provided by the Internet.

The posts and reviews help in increasing the organizational brand equity, as the
consumer perception for a product varies and depends a lot on the discussion on these
communities.

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The online communities have more discussions about the competitor's products also and
about new features, which increase the perceived value by stakeholders, which can be
utilized for the growth of the company.

Information technology (IT) companies have tended to use the term CRM to describe the
software applications that automate the marketing, selling and service functions of
businesses. This equates CRM with technology. Although the market for CRM software
is now populated with many players, it started in 1993 when Tom Siebel founded Siebel
Systems Inc. Use of the term CRM can be traced back to that period. Forrester, the
technology research organization, estimates that worldwide spending on CRM
technologies will reach US$11 billion per annum by 2010. Others with a managerial rather
than technological emphasis claim that CRM is a disciplined approach to developing and
maintaining profitable customer relationships, and that technology may or may not have
a role.

However, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a very important growing

business practice in today's environment. It is used for managing the interaction between
a company and its future and current customers. CRM approach's task is analyzing data
about the history of customers with a company. It focuses on a way to retain customers;
therefore, it helps the growth of sales. This leads to improvement of company's business
relationship with customers.

Current study's goal is to determine how technology, organizational capability, customer

orientation, and customer knowledge management influence CRM success. We try to
see that how the performance of an organization is affected by the achievement of CRM.
For testing the hypotheses, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-
SEM) was adopted. Results have indicated that the success of CRM is highly influenced
through “information technology use”, also “customer orientation”, “organizational
capability”, and “customer knowledge management” are related to CRM success.

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There are a number of problems faced by the company can make a bad company
image and reduced levels of consumer loyalty. To avoid harming the image of the
company then the company must focus on service to consumers. Service to consumers
is very important in increasing the satisfaction of its customers, due to the company
customers is the most important asset in which consumers provide and it is significant in
the development of the company's reputation. The results of this study that the role of
customer service through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to improve
customer loyalty and good image. Many things need to be identified by the company.
Acquire namely customer service; categorize consumers based on contributions made
to the company as the number of consumer income, transactions regularly and duration
become consumers.
Therefore, the image of the company should be kept positive because it will have a
positive impact also for the company.

Around the world, business owners are doing whatever they can to remain relevant and
serve the customers better and efficiently. Customers are the main priority in any
business. Business owners are paying attention to customer relationship management
as well as their strategy to improve their overall organisational performance. The outcome
of the research showed that price is a factor that helps customers to make their decision
in terms of brand patronage. Creating good customer relationship helps brand to stay in
business long term. Companies are paying more attention to being cost efficient and
produce goods and services which are different, valuable but are customer oriented.
Some companies sell experience for a premium price while others are price friendly.
At the end of the day, it depends on what the products does for the end user.
Prior to the recent growth in social media, that created an even stronger paradigm shift
focus onto customer importance in this triangular relationship, a concept known as
Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, was emerging in importance. CRM grew
primarily because many marketing studies were determining it costs less to keep long-
term customers than it does to constantly obtain new ones. Additionally, a company that
has a successful relationship-marketing program, Apple, is examined.

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The study highlights how Apple has created effective customer service training to
enhance the customer’s experience. Apple’s success in using positive word of mouth
advertising instead of large, expensive advertising campaigns is also examined.

Apple’s company values include:

 Accessibility
Apple believes that technology should be accessible for everyone, and have made
adaptions to their products in order to make that belief a reality. The Apple Watch
for example, has fitness algorithms for wheelchair users, so instead of steps, the
Workout and Activity apps track pushes. The Switch Control on Mac lets
consumers use switches, a joystick, or other adaptive devices to control what is on
the screen. Live Listen on iPhone, lets consumers use iPhone specific hearing aids
and their iPhone to hear more clearly in loud places. VoiceOver on iPhone can
describe what is on the screen and say it aloud, and Speak Screen on iPad can
read text aloud from books, webpages, or homework assignments.

 Education
Apple believes that putting Apple products in a classroom creates unique
opportunities for personal learning and wants to give everyone the opportunity to
code. Apple joined President Obama’s ConnectED initiative and pledged $100
million for teaching and learning solutions to 114 schools across the 15 country.
Apple donated an iPad to every student, a Mac and iPad to every teacher, and an
Apple TV to every classroom.
Apple also implemented a program that provides planning, professional learning,
and ongoing guidance so every school can experience the power of technology.
In addition to joining forces with ConnectED, Apple provides teachers with tips,
lesson materials, stories and other resources through their website. Apple believes
that everyone should have the knowledge of coding and created Swift Playgrounds
and other learning materials to teach everyone how to code and bring their ideas
to life.

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 Environment
Apple believes, “Our planet deserves our best thinking,” and takes the same
approach to the environment that they do with their products. Ninety-three percent
of all Apple’s facilities worldwide run on renewable energy, and in 23 countries,
including the United States, United Kingdom, China, and Australia, facilities are
running on 100% renewable energy. Apple has decreased carbon emissions per
product every year since 2011, but is always trying to improve. 77% percent of
Apple’s carbon footprint is from the electricity it uses in their supply chain for
manufacturing. Apple created a Clean Energy Program to collaborate with
suppliers for cleaner energy practices. A plant in China, for example, will be
starting a 170-megawatt solar project to offset manufacturing emissions. Apple
Renew is another program that Apple has started, and is used to inspire individuals
to be more environmentally friendly. It is a global program that lets people bring
used Apple devices to any Apple Store for reuse or responsible recycling. This has
kept more than 597 million pounds of equipment out of landfills since 1994. The
Apple Clean Water Program helps facilities reduce water usage and prevent
water pollution in the supply chain. So far, Clean Water Program has helped 73
facilities increase their reuse and recycling of treated wastewater and has saved
3.8 billion gallons of water. Apple is always looking for ways to make packaging
smaller, and use recycled paper whenever they can. When using virgin paper in
packaging, Apple requires suppliers to source their paper from sustainably
managed forests or controlled wood sources.
Apple collaborates with The Conservation Fund and has protected 36,000 acres
of sustainable forests in the Eastern United States. Efforts are also being made to
ensure responsible forest management in China. A Full Material Disclosure
program was created to identify all the substances used in the parts of Apple
products. After identifying harmful toxins, Apple reduces, removes, or develops
new safer materials.

