Evaluating CRM: Digital Technology in Hilton Hotel, UK - Unit 2

This report investigates the impact of digital technology on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) within a Hilton hotel in the UK, focusing on how digital tools enhance customer experience management and engagement. It explores the use of internet communication channels, digital analytics, and blockchain technology for security, improved communication speeds, and enhanced customer service. The report also evaluates customer service strategies, including personalization, emotional analytics, and knowledge management systems, recommending improvements through mobile devices, IoT, and cloud computing. Ultimately, the analysis highlights the positive influence of digital technology on CRM, emphasizing the importance of adapting strategies to maximize customer engagement and improve overall service delivery within the hospitality sector. Desklib provides a platform for students to access this and other solved assignments.

Running head: INDUCTION - UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMERS
Induction - Understanding Customers

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
LO3 Investigate the impact of digital technology in customer relationship management Hilton hotel, UK 3
D4 Evaluate the delivery of customer service strategies and communication, justifying and making valid
recommendations for improvement for developing a quality customer experience.....................................6
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................8
References...................................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
This report presents the impact of digital technology in customer relationship management in a
Hilton hotel, UK. It also discusses effective customer experience management within a service
sector business to maximize the customer engagement.
LO3 Investigate the impact of digital technology in customer relationship management
Hilton hotel, UK
Digital technology plays important role in customer relationship management. It is assessed that
the Hilton hotel can use the internet communication channels and technologies as it would help
to enhance the customer relationship management and customer experience management
initiatives. A key goal of digital CRM is to facilitate a company with a clear picture of habit and
preference of customers. It can also personalize and automated the messaging easier in Hilton
hotel (Chaffey, 2015). The CRM is related to the internet of things where computer processor
would be competent to send and receive the information. The customer might be competent to
send the automated message to their suppliers and request delivery. Digital technology plays a
significant role in customer success management strategy (Gürhan-Canli, Hayran, and Sarial-
Abi, 2016).
Moreover, marketing emphasizes on developing transparency, enlightening potential customers,
and transforming prospect. A depth comprehension of buyer needs, pain points, behavior, and
sentiments may support the marketer in truly personalized communication across all mediums.
By using digital technology, Hilton hotel can capture the customer feedback and data (Kumar
and Reinartz, 2018). This can be done via segmenting customers, multiple channels, implement
into customer experience and share that information within the business. In addition, Hilton hotel
can regularly monitor the customer information and catching purchaser insight. Digital

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technology can aid Hilton hotel to develop a unified and reliable view of purchaser’s entire
journey (Straker and Wrigley, 2016).
Digital Technology
In a current competitive business scenario, understanding the customer is significant to provide
strong customer experience. One of significant technique to achieve this is analytics. Hilton hotel
can leverage digital analytics to learn regarding customer’s purchasing journey and comprehend
the right moment and place for engaging them (Tsou and Hsu, 2015). By using Google analytics,
Hilton hotel can assess the traffic path of users in order to see which web pages are engaging
them and which ones are driving them away. It can facilitate hotel manager to understand the
customer’s perception and how they can retain these users. Digital technology can support to
comprehend what customers would like and would not like and it may lead to enhance the
customer experience (Weill and Woerner, 2015).
Digital Security
It is significant to the Hilton hotel to keep its assets protected. In this way, it can use digital
technology as it would enable everything to accessible. Blockchain technology is a kind of
digital technology that aids to eliminate the high amount of ruckus in the world. This technology
will consider the open source digital ledge in which online payments and transactions are listed
(Kumar and Pansari, 2016). Moreover, digital technology can permit Hilton hotel to see every
transaction so that nobody can lie regarding where they sent money.
But, sometimes, it can be traceable hence no personal information can be attached. It could
support to make transferring money cheaper and efficient (Robson, et. al., 2016). This digital
technology could be adopted in different manners, not just for money payments. Hospitality
industry could benefit from the security that blockchain can offer. It could support to protect the

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files and prevent the cyber attacks. Moreover, digital technology can highly enhance the security
(Peppers and Rogers, 2016).
Communication Speeds
Internet speeds can increase the chances of Hilton hotel to communicate with the customers. For
instance, broadband makes competent to transfer the high amount of data across the web
instantly. It makes possible to stream audio and video in real time and send large data files.
Furthermore, Hilton hotel can access the data virtually anywhere in the globe because traditional
media takes more time (Pansari and Kumar, 2017).
Customer Service
Customer relationship management system makes competent to the company for enhancing the
customer relationships by emphasizing on retention. This aspect may change the way for
attracting as well as retaining the customers and manages the sales leads. Moreover, mobile
technologies help to enhance the collaboration. Furthermore, customer related data cannot be
easily accessible by using digital technology hence business can assist the customer retention and
customer service enhancements in a much quick and effective way (Peppers and Rogers, 2016).
Moreover, Hilton hotel can schedule the marketing activities with the support of online
scheduling channels. This may save the time, endorses the brand, provide constant content and
permits the customers for taking care of accountabilities of customers. Adopting digital
technology into the business process can enable Hilton hotel to focus on clear strategy, strong
leadership and can provide long-lasting beneficial outcomes (Robson, et. al., 2016).
Distribution
One of a significant benefit of practicing the digital technologies is that Hilton hotel can sell the
products and services all over the globe. The internet has avoided all kinds of barriers and

