Introduction to Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Discuss About The Customer Management (CRM) In Manchester United.

Information technology undertakes imperative parts to the numerous organizations these days. One of the major attributes associated to the information technology in the current times is customer relationship Management (Ado, Hassan and Nasir, 2015). CRM has been combination of the business as well as technological approaches used to fulfil requests of the clients at any point in time. Additionally, CRM includes procurement, investigation as well as usage of the data about the customers, while keeping in mind end goal to offer more services effectively (