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 Inclusion and Diversity
Apple believes the most innovative company must also be the most diverse, and
that Apple should be a reflection of the world around us. Vice President of
Worldwide Human Resources, Denise Young Smith says, “Diversity is more than
any one gender, race, or ethnicity. It’s richly representative of all people, all
backgrounds, and all perspectives. It is the entire human experience.” The
following are statistics of Apple’s employee diversity. It is important to note that
Apple identifies “new hires” as, employees hired during the twelve-month period
ending in June of each year, and “United States underrepresented minorities”
(URMs) as, groups whose representation in tech has been historically low Black,
Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander. Globally,
Apple has 37% new female hires, compared to 32% global current female hires
and 68% global current male hires. In regards to United States URMs, Apple has
27% new hires, compared to 22% current hires. When looking at ethnicities in the
United States, 54% of all new hires are minorities. Breaking down ethnicities
further, 46% of new hires are White, while 56% of current employees are White;
24% of new hires are Asian, while 19% of current employees are Asian; 13% of
new hires are Black, while 9% of current employees are Black; 13% of new hires
are Hispanic, while 12% of current employees are Hispanic; 4% of new hires are
multiracial, while 2% of current employees are multiracial; 1% of new hires and
current employees are listed as other. Apple has achieved equal pay in the United
States for similar roles and performance. Women earn one dollar for every dollar
male employees earn and underrepresented minorities earn one dollar for every
dollar white employees earn.

 Privacy
Security and privacy are fundamental to the design of all Apple’s hardware,
software, and services. Every Apple product is designed around the principles to
tell consumers up front exactly what is going to happen to their personal
information and asking for permission before they share it.

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 If a consumer changes their mind later, they have the opportunity to stop sharing
information with the company. Apple asks for users’ data to provide them with a
better experience, for example, when using Maps to locate a restaurant or Apple
Music to discover a new artist. Apple protects data with SSL and TLS in Safari,
and FileVault on Mac –an encryption that is built into iOS. Apple also does not sell
users data. Apple has given developers tools such as Touch ID APIs, 256-bit
encryption, and app transport security so they can build secure apps. Apple also
requires developers to ask for permission before accessing personal information
like photos and contacts.

 Supplier Responsibility
Apple sets high standards, but helps their suppliers meet them. Apple created the
Supplier Code of Conduct, which outlines their standards for creating safer working
conditions, treating workers fairly, and using environmentally responsible
practices. It is one of the strictest in the industry and requires practices above local
law. To comply with the Supplier Code of Conduct, all suppliers must meet the
requirements of the Supplier Responsibility Standards that details the criteria to
meet regardless of local laws, company policies, cultural norms, and business
practices around the world. Apple does not tolerate bonded labor or underage
labor in the supply chain. If they discover cases of bonded labor, Apple makes
suppliers repay employees the full recruitment fees. This has resulted in over
$25.6 million repaid to workers since 2008, including $4.7 million in 2015 alone.
Regarding underage labor, if Apple finds underage workers in suppliers factories,
they make the suppliers return the workers to their homes, pay for their education
at a school of their family’s choice, and continue to provide income for basic needs
until they reach the legal working age.
After the workers complete their education, suppliers must offer them
reemployment. Across the supply chain, Apple limits work to no more than 60
hours a week with a mandatory day off every seven days. They use a work-hour
tracking tool and weekly reporting, which allows them to achieve 97% compliance
across all workweeks.

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 Apple is committed to responsible sourcing, and is working to ensure that minerals
used in their products do not create conflict. Suppliers must follow a Conflict
Mineral Standard, supplementary to the Suppliers Code of Conduct to help
improve responsible sourcing. In 2013, Apple established the EHS Academy to
address the shortage of environment, health, and safety expertise by educating
local managers on issues of environmental protection and air pollution, water and
chemical management, and safety equipment. Apple is also helping suppliers
develop comprehensive emergency preparedness systems to protect workers in
the event of a fire, earthquake, explosion, or other natural or job related incident.
In 2015, Apple partnered with 3M to host workshops at supplier facilities to teach
the proper way to fit and wear protective equipment.

Apple’s values as well as principles of business conduct define the way they do business.
In addition to the values of accessibility, education, environment, inclusion and diversity,
privacy, and supplier responsibility, the principles of business conduct that Apple follows
are honesty, respect, confidentiality, and compliance.

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 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Methodology provides information about the manner in which research has
been carried out. Research Methodology describes the procedure followed by the
researcher. Research Methodology is a systematic way to solve the research problem. It
deals with all the necessary steps that a researcher has to take to carry out the
research or steps taken towards problem solving.

Research design can be divided into two groups:

 Exploratory and Conclusive

1. Exploratory Research Design, as the name implies, intends merely to explore the
research questions and does not intend to offer final and conclusive solutions to existing
problems. This type of research is usually conducted to study a problem that has not been
clearly defined yet. Conducted in order to determine the nature of the problem,
exploratory research is not intended to provide conclusive evidence, but helps us to have
a better understanding of the problem. When conducting exploratory research, the
researcher ought to be willing to change his/her direction as a result of revelation of new
data and new insights. Exploratory research design does not aim to provide the final and
conclusive answers to the research questions, but merely explores the research topic
with varying levels of depth. It has been noted that “exploratory research is the initial
research, which forms the basis of more conclusive research. It can even help in
determining the research design, sampling methodology and data collection method”

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2. Conclusive Research Design, as the name implies, is applied to generate findings
that are practically useful in reaching conclusions or decision-making. In this type of
studies research objectives and data requirements need to be clearly defined.

Findings of conclusive studies usually have specific uses. Conclusive research design
provides a way to verify and quantify findings of exploratory studies. Conclusive research
design usually involves the application of quantitative methods of data collection and data
analysis. Moreover, conclusive studies tend to be deductive in nature and research
objectives in these types of studies are achieved via testing hypotheses.

Conclusive research design can be divided into two categories:

 Descriptive Research

It can be explained as a statement of affairs as they are at present with the

researcher having no control over variable. Moreover, “descriptive studies may be
characterised as simply the attempt to determine, describe or identify what is, while
analytical research attempts to establish why it is that way or how it came to be”.
Descriptive studies are closely associated with observational studies, but they are
not limited with observation data collection method. Case studies and surveys can
also be specified as popular data collection methods used with descriptive
studies.

 Causal Research

Casual research also known as explanatory research is conducted in order to

identify the extent and nature of cause-and-effect relationships. Causal research
can be conducted in order to assess impacts of specific changes on existing
norms, various processes etc. Causal studies focus on an analysis of a situation
or a specific problem to explain the patterns of relationships between variables .
Experiments are the most popular primary data collection methods in studies with
causal research design.

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Every research is based on sound facts and data that are collected data by the
researcher. The kind of data collected, and the methods used to collect the data has a
very important aspect of the research. There are two basic means of collection of data
as follow:

• Primary data • Secondary data

1. PRIMARY DATA

Primary data is to be collected by the concerned project researcher with relevance to

his problem. Therefore, the primary data is original in nature and is collected first hand.

Collection of primary data -

There are several methods of collecting primary data particularly in surveys and
descriptive researches. Important ones are as follows:

1. Observation Method

2. Interview Method

3. Questionnaire

4. Schedules

5. Other methods are mentioned below:

1) OBSERVATION METHOD

It is the most commonly used methods especially in studies relating to behavioral

sciences. This method implies the collection of information by way of investigators own
observation, without interviewing the respondents. The information obtained relates to
what is currently happening and is not complicated by either the past behavior or future
intentions or attitudes of respondents.

