Hilton Hotels Crm Case Study

Case Study

Hilton Hotels

This report is about the CRM in Hilton Hotels. As we can see in the case, this company did well in managing the implantation of a CRM system into the core of their business. Through this report, we will see to what extent was their CRM a success and if Hilton should reinvest money to keep the system in place for the years to come.

But what is CRM ? The Customer Relationship Management is the process of managing  and maximizing customer’s loyalty. It helps the company to have better relations with their customers. The goal is to provide a positive competitive advantage of the brand and, by this way, having more benefits/ be more profitable.

The Blackstone Group took the Hilton corporation private in 2008. Since then, they started to evaluate the Customer Really Matter strategy in order to decide if they will reinvest in it or simply remove the CRM initiative which represents a true investment. Calculate the effectiveness of this kind of strategy is not easy. It’s important to know how sucessful CRM was in each hotel and if it did make a difference between Hilton Hotels from their competitors or not. During the years when the CRM was in place, the company wanted to offer more to their guests and by this way having more and more customers. The whole point was to open 2000 (approximatively) more hotels in the future, in the US and internationally.  

 In the lodging industry, having a strong and a recognizable name is very important factor to consider to achieve success. For this reason, Hilton Hotels wanted to be seen as a company that take care of its guests. For the consumers, the brand name can be seen as an indicator of quality and can even make consumers come back after their first move in a Hilton hotel. This new policy led to the creation of personalized accounts. People who come again in an Hilton Hotel will see and upgrade in the quality of the services provided. A consumer is «silver» or «gold» before becoming «diamond». This was an effective way to make consumers come again, be more satisfied by their stay in the hotel and bring more money to the company. Furthermore, from personal experience, I think when people have two choices of hotels with similar prices and services level, they tend to choose the brand they already know or have previous pleasant stay. The brand name is extremely important to create a relationship between the company and the customer/guest.

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Hilton is pretty diversified corporation that has a strong presence in various industries. We can found hotels, suites, casino, ans vacation ownership. From 2002 and the adoption of their CRM (Customer Really Matter) policy, Hilton Hotels sees customer as the most important component of their business. Therefore, the company set their objectives in order to build a close long-term relationship with their gusts. They started the CRM with one idea : deliver consistence service and achieve a close relationship with their best guests (we talked about them before).