Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Tesco

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Tesco Customers have always been the main source of profit to a business. In order to retain and attract consumer, the company should practice on Customer Relationship Management  [1]  which is a strategy that have always been practicing by most of the businesses worldwide to gain a greater profit. Tesco which is one of the largest linked hypermarkets are also applying the similar strategy to gain more profit. Hereby a research is conducted on how customer relationship management strategies are used by Tesco as a tool to assist them in pursuing their sales growth. First approach towards CRM is by targeting the employee efficiency and consumer behavior. Employees of a company always reflect a companys image and the management of a company. In order to have a good image reflection of a company from consumers, employees should have a positive attitude towards consumers and practice to be efficient on treating consumers well. For instance, a consumer would like to acquire the location of a product from a Tesco employee and the Tesco employee politely assists them to the location they acquire. These positive attitude and efficiency on treating consumer will create a friendly environment to consumer whereby they will feel much comfort purchasing from Tesco. In order to create a friendly environment to consumers, Tesco will provide training to newly employed employees which are chosen after being filtered based on their behavioral test. By targeting the people surrounding the consumers, it will greatly decrease the chances whereby consumers will choo se to purchase similar product which could be purchased from Tesco from another grocer shop. Consumers behavior should be taken as a factor in order to retain and increase profit. Consumer will always want to try new things and this would be a great impact to the profit of Tesco. For instance, a new GAINT Hypermarket is build nearby Tesco. Consumers will start changing location to GAINT where it is newly build. This type of phenomena could not be changed because each consumer has a high curiosity in trying new things. To ensure that consumer will be loyal to Tesco, Tesco should create monthly event to attract consumers coming back to Tesco and provide consumers with new things since their curiosity are high. Secondly in approaching CRM is by targeting the product and promotion of a company. Tesco had been practicing Total Quality Management  [2]  to ensure that the products that they are selling to consumers are the best product that the consumer need. Other than that, Tesco also produces product of their own and selling the product which is similar to the other product at a lower retail price. These are other factors that will affect the profit of Tesco. In order to retain the current consumers in Tesco, Tesco products are being sold at the lowest retail price whereby the products created by Tesco will also undergo the same process of quality test before being sold at Tesco. This is to boost up the confidence in consumers so that they would not be practically having a thought that products created by Tesco are bad. Besides having their own product, the kitchen groceries at Tesco are always fresh. It is always fresh because the kitchen groceries are always freshly delivered to Tesco daily so that consumers can purchase fresh kitchen groceries as fresh as the one being sold at the market. In order to make sure that consumers are able to get fresh groceries, Tesco are always starting their business as early as 8 a.m. where no other grocer shops are open besides the market. Other than that, this will also create a great perception of Tesco and providing an idea of listing Tesco as their 1st priority grocer to purchase groceries. Besides that, the prices of the groceries sold at Tesco are the cheapest of among Tescos competitors such as GAINT, JUSCO and CAREFOUR. The price of grocer have been increasing day by day due to the drop in the world economy but this phenomena still does not affect the price of product at Tesco. These have been one of the greatest strength of Tesco and also one of the main attractions for consumers to go to Tesco. Other than that, the promotions made at Tesco are cheaper than its competitor because most of Tesco competitors are selling promotion product based on a concept of purchase with purchase  [3]  whereby the product consumer desire have to be purchase after purchasing other product at the retail shop. By not practicing the strategy of purchase with purchase, Tesco would be able to attract more consumers to purchase at Tesco. Besides that, the departmentalization of product which will create a discomfort to the Muslim consumer are well organized compared to other grocer sho p. At Tesco the Non-Halal  [4]  product are safely contained at a room created just for the Non-Halal product but at other grocer shops, non-halal product are place at a separate place from the foods but it is sometimes being mixed around by mischievous kids at the grocer and will create a discomfort to the Muslim consumer. Besides creating promotion, Tesco had always sponsored many events in the world. By creating an event, Tesco would not only be able to promote their name but also help to create a better social environment and awareness. Recently, Tesco have been participating in a event called Walk for School. It is use to raise fund to help 100 schools at Klang Valley because the facilities at the Klang Valleys schools have not being up to date which will slow down the learning process of the students there. The fund which was raised is to improve the infrastructure of the school, learning facilities and the library of each school to improve the learning conditions of the students. Lastly in approaching CRM is the technology of Tesco. Tesco online purchase and delivery have been started few years back. All products can be purchased online and delivery is provided for free to those who are Tesco Club member. This would be an advantage for those consumers who are working and those who could not spend time purchasing products directly from Tesco. Though the online system had been established for few years but not all consumers are aware of the system. Hereby a recommendation is made so that Tesco will be able to have a session to teach regular customer that this system had been created in order to let them know about the existence of this system. Besides providing online purchase and delivery facilities, Tesco practically use CRM system  [5]  in assisting them to provide the best services. By using CRM system, Tesco will be able to contact customer and ask for opinion from each of them. This method will provide the knowledge of customer understanding to help T esco to improve in order to provide the best customer service that will fulfill the need of each consumer. Other than that, Tesco will be able to check on the best selling products and hereby they would be able to increase the production of the product to attain all consumers need. For conclusion, by practicing CRM in Tesco it will assist a lot in increasing the rate of profit growth. The main steps in CRM are to target the people, process and the technology. In the 1st step which is people, Tesco have studied on employee, management, consumer behavior and the environment. For the 2nd step which is process, Tesco had make a few changes in the product, create club card, provide the best price, arrangement of products, operating hours and participating in awareness events in order to be sure that Tesco is known by all consumers. As for the last step which is the technology, Tesco has been focusing on improving their technology from time to time. All these steps are being practiced by all Tesco outlets in order to provide the best services and product to the consumers.