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2) INTERVIEW METHOD

The interview method of collecting data involves presentation of oral, verbal stimuli and
reply in terms of oral-verbal responses.

This method can be used through personal interview and if possible, through telephone
interview-

• Personal Interview

The method of collecting information through personal interview is usually carried out in
a structured way. As such, we call these interviews as structured interviews. Such
interviews involve the use of a set of predetermined questions and of highly standardized
techniques of recording. Thus, the interviewer in a structured interview follows a rigid
procedure laid down, asking questions in a given format and the order prescribed. As
against it, the unstructured interviews are characterized by flexibility of approach to
questioning. Unstructured interviews do not follow a system of pre-determined questions
and standardized techniques of recording information.

• Telephonic Interview

Telephone interviews are often conducted by employers in the initial interview round of
the hiring process, this type of interview allows an employer to screen candidates on the
candidate's experience, qualifications, and salary expectations pertaining to the position
and the company. The telephone interview saves the employers' time and eliminates
candidates that are unlikely to meet the company’s expectations. Employers tend to
perform telephone interviews as a structured interview. The questions are custom tailored
to meet the position in question. With the telephone interview there may not be direct
contact between the employer and employee, however, the expectations are still there.
Telephone interviews are scheduled and questions are generally prepared in advance,
similar to the way other interviews are conducted. Another common reason a company
looks to the telephone interview is that these interviews can be conducted on the fly. The
interviewer does not have to assign company resources to the phone interview.

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It is a cost-effective method to short-list candidates for the position being interviewed
for. The telephone interview allows both interviewee and interviewer to be in a more
relaxed state. The interviewer can use the relaxed state to better gauge the interviewee,
and notice things that may be disguised during the more formal interview process.

3) QUESTIONNAIRE

The researcher and the respondents are exposed to each other if this method of survey
is adopted. Questionnaires are mailed to the respondents with a request to return after
completing the same. It is the most extensively used method in various economic and
business surveys & research. Questionnaire to be used must be prepared very carefully
so that it may prove to be effective in collecting the relevant information.

2. SECONDARY DATA

Secondary data refers to that data which is already in existence and someone has
obtained for specific purpose but reutilize by the researcher. The said research work is
based on the secondary Data of Pasithia Hospitality Private Limited. Under the secondary
data, the company’s website, broachers, pamphlets, newspapers, journals and internet
were taken into consideration.

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TOOLS & TECHNIQUES

The study of the company, Apple Inc. on its customer relationship management has been
examined on the basis of personal experience and only secondary data has been used
for this project. The approach of Netnography is used for this project.

Furthermore, a comparative study was done between two leading brands of the same
industry was done. During my research, I gathered information about the workings of the
companies and the industries to which they belong.

Netnography

Netnography is a new qualitative, interpretive research methodology that uses Internet -

optimized ethnographic research techniques to study the online communities. With the
help of Netnography, research can be done by either actively integrating the members of
the community or passively monitoring the community and integrating the gathered
information, knowledge and ideas into the new product development process.

Significance of the methodology

One of the main benefits of this methodology is the possibility to access unfiltered,
unbiased information from very experienced and highly involved users, owing to the huge
amount of conversations and the vivid online dialogue regarding consumer products
marketing and innovation. Managers are able to obtain deep insights into the everyday
problems experienced by consumers and their solutions to those problems.

One of the main expectations of this new technique of research methodology is to utilize
a huge number of consumer statements for qualitative analysis, to get unobtrusive and
unbiased original consumer statements and to get access to specialized user groups.

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Procedure

The following steps and procedures are included in a typical Netnography Research.

1. Definition of Research field:

It includes the definition of the field of innovation, as well as the systemization of topics,
trends, markets and products, which are of major interest. The operating result of the
first step is an extensive mind map that contains a classification and structured set of
topics, which are used as a starting point to define search strategies for the
identification of adequate online sources.

2. Identification and Selection of Online Communities:

The aim of the second step of Netnography is to identify communities and Internet
sources where users exchange relevant information on the defined research area. For
this purpose, general online search engines, meta-search engines and specific online
search engines that focus on blogs, groups, communities are used. Having identified and
sighted often a couple of 100 relevant online sources for Netnography, the researcher
has now to select the communities that can be probed in for further in-depth analysis.
There exist a number of appropriate and well-proven qualitative and quantitative criteria
that support the researcher in the selection procedure. Qualitative criteria include, for
example ‘topic focus’, ‘data quality’, ‘language type’, ‘interaction type’, ‘profile editing’.
Quantitative criteria include criteria such as ‘number of messages’, ‘frequency of usage’,
‘member activity’, ‘data quantity’ or ‘interaction level’.

3. Community Observation and Data Collection:

In this step, the researcher who immerses in the community observes the selected
online communities. This is accomplished by extensive reading with focus on
conversations that are recent, extensively corresponded to, referenced and frequently
viewed from the community members.

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Although before the emergence of the Internet it was necessary for the researcher to
participate in the considered group, currently Netnography enables observation and
analysis of the consumer communication without active participation. Hence, the
approach is a way to unobtrusively study the nature and behavior of online consumer
groups. The analysis is conducted in the natural context of the community and thus is
free from the bias, which may arise through the involvement of the researcher or
experimental research setting.

4. Data Analysis and Aggregation of Consumer Insights:

The ‘thinking’ about the ‘noticed’ and ‘collected’ online consumer statements is part of the
fourth step of Netnography.

In this step, the aim is to look for patterns and relationships within and across the
collections of consumer statements and to make general discoveries about the subject
matter of research. Therefore, the researcher compares and contrasts the collected
consumer records in order to discover similarities and differences build typologies or find
sequences.

5. Community Insights Translation into Product and Service Solutions:

The Netnography process typically does not end with the generation of insights. A major
challenge is to transfer the obtained insights into innovative product and service solutions.
The implications of the results could be for product, brand, target group, as well for the
process of communication, for example source for product innovations and product
modifications and development of consumer-oriented communication strategies.

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COMPARITIVE STUDY

Customer Relationship Marketing: Apple Vs Samsung

About Samsung

Samsung is a multinational corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South

Korea. Founded in 1969, Samsung Electronics has grown into a global in- formation
technology leader, managing more than 200 subsidiaries around the world. The
company’s offerings include home appliances such as TVs, monitors, printers,
refrigerators, and washing machines as well as key mobile telecommunications products
like smart- phones and tablet PCs. Leading the Global Market with Cutting-edge
Technology & Quality Products Samsung Electronics sold more than 406 million mobile
phones in 2012, securing a position as the global market leader with an overall share of
23.4%. Samsung aims to create a new future that positively impacts the entire global
community.

