Customer Relationship Marketing of HIT
...rs. Generally, HIT acquires new customers by selling services through road show and establishing strategic team to search new customers in the market actively. On the other hand, HIT put a lot of effort and resources in customer retention and is approaching to strategic customer care. HIT offers a number of value-added services to increase the loyalty and satisfaction level of existing customers. Firstly, since the existing customers are international in nature, therefore, HIT establishing a worldwide network to offer efficient, consistent and convenient services to customers. Secondly, customers value the time for container handling since they will be financially penalized for delayed shipment. Therefore, HIT establishes a consolidated and updated database for information storage and ensures efficient and effective delivery. Moreover, customers can check the latest information about their cargoes by searching through the Customer Plus in the HIT’s web sites. Thirdly, HIT has a 3P system to assist in the daily container arrangement to shorten the time for container handling. This 3P system will soon be replaced by a more advanced and improved system called N-Gen system. Fourthly, the HIT focuses on the end-user marketing in the recently year. The end-user marketing team actively helps existing customers to solve problems and gives recommendation for improvement. This builds a trust and interdependent among HIT and its customers. Next, HIT undertakes customer service survey every 2 years to evaluate its existing service level, the changing needs of customers and receive recommendation from customers so that HIT can keep track with the customers. The customer service team also actively approach to the customers to know more about their opinions in the daily operation of HIT. Their opinions will be reflected to the related department for improvement. Moreover, HIT provides mind-set training to educate its employee how to deal with customers with the right and appropriate altitude. All in all, HIT devotes more resources in customer retention than in customer acquisition. In addition, it is approaching to strategic customer care. Customer Acquisition Prospecting After operating for so many years, HIT has regular customers. The market demand for container handling is constant but the supply is increasing. Furthermore, developing a new shipping line with new customers needs time. It requires a detailed long-term planning. Therefore, it is difficult to find new customers and it does not devote a lot of resources in customer acquisition. Generally, HIT acquires new customers by selling services through visit, road show and establishing strategic team to search new customers in the market actively. HIT undertake visit to different shipping companies to sell their services. Moreover, it promote itself to the public through road show so that a wide variety of new customers can know its services and this can also let its existing customers know more about the latest services of HIT. The strategic team actively finds new customers in the market and gathers and updates the changing market environment. This helps HIT to keep peace with the market and effectively take the first mover advantages to attract new customers. Customer Retention According to our interview, we found that Hongkong International Terminals (HIT) did many programs to retain their customers. In this stage, the enterprise engages with customer attitudes both before and after the purchase. It listens to the customer. Loyalty is no longer based on price and product alone. Both parties begin to see benefit in continuing to grow the relationship. Good customer service is a core strategy in HIT to build up a good relationship with the profitable customers, who give them high profit margin. They measure the customer satisfaction level by the survey in order to provide better service to their customers. HIT do the survey with their customer every year to seek feedback on every aspect of their service. The survey is comprehensive, covering all departments from Operations and Customer Service through to Information Services and Finance & Administration. It indicates on responsiveness, accessibility, punctuality, flexibility and other factors. They measure their ability to add value and identify areas in which the customers see a need for improvement. HIT receives valuable information from the survey. Once analyzed, the results help them formulate appropriate action plans and raise their already high levels of customer service. Asking customers for their opinions of how they perform is a cornerstone of their service culture. They trust good customer service help them to maintain a good relationship with the customers and retain customers. Moreover, they do not have special CRM programmes for the customers to rejoin, however they do maintain a good relationship for future opportunities. Strategic Customer Care Loyalty Managing customer loyalty is a critical component of CRM. In HIT, the question “What can we do to increase customer loyalty?” is a recurring theme at board level. Nowadays, consumers’ exposures to invitations to join this or that club have reached a high level. The same as many big companies, HIT has also established the VIP program in order to generate loyalty from customers. Loyal customers often believe they get better service because they are loyal. They feel they are rewarded for their loyalty. HIT can understand this thought of customers, thus it offers privileged parking service to VIP members. Moreover, if you are a VIP member, HIT will enable you to delay the cut-off line of