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enables the business to reach at the global level. With geographical proximity and physical
presence, Hilton hotel can sell both via the online store and from distributors. In addition, the
company can get direct access to distributors. This may also lead to declining the production
expenses and makes more competitive to the business of Hilton hotel (Zhang, Kandampully, and
Bilgihan, 2015).
D4 Evaluate the delivery of customer service strategies and communication, justifying and
making valid recommendations for improvement for developing a quality customer
experience
Personalization strategy could be used by Hilton hotel as it entails new technologies like
location-based services, and mobile marketing. It can also support Hilton hotel to assess the
needs of customer and marketing in real time. In certain cases, information can support the
companies to get the customer pointed data that may or may not be associated with discrete
buying. For instance, Hilton hotel may use quality based products to inform the customers
regarding health effects (Kumar and Pansari, 2016).
Hilton hotel can use emotional analytics strategy in order to measure whether the customer may
benefit from the communication with the brand. Emotional analytics software can support for
assessing the success of the different operation that is associated but potentially tangential to
customer services such as supply chain management as well as inventory management (Weill
and Woerner, 2015).
In addition, knowledge management system can be an essential technique for faultless customer
services. Agents can also use these systems for identifying the product’s information and
customer communications with other products. Agents can also integrate the data with inventory
data to offer the account data, product awareness and inventory information to customers (Tsou

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and Hsu, 2015). It is beneficial to acquire a high amount of information and that could be
combined into existing customer account information. The competency to integrate the customer
relationship management system data with ERP, financial, real-time data and inventory
management on digital channels could be challenging for Hilton Hotel (Straker and Wrigley,
2016).
CRM platform could be used by Hilton hotel in the form of SAP, Microsoft, sales force and
Oracle to bridge the gaps of communication modes for making database integration easier. These
providers’ help in combining marketing, sales, and services data into customer experience
management that helps in maximize customer engagement (Henriette, Feki, and Boughzala,
2015).
Mobile Devices
Hilton hotel can leverage its potential to enhance the customer service experience by using
mobile devices into the hospitality industry. Websites could be outlined mobile friendly and
application of dedicated customer service, as well as chatbots, is an effective technique to
improve the customer services. High-level communication could be provided by digital techno-
savvy in the hospitality sector. Mobile devices application could be used by Hilton hotel as most
preferred communication channels (Chaffey, 2015).
Internet of Things (IoT)
There are different sensors and devices are connected to the internet today. Some of the devices
are competent to provide real-time distant monitoring in Hilton hotel. Moreover, the company
can improve the user service experience in their products. This would help to maximize the
customer engagement (Kumar and Reinartz, 2018).
Cloud

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Cloud computing strategy has become a key factor in the digital era. Connecting the potential of
cloud, Hilton hotel can use the different cloud-based application in customer relationship
management for hospitality service delivery. In addition, clouds play a vital role to improve the
collaboration amid the hotel and guests to share their documents and exchange the historical
information. This would be beneficial for maximizing the customer engagement (Gürhan-Canli,
Hayran, and Sarial-Abi, 2016).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that digital technology has a positive impact on
customer relationship management in a Hilton hotel, UK. There are certain factors that affect
customer relationship management such as digital technology, digital security, communication
speeds, customer service, and distribution. It can be also summarised that there are some
effective customer experience management strategies within a service sector business to
maximize the customer engagement. These strategies are personalization strategy, emotional
analytics, mobile devices, internet of things (IoT), and cloud.

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References
Chaffey, D., 2015. Digital business and e-commerce management. UK: Pearson Education
Limited.
Gürhan-Canli, Z., Hayran, C. and Sarial-Abi, G., 2016.Customer-based brand equity in a
technologically fast-paced, connected, and constrained environment. AMS review, 6(1-2), pp.23-
32.
Henriette, E., Feki, M. and Boughzala, I., 2015. The shape of digital transformation: a systematic
literature review. MCIS 2015 Proceedings, pp.431-443.
Kumar, V. and Pansari, A., 2016.Competitive advantage through engagement. Journal of
Marketing Research, 53(4), pp.497-514.
Kumar, V. and Reinartz, W., 2018. Customer relationship management: Concept, strategy, and
tools. USA: Springer.
Pansari, A. and Kumar, V., 2017. Customer engagement: the construct, antecedents, and
consequences. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45(3), pp.294-311.
Peppers, D. and Rogers, M., 2016. Managing customer experience and relationships: A strategic
framework.USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Robson, K., Plangger, K., Kietzmann, J.H., McCarthy, I. and Pitt, L., 2016. Game on: Engaging
customers and employees through gamification. Business horizons, 59(1), pp.29-36.
Straker, K. and Wrigley, C., 2016.Emotionally engaging customers in the digital age: the case
study of “Burberry love”. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 20(3), pp.276-299.
Tsou, H.T. and Hsu, S.H.Y., 2015. Performance effects of technology–organization–environment
openness, service co-production, and digital-resource readiness: The case of the IT
industry. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), pp.1-14.

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Weill, P. and Woerner, S.L., 2015. Thriving in an increasingly digital ecosystem. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 56(4), p.27.
Zhang, T., Kandampully, J., and Bilgihan, A., 2015.Motivations for customer engagement in
online co-innovation communities (OCCs) A conceptual framework. Journal of Hospitality and
Tourism Technology, 6(3), pp.311-328.