Apple and Samsung: Marketing performance

Launched on June 29 2007, the first IPhone with biggest screen, hidden keyboard and
especially touching screen, Apple has been a pioneer in providing customers a very
unique product that customers want at the initial time when customers did not have much
concept of the smartphone. As reported by The NewYork Time, an Iphone is extending
steadily beyond the computer into the broader realm of consumer electronics and digitally
connected lifestyles and in the longer-term, the device probably will instigate a process
of innovation and diversification. At the beginning, Apple aimed to create an “I-lifestyle”
for their customers through premium products based on iOS platform. Up to now, Apple
focuses on developing and maintaining customer relationship and increasing customer
commitment in order to retain the customer’s loyalty.

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Two main reasons lead to the success of Apple to increase the customer loyalty are:

 Satisfying customers want by product quality

 Building long-term relationship through customer experience.

Satisfying customer’s want by focusing on quality

Google strategy is focus on the quantity, which mean the more device run android the
better. Google cooperates with other mobile phone manufactures such as Samsung, HTC
and Sony in order to install the Android platform on those devices. On the other hand,
Apple does not focus on the number of the devices on the market, Jonathan Ive once
said “for apple it’s quality not quantity”. According to New FixYa report, IPhone is
considered 3 times more reliability compare to Samsung. The main reason comes from
the application approval process of Apple and Android. Android strategy is to get users
installed as much as device possible so this process is much easier. According to John
Mitchell, there is no need to get approval by the Marketplace, once the developer clicks
submit button the application will be uploaded on the store. On the other hand, to publish
an application on AppStore, developers must follow guideline of Apple. In addition, the
application must be tested and approved individually by Apple. By ensuring the
consistency and quality check of all applications upload to Appstore, Apple is able to
provide to customer the quality product with stability, be free of malware (Sophos). Other
manufactures usually develop the product base on the market research to know what
customer want, then providing a product can satisfy it. In contrast, Apple not only relies
on focus group but also the internal team. Steve Jobs asks his engineer who creates
the product have to want it themselves – Tim Bajarin (2012). At the end of the day, they
bring the satisfaction to their customers.

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Satisfaction Rating Based Upon Mobile Operating System

Other technology company‘s project goal is based around the technology first, which
mean that they will provide to the consumer a device that their technology can make at
the time. Meanwhile Steve Jobs knew that in order to satisfy customer’s wants, he must
go beyond the customer’s need that the reason Apple introduces the first IPhone with
touch screen can be used with finger. Before Ipad was released, people wrote an email,
browse Internet to enjoy photographs, video and books on their computer. They need a
device that can perform those entire tasks well but Steve provided a device also perform
those task perfectly with ultra-portable. With the “Beyond the need” vision apple has
created the product that satisfy the customer want.

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Building long-term relationship through value customer experiences

The second reason is that Apple retains long-term relationship with their customers by
customer’s experience. Steve Jobs once said “how does somebody know what they want
if they haven’t seen it”. The book “The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely
Great Customer Loyalty” written by Carmine Gallo (2012) mention the reason of Apple’s
customer loyalty is come from “enrich live” vision when customers being at Apple store.
Apple doesn’t want to make customer to buy the product, unless they understand and
love that product. This is the reason why Apple store is built as a place that customer
can come and experience the products.

The Apple store employees’ primary goal is to make sure every customer has a magical
and memorable experience, whether or not they make a purchase. Apple employees
need to advise customers how the apple product can bring more benefit and enrich their
live. Not only enrich customer live through “don’t sell stuff” concept, Apple also
empowering customers. During the time at Apple store, the customers will be encouraged
to touch and experience products by themselves. The objective is to unleash their inner
genius, because Steve Jobs believes that every Apple consumer has creative spirit, and
Apple responsibility is to provide tools for them to change out the world.

When the customer join one to one program, they will be trained by Creatives personally
in order to edit and use Apple devices and actually do the task with in the control
experience. Apple likes to say that people come to shop but they return to learn.

“Apple store is fun” – Apple creates a place that customers feel so welcome and
comfortable that they can freely to express themselves. People come to the store not only
for the product, but also for what they love, Michael a famous dancer at Apple store, said.
Michael thinks that Apple store is a cool place that he can come to enjoy products and
dance while customers in store look at him. The most interesting things is Apple
employees don’t stop him and sometime they also join to the show. Up to now, there
are about 255,000 videos dancing at Apple Store uploaded to YouTube.

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Apple has owned retail stores. Apple had been very careful about how people buy their
products and experience Apple product. Since Apple owns their own retail experiences,
they get a chance to create direct conversations with their potential. This helps Apple to
find out exactly current needs of their customers and forecast future needs and how their
products can help them to solve current and future problems.

Unlike Apple, Samsung approaches their customers by innovative product with a broad
range of smartphones in different shapes, sizes and operating systems. By developing
the S Pen to launch the Air Command features like Action Memo, which gives you the
ability to jot down a name and number and instantly turn it into a new contact, this
application brings more easy for customers who are Asian can write down the note by
their languages. Alternatively, Screen Write that lets you draws directly on the screen to
add a note to a map or highlight a passage in an email. Additional, Android platform which
allows application’s developer to put their application on that will bring to users more
convenience. Samsung has been carrying out many marketing strategies to increasing
its sales volume. Therefore, Samsung has developed many products targeting many
different customer segments, different income levels to make sure that their customers
easily find out the product that can fix their needs.

Samsung has a wide coverage from Samsung shop, online websites, mobile center,
electronics shopping center to other mobile phones retail stores that bring more
convenience to customer. Samsung brand shop is where its product are showcased.
Customers can be consulted and guided on Samsung products about their functions and
ways to use them. These locations can also support customer in setting up and
updating software; repairing customer’s products.

In term of pricing strategy, by building customer experience, Apple makes them feel I-
products have been tailored for themselves. Once set up, it will look like a custom iPhone
app developed exclusively for your business. Apple’s customers know the benefit of Apple
brand so they are willing to pay for a premium product, which brings them to a premium
and asserting lifestyle. Apple has set a higher product price and the company does not
give any promotion, especially on Black Friday in US and recently, Red Friday in some
Asian countries.

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On the other hand, Samsung often offers consumers a very attractive price. With similar
product’s functions, Samsung product’s price is always lower from 10-15% compare with
Apple. Samsung has used its internal resources and applied into their production system,
this will help to cut down the production cost and bringing more choice for consumers.
Decreasing cost is another strategy of Samsung in offering to customers. This term
applied for both consumers and distributors which catch customer attention and action,
therefor it will help to increase sales volume. Samsung has offered customer with
attractive pricing strategies and a rank of product’s choice, however, Apple’s product is
always what customers waiting. Apple products are always receiving a higher sales
volume than Samsung.