cargo receipt when you are necessary. Furthermore, if the VIP customer has some problems in previous port and delay in arriving Hong Kong, HIT will try their best to help VIP customers in using the remaining time effectively and efficiently. Cross-sell / Up-sell Cross-selling This is a conscious strategy to switch customers across product categories. For HIT, it provides some value-added services, such as providing the warehouse for loose cargos and the tracking service. Up-selling Given a positive reaction to the product/ service, a natural next step would be to promote higher-value products/ services. In both up-selling and cross-selling, loyal customers should be given some incentive to remain loyal. The Five Pillars of Strategic Customer Care Pillar 1 – Profiling Customers HIT owns a very powerful customer’s database, which have stored the clear information about the customers, e.g. company name, country, business amount and regular routing of the customers. HIT will work on these information, and provide the most suitable arrangement for its customers, before the cargoes are reaching. Pillar2 – Segmenting Customers into Natural Groupings HIT has segmented its customers according to the business amount that the customers bring to it and the geographical location of the customers. Different teams of the sales representatives are serving different groups of the customers. However, HIT provides almost the same standard of services to each customer. HIT only provides the extended cutting time of the cargoes and prior berthing to its most crown jewels customers. Pillar 3 – Researching Customers Industries and Concerns The End-users Marketing Team of HIT has tried their best in researching different customers and industrial needs. They will proactively provide added value services and continually seek new ways to help its customers. HIT’s customer service representatives talk with customers so they can understand customer’s problems and find solutions that would assist customers in overcoming their difficulties. HIT aim is to help customer conduct their landside operation efficiently and cost effectively. On the other hand, through the Customer Plus, customer can interact with the customer service representatives in real-time and express their opinions and problems. Furthermore, HIT conduct Customer Satisfaction Survey, this annual questionnaire sent to shipping lines seeks feedback on every aspect of HIT service. The survey is comprehensive, covering all departments from Operations and Customer Service through to Information Services and Finance & Administration. Key indicators on responsiveness, accessibility, punctuality, flexibility and other factors. HIT measure its ability to add value and identify areas in which its customers see a need for improvement. HIT receives valuable information from the survey. The analyzed results help it formulate appropriate action plans and raise its already high levels of customer service. Pillar 4 – Investing in Technology to Provide Solution to Customers HIT’s Customer Plus is a web-based on-line community system that provides real-time information not only to registered clients but also general public. Customer Plus is more than an enquiry function, it is a B2B application system enabling registered users to submit online instructions such as Change of Discharge Port, Late Come Application, Hold Container, etc directly to HIT for processing. Customer Plus also provides comprehensive general and registered enquiry functions, including vessel schedule, empty container pick up and return location, container movement log, overdue container status, on-hand inventory information, etc. It is dedicated to enhancing the competitiveness of the many shipping lines we serve. The power of knowledge is a critical element in HIT's development. The capability to share information across a spectrum of areas is a powerful tool. HIT is capitalizing on internal knowledge assets through knowledge management - or KM. The web-based environment for increased team collaboration and it has enabled the aggregation and dissemination of information throughout HIT. By pooling individual knowledge assets in a central repository, HIT has created a key knowledge resource. The HIT Knowledge Portal is a virtual workplace for discussion and resource -sharing on any project or business requirement and interaction on-line. Pillar 5 – Managing Customers Through Consistency of Treatment Although HIT has a powerful customer database and proactively provide solutions to its customers, HIT did very little in providing customized services to its most crown jewels customer except the extended cutting time of the cargoes and prior berthing. Analysis After our research, we find that HIT is a Stage II organization, but it is approaching to Stage III. At this moment, HIT is doing best in four Pillars, including profiling customers, segmenting customers into natural grouping, researching customers’ industries and concerns, and investing in technology to provide solutions to customers. However, HIT still cannot achieve the Pillar 5 of managing customers through consistency of treatment, it seem that HIT provide the same treatment to every customers, we think that it need to do more in differentiating the services to its crown jewels customers and do more in providing strategic customer care management. Since HIT only provides the extended cutting time of the cargoes and prior berthing to its crown jewels customers. On the other hand, since the nature of the logistics industry, HIT did very little in four CRM strategies, including save and win back programs, prospecting strategy, loyalty strat...