Apple has done a good job which create highest customer loyalty by making them
satisfied even Apple has only one product – IPhone and in general, a bit higher price
compared with Samsung.

Regarding communication, Samsung’s strategy are attracting customer by introducing

its product features; guiding consumers how to use product better. Besides, they also
have other campaigns, which focus on promotion, cooperating with networking providers ,
distributors to reduce the cost or buy phone and get its accessories. Samsung has
invested a lot of money in creating advertising’s visual and TVC, which can show the
interesting of customer towards Samsung products.

On the other hand, with customer – oriented marketing strategy, it’s not difficult to
realize that Apple applies consistently this strategy on communication. Apple always
communicates in the language of audience: It makes no sense to talk about things like
megabytes, gigahertz, and processing power to customers. If you look at any Apple
product page and you’ll find that though they do discuss product specifications and
technical information, it’s hidden behind the benefits that their audience is truly after.
Instead of display resolution, you’ll see phrases like “edge to edge glass,” “retina display,”
and “LED backlighting.” You also see the same things on media such as TVC, Print ad.

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Moreover, they focus on expanding the experience through communication channel.
Moreover, experience will be a core to create WOM (Word of Mouth). AdMob’s January
data illustrates the power of word-of-mouth marketing for Apple. 91% interviewees
recommend Iphone for their friends and colleagues. One interesting of TV channel is
beside 7-minute video Apple posted to their YouTube channel, Apple did not run any
other advertisements on television or otherwise, this show effective earn-media campaign
and attraction of brand as well.

Brand Reputation: Measuring six dimensions of which the factors are: Social
Responsibility, Emotional Appeal, Financial Performance, Products & Services, Vision &
Leadership, and Workplace Environment that comprise reputation and influence
consumer behavior.

Beside that, the retention rate of Apple is higher than Samsung at 42% for Apple and 38%
for Samsung. This retention rate indicates loyalty of customers. Regarding to brand
reputation index, Apple emerged with the highest overall score (85.6) in 2011 and 85.62
in 2012. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) data on mobile phone
satisfaction 2013 show Apple (iPhone) comes out on top, as it does in the JD Power
surveys. ACSI asked 10 questions on the overall phone experience that looked at how
customers view functions including ease of making and receiving calls, battery life, OS
and software, design, audio and video quality, and navigation of menus and settings. The
result of JD Power was performed between February and August 2013 and measures
customer satisfaction in four factors: performance (33%); physical design (23%); features
(22%); and ease of operation (22%).

Apple is in the experience business – they enhance your life with information and
entertainment and empower you at work. Apple is the ultimate lifestyle brand with a strong
emotional connection between company and customer. Every year when Apple
introduces a new iPhone or iPad, throngs of faithful fans start forming lines outside Apple
stores. This isn’t about the product. This is about the brand. Apple’s brand is so powerful,
so attractive, and so compelling, that people want to attach themselves to it, or attach the
brand to them. They want to be identified with Apple and what Apple represents: good
taste; sophisticated design; stylist image; premium feeling.

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 ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

In most cases, when people talk about CRM, they are referring to a CRM system — a
tool aimed at helping companies with sales, marketing and service management. CRM
software allows businesses to focus on their company’s relationships with customers,
colleagues, suppliers, etc. With a professional CRM in place, it becomes much easier to
find new customers, win their trust, provide qualified support, and provide additional
services throughout the relationship. The best part about a CRM system is that almost
any organizational unit can benefit from it — from sales and customer service to recruiting,
marketing, and business development. Good CRM software gives a better way to manage
external relationships. Storing all customer information in one place, recording service
issues, identifying sales opportunities, managing marketing campaigns - these are just a
few capabilities that CRM features. Since CRM provides easy access to data, it also
becomes much easier for users to collaborate on different processes and increase
productivity. Another strong argument in favor of CRM is that it is suitable for businesses
of any size.

CRM solutions include functionalities that allow users to track customer and company
interactions through various available channels. These channels include contact forms,
emails, phone calls, and more.

CRM software provides sales and marketing teams with a set of tools to manage the
entire sales and marketing funnel, from lead qualification to opportunity management,
forecasting, and deal closure. It enables customer service teams to manage customer
requests and automate service operations by following pre- defined processes for
customer care excellence.

CRM systems are packed with tracking features that record numerous customer
interactions online. In addition, CRM automates routine processes and provides
managers with tools that allow for the tracking and measuring of the company’s
performance and productivity.

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For example, CRM software can remind you of tasks that you need to complete at a
given time. You can make it perform pre-scheduled activities like sending emails and
initiating phone calls.

Everything done with the CRM is recorded, giving you enough time to make better action
plans to close any potential sale. Some CRMs also offer analytics capabilities, allowing
users to track the efficiency of various marketing efforts to generate leads and
conversions.

Apple Inc. is world renowned as the most successful and historically significant
technology corporation in the world of its revolutionary contributions to computer
hardware, operations systems and seamless user interfaces that are focused on
customers. Apple has managed to establish a humble line of products which have
introduced entire new sectors to the industry and completely surpassed and existing
solutions. Given the astronomical success of the iPhone, iPad, Macintosh, iPod, and
Apple TV hardware products lines, one can clearly observe that the Cupertino based
consumer electronics organisation has mastered the art of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM), the deep understanding of a customers wants, needs, points of pain
and priorities.

Apple is one of the most well known retailers of innovative technology, from personal
computers to handheld devices such as tablets and mobiles. It is the third largest maker
of PCs in the US, and since 2001 has had a much higher focus upon retail and customers
than its competitors. Despite eschewing traditional forms of customer retention – Jobs
was famously opposed to market research, and Apple still does not run a formal loyalty
scheme – the company has built one of the most enduring, exciting, and enigmatic brands
of all time.

Unlike practically every other large tech company around, Apple has been reluctant to
expand into the social media world. Apple built its reputation by breaking the rules and
flaunting conventions of how they were “supposed” to handle marketing and business.
Even though all the other tech companies were expanding aggressively into social media,
Apple refused to be swayed by the latest hot trend.

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That is why their March 2016 announcement, when they finally revealed they were
launching an official Apple Support Twitter account, came as such a shock. This was
not a lightly made decision. After all this time, Apple recognized the value of giving their
customers what they had grown to expect - a social media channel to discuss customer
support issues.

Although, Jobs believed that CRM is the core of any company’s success, he also
operated under the notion that customers do not truly know what they want or need until
a product (symbolising the solution) is finally introduced to them. This philosophy has
also contributed to Apple’s influence in the field of Information Technology, as Jobs once
urged companies to “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you
tell them what they need before they realise it themselves.”

Consistently topping customer service charts, Apple has surpassed all competitors in the
personal computing industry for more than seven straight years according to the
American Customer Satisfaction Index produces by the University of Michigan.
Instead of leaving primary interactions to random staffers of big retail chains, Apple
invested and created its own line of private stores.
By establishing an environment devoted to selling its own innovative and unique products,
Apple achieved a competitive advantage such that they were able to monitor and manage
every detail of customer interaction. In addition to constructing what is perhaps the most
valuable brand existing in the world today, Apple stores are noted for being the most
profitable spaces in retail of all time. Despite this, the majority of consumers that enter
Apple stores do not make purchases. This group primarily composed of young adult
professionals, middle-aged parents, and teenagers congregate to hang out and
experiment with Apple’s innovative new products. Without pressuring customers into
purchasing products, the employees focus their energy on creating knowledgeable,
passionate and friendly atmosphere and encourage the products experience.
Furthermore, the customer service evolves from the core of the business model.

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Quality control is asserted at fundamental levels, from the veil of secrecy that clouds
knowledge of existing new products to the heavily regulated AppStore and its mobile
operating system known as iOS.
Through the ownership of the retail and online shopping experience to command of all
products’ software platform, Apple’s unprecedented control has allowed them to rise to a
new class of service quality and CRM.

Although tech companies traditionally conceive customer management as an expense to

be minimised, Apple has always viewed it as an investment for the long-term development
of both the brand as well as customer loyalty. Other notable customer focused decisions
include Apple’s refusal to relocate its North American phone service support offshore and
maintain a simplistic approach to the replacement of broken devices.

The customer relationship is now an essential part of Apple’s growth strategy, and is
almost as much of a brand feature as the iPad or iPhone. Rejecting the ‘hard sell’
approach, Apple has kept the customer at the forefront for almost five years. Overlooking
market research, loyalty schemes, and traditional forms of customer retention and
marketing, Apple can sell its products on hype alone.

Apple, for over a decade now, has successfully employed the use of CRM within its
customer service departments. An example of Apple's approach involves the company
sending emails to its customers who continuously use their services with a focus of
getting feedback and review from the customers concerning Apple products and
services.

Apple instead of convincing consumers to purchase their products and services such as
the iPhone or the iPad, it chose the angle of teaching its consumers to adore and enjoy
the satisfaction that comes with using apple products and services (Crossfield, 2019).
The most critical aspect of the CRM is the improvement of customer service experienc e
for both the existing customer and new customers.
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Apart from offering its customers with the best quality products, Apple embarked on an
initiative that in its tech support sector that allowed its customers to meet technicians to
discuss their issues in depth (Crossfield, 2019).

Not only has Apple's customer relationship management evolved into leverage that keeps
their customers wanting more. Apple's customers are also guaranteed a lifestyle
experience rather than just an ordinary purchase.

Apple and Salesforce announced a strategic partnership that brings together the
number one customer relationship management platform and iOS, the world’s most
advanced mobile operating system, enabling powerful new mobile apps for business.
Working with Apple, Salesforce is redesigning its app to embrace the native mobile
platform with exclusive new features on iOS.

The companies will also provide tools and resources for millions of Salesforce developers
to build their own native apps with a new Salesforce Mobile SDK for iOS, and a new iOS
app development course on Trailhead, Salesforce’s free, web-based learning platform.

A Mac CRM is a combination of a cloud-based app built with Apple's programming

language Objective-C or Swift (programming language). Mac CRMs involve using Apple
only devices and technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing,
customer service, and technical support.

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Apple’s CRM Strategy

1. Knowing its customers

“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close, in fact, that you tell them what they
need well before they realise it themselves.” It is an ambitious aspiration, but one that
Apple follows through on. Apple’s consistently high NPS (Net Promoter Score) ratings
indicate that it is remarkably good at retaining its customers. Research recently reported
that Apple’s operating system, iOS, had loyalty rates of around 89%. In addition, fuelling
Apple’s commanding customer retention scores is its stellar technical support. Whenever
you buy an Apple product, you have the option to schedule in a tailored, one-to-one
session with a specialist – exploring your new device’s best features, and fine-tuning it to
your tastes. Apple’s commitment to understanding the individual is no accident. It is a
carefully plotted out CRM strategy, and it’s paying stunning dividends.

2. Anticipating customer needs

Its clear Apple’s understanding of its customers runs deep. Yet, paradoxically, Jobs was
famously opposed to market research. Rather, Apple’s intimacy with its customers has
traditionally stemmed from the company’s empathy with their pain points and needs.

It’s this, above all, that’s driven Apple’s desire to innovate – to expand and evolve its
offerings to meet not only its customers’ current requirements, but those of their futures,
too. Because if it is not game changing, Apple will not do it. The iPhone, iPod, and iPad
were all ahead of their time, while iTunes was once the only legal online catalogue of
songs to feature music from all five major record labels. With Apple TV now producing
original content and Apple Pay redefining how we shop, Apple’s innovation is a hallmark
of its desire to grow with the needs of its users.

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3. Stores focussing on customer experience

“How does somebody know what they want if they haven’t seen it?” It is a good question,
and one that continues to define how Apple operates its physical shops. Apple’s retail
departments and staff are built with the individual in mind – to ensure its customers have
an experience, rather than simply make a purchase. Anyone who has ever visited one of
Apple’s stores will back this up, in addition – they are places of wonder, where you can
explore the latest technology at your own pace. Apple’s use of CRM in-store is a
testament to its long-term mentality. An immediate sale is good, but an ongoing
relationship with a customer is more profitable. By foregoing conventional sales tactics,
Apple’s shops create value by encouraging browsers to love and appreciate the benefits
of having an iPhone, an iPad, or the latest Apple Watch. Moreover, by training its
employees to understand (and not just sell to) those that enter its stores, Apple
cultivates a more engaged, loyal customer base that prioritises the person, rather than
the product.

4. Branding that speaks to a generation

Whether you buy into its products or not, Apple’s pull is undeniable. Boasting one of the
most iconic and instantly recognisable brands in the world, it draws huge queues at
product launches, while thousands of user-generated videos online are dedicated to
‘unboxing’ Apple devices.

However, Apple’s brand is more than just a by-product of designing products that look,
feel, and work well. Its ecosystem of products – each of which functions seamlessly with
the rest – engenders loyalty with the brand, while rewarding the customer for choosing
Apple. Better still, Apple’s branding has succeeded where plenty of other big companies
have failed – by appealing to millennials. Research shows that Apple is one of the brands
Generation Y (and Generation X, too!) feel most emotionally attached to, and it is not hard
to see why.

With simple, stripped-back product designs, a commitment to sustainability, and a playful

tone of voice, Apple speaks to whole generations.

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Apple’s CRM Needs

 The company has been using CRM in its customer service departments for nearly
a decade, and this has ranged from sending a series of emails to customers
who’ve used their in-store services, to focus upon assessing the feelings of the
customers when they are talking to Apple staff.
 The purpose of using CRM in their retail base is to encourage a long-term
relationship between Apple and its clients. Part of retaining that relationship
involves enhancing the customer experience so that it is a unique memory of
buying a phone. Rather than concentrating upon making customers buy a phone,
they instead focus upon teaching customers to love and appreciate the benefits of
having an iPhone or iPad. This is a central point of the Apple strategy.
 There are several different strands of using CRM within the Apple infrastructure.
The primary purpose of CRM is data collection. This occurs whenever a customer
makes a purchase, whether it is an iPhone, use of software such as iTunes, or
registering their product using their Apple ID.

 However, Apple has not only used CRM for their own purposes, they have also
developed a CRM tool for their customers. The tool is entirely cloud-based and
means that there is a pyramid effect of businesses benefiting from CRM data
collection, which Apple can also use.
 The focus of their strategy is to inform and educate the customers about the
benefits of having their high-end products rather than concentrating only on selling
their products.
 To maintain a long-term relationship between Apple and its clients, the company
has been using CRM in their retail base.

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How Apple Uses CRM

 By far the most important focus of CRM is improving the customer service
experience for new and existing customers. The Apple Genius process is part of
the Tech support, which focuses upon allowing customers to meet face-to-face
with technicians and discuss problems and solutions in depth.
 CRM helps to manage the effect of this face-to-face contact, and also helps to
enhance brand awareness when focusing upon CRM-based advertising and
targeted emails in the future. By using CRM so extensively in their retail structure,
Apple has effectively produced a lifestyle experience rather than simply a
purchase.
 Apple is a multinational company, which has had success in a number of different
fields and needs a CRM system, which can help them to reach customers on a
face-to-face level. Small businesses can also benefit from this type of interpersonal
CRM.

ADVANTAGES OF CRM IN APPLE

 Better customer service: A CRM system can help personalize a company’s

relationship with its customers. The program usually comes with a repository that
can keep customer profiles, treating every client individually instead of
collectively.
 Increased customer revenues: CRM can help facilitate customer retention through
introduction and implementation of loyalty programs that are based on the
customers’ needs and preferences.
 Faster sales processes: A business can benefit from the faster closing processes
of deals. CRM can make it happen through speedier and more efficient response
to customer information and leads.
 More efficient and effective call centre; a business call centre can benefit from the
faster solutions CRM systems bring about. As customer support and call centre
agents gain access to customers’ order histories and details in a much faster
manner, targeting of clients can be much easier.

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The value proposition of Apple

Value proposition remains a critical feature in marketing because it appeals to the

customer base of that company, and it is the best strategy for companies to attract
customers and convince them to buy their products and services. The Apple brand and
its value proposition remain its key customer attraction strategies. Apple has done this by
convincing its consumers that its products and services are of top quality in the entire
market of computing and mobile technology compared to its rivals (Deng, 2013). The
company continues to lead in the manufacturing of high-end quality products, especially
with its iPhone, Macintosh, and MacBook series.

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 LIMITATIONS

Despite all its benefits, CRM has a few limitations as well. Few of them are as follows:

 Record Loss:
Some Customer Relationship Software utilizes remote Internet Connections to
keep customers’ data. The downside of this kind of CRM is that the organization
has no control of customers’ details, and in case there is an outage in the CRM
system, it will be next to impossible for the business to retrieve the relevant
details.

 Overhead:
If a business chooses a local Customer Relationship Management software, there
will be overhead costs linked to it. If the application is proprietary, the organization
will need to pay for professionals such as system administrator, software
developers, and maintenance personnel to ensure the efficient running of the
software.

 Training:
If it is a small business, the issues of training are not so much pronounced.
Nonetheless, the large companies will be required to roll out training sessions for
the workers. For CRM of larger scale, this will mean appointing professional to
conduct the training.

 Eliminate Human Element:

Although CRM applications allow for the automation of processes within a
company, there is a loss of human element in the organization, something which
essential for creating an excellent business relationship with customers.

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Apple’s major problems

In 2018 Apple's shares dropped by a staggering 7% depicting how the company has
begun facing major challenges that have cost the company a part of its market share.

The Units sales of Apple iPhones, its best-selling product significantly dropped after the
release of their 2018 iPhones. The company appears to have reached a stagnating point
where its innovations in the mobile sector do not excite customers anymore (Kingsley -
Hughes, 2018).

Customers are expressing that the buying of iPhones every year has recently become a
matter of upgrading an older iPhone to a new and more expensive one (Kingsley-Hughes ,
2018). The idea of buying new iPhones for their new features has faded as Apple has
failed to embed exciting innovations with its new phones, making customers reluctant to
upgrade.

Furthermore, the prices of iPhones have gotten too expensive that customers would
rather not upgrade their phone on a yearly basis. In addition, the massive innovations that
other companies like, Huawei, OnePlus, and Samsung, who are in the Android sector,
appear to have cost Apple some of its customer bases (Kingsley-Hughes, 2018). Majority
of people setting their iPhones

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 RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION

CRM is a tool, which helps to track down the changing customer profiles, build in this
information to get the necessary product design & add value to the individual customer.
Today’s customers are global & have high degree of need for cognition, recognition,
approvals & respect. They prefer marketers who can give good product, deliver first
service, repair, solve problems & improve products. Marketers are striving for a bond
with customers, who will be strong & long lasting with the customers.

Marketers have realised that if they retain customers the cost will certainly reduce. On the
supply side, it really pays more to develop closer relationship with customer through
people, equipment and procedure. It is high time that they re-engineer the marketing
department.

As customer expectations have rapidly changed over the last two decades, fueled by new
technology and growing availability of advanced product features & services, customer’s
expectations are changing almost on a daily basis. Customers are less willing to make
compromises to trade off in product & services quality. Therefore, companies should
continuously search for value building approaches through a system of total quality
management review process, which will result in value-laden-relationship with customers

In order to keep competitors away from customer sight, cross selling, can meet the
customer requirement. However, the ideas seems to predominantly meet with the sellers
needs to maximize his revenues by exploiting relationship with customer. Nevertheless,
CMR techniques should ensure mutual economics values to both customers &
companies.

In the past decade, an increasing numbers of companies prefer to increase their

investment budget and pay more attention toward the department of customer
relationship management. Those components within the department including consumer
preference and purchase satisfaction were showed to have a significant and positive
relationship with the profitability and market expansion.

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Over the past 30 years, Apple has amplified from computer design to developing
consumer electronics. Tim Cook is the current CEO of Apple and is doing a very
efficient job in running the company. For reasons as various as its philosophy of
comprehensive aesthetic design to its distinctive advertising campaigns, Apple has
established a unique reputation in the consumer electronics industry. This includes a
customer base that is devoted to the company and its brand, particularly in the United
States .

Apple has analysed empathy, self-awareness, and self-motivation in order to find out their
impacts on the brand and its customers. The result of research showed that different
emotions of customer cause different impacts on the brand. Among all the variables, self-
awareness is the most significant emotion, which creates motivation to buy the Apple
devices. Apple Creates financial Value for customers and as long as Apple has strict
quality control, their products can be used for a longer time, which means there is good
cost performance and less repair cost.

Apple uses a differentiation business strategy, which means that all employees and
departments work together in the creation of their products. Since the employees work
together, their products tend to be more productive. Apples main business initiative is
customer relationship management. When working with or purchasing from Apple you
are promised top-notch customer service and assistance.

Apple uses many different types of internet business models. Business -to-Business e-
commerce is used in the selling of computers to help operate everyday proficiency in
other businesses. Business to Consumer e-commerce is the selling of iPods, computer,
and other products to different individuals rather than businesses.

Business to Government e-commerce is the process of selling of any Apple products to

government operated organizations. Apple works with many different groups of
customers. When purchasing from Apple you are offered many different payment
options.

One payment option is electronic bill presentment and payment, this system sends bills
over the internet and helps to provide an easy method for you to pay them. This method
is most convenient for customers so that they can purchase and pay for their items
7
without ever leaving their home.

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In running their business, Apple finds it very important to use database warehouses. They
feel this way because it is a huge collection of business information that is collected from
many different databases. They also utilize data marts, which helps them to focus on
certain operations throughout the business rather than the overall summary of the
business. In the analytical processing databases and operational databases that Apple
uses the most consists of many different files. Some of these files are Costumer files,
order files, sales files, and supplier files. In having these files it makes the entire business
process for Apple more convenient and more efficient.

Apples product line has grown rapidly in the past few years. They sell their products in
the following categories; input devices, output devices, storage devices, computers, and
connecting devices.

Apple applies the four principles of network security by offering a valid source of
confidentiality with their terms and agreement statement. Apple has their terms and
agreement which explains their integrity and availability. Whether looking up online or
calling the store via telephone any answer to any question is answered honestly. Their
security and access controls explain Mac OS X Server is built on an advanced
architecture to deliver the features you want with the security you need.

The most interesting about Apple is how they are very innovative and early adapters .
Apple is usually the first company to come out with a new product line before anyone
else. This is very risky but it seems to be working to Apples advantage. This shows that
taking risks can sometimes make or break you.

We can conclude that by applying the customer relationship strategy your business, will
get successes to increase the customer commitment to the brand because their strategy
is mainly focus to satisfy the customer want and build long term relationship with them.
That is the main factor to build the customers loyalty. A clear and right segment can help
you define exactly who is your customer, what is their insight during their cycle life.
Therefore, the role of customer segmentation is important. However, in fact, transactional
marketing strategy has own role.

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End of the day, you should define clearly business current status and long term objectives,
decision of marketing strategy will be depend on that. While such choices are what set
Apple apart in satisfaction, the true mark of its success is their dedication to only a handful
of products.

The aim of CRM is to improve the customer service experience of existing and potential
customers. Apple allows its customers face-to-face interaction with its technicians for in
depth discussion of problems and solution through its Apple Genius process of tech
support.

Apple has definitely made use of CRM so extensively by managing face-to-face contact
and by enhancing brand awareness. They focus on CRM bases advertising and targeted
emails, which has helped them, produce a lifetime experience rather than simply a
purchase.

The company being a successful multinational company needs a system of CRM such
that it reaches the customers on a one to one basis. This will also guide and motivate
small businesses for similar type of interpersonal CRM.

Since 2010, Apple has been one of the most valuable companies in the world. It stayed
at or near the top for many years after that. The reason Apple is so highly valued is simple
on the surface: the company makes popular products with generous margins . Apple's
success lies in a strategic vision that transcended simple desktop computing to includ e
mobile devices and wearables. Both performance and design are key drivers of the Apple
brand and its ongoing success. The marketing helps, and the media and fan frenzy never
hurt. However, it is the quality and effective CRM of the company and its products that
drive Apple's success.

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Apple in the 20s

Apple's market capitalization reached new highs in 2020, as the company enjoyed some
successes and set new goals for the future. The company's revenue from wearable
technology, such as the Apple Watch, set new records. Apple's revenue from services
also rose to record highs during the coronavirus pandemic, as contactless payment
options like Apple Pay became more popular.

Apple also announced two major changes to the Mac in 2020.

First, Apple is transitioning the Mac away from Intel processors to its own custom-
designed chips. Apple's new processors are based on the ones used in iPhones and
iPads, making them more energy-efficient. The new chips have the potential to give
Apple's laptops longer battery life and more processing power than PCs.

Secondly, Apple is changing the macOS so that developers can make iOS and iPadOS
apps run on the Mac without modifications. That will dramatically expand the number of
apps available on the Mac and make it more competitive with PCs.

Following Job’s perfection, perspective and completion is only achieved when one
narrows their efforts to less than 5 or 6 goals. By continuing to refine their smartphone,
tablet, personal computer, smart watch and television solutions, Apple has maintained
leadership in multiple sectors of the industry.

Knowing that the key to mastering customer relationship management is for any
customer, regardless of background or intelligence, is to be able to answer the question
of “What is our business”, Apple continues to lead in productivity, satisfaction and
innovation.

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Few recommendations are as follows –

 Marketers have realised that if they retain customers the cost will certainly reduce.
On the supply side, it really pays more to develop closer relationship with customer
through people, equipment and procedure. It is high time that they re-engineer
the marketing department.

 As customer expectations have rapidly changed over the last two decades, fuelled
by new technology and growing availability of advanced product features &
services, customer’s expectations are changing almost on a daily basis.

 Customers are less willing to make compromises to trade off in product &
services quality. So companies should continuously search for value building
approaches through a system of total quality management review process, which
will be, resulted in value-laden-relationship with customers.

 Apple, as a company should consider developing and incorporating some of the

new technologies that other phone companies are implementing like bezel-less
screens and onscreen fingerprint sensors. The company should also consider
reducing the pricing of its products that appears to be shying off its customers and
dissuading new customers from purchasing Apple products.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS -

o Greenberg, P. (2001), CRM at the Speed of Light, Fourth Edition: Social CRM 2.0
Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers
o Goldenberg, J.B., (2015), The Definitive Guide to Social CRM: Maximizing
Customer Relationships with Social Media to Gain Market Insights, Customers,
and Profits
o Buttle, F., (12 November 2003), Customer Relationship Management: Concepts
and Technologies

LINKS -

o https://www.apple.com/in/
o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.
o https://www.expertmarket.co.uk/
o https://www.managementpedia.com/threads/customer-relationship-management-
of-apple-inc.213123/
o https://htqvn.wordpress.com/
o https://www.scnsoft.com/blog/crm-implementation-plan
o https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2017&q=stud
y+on+apple+inc&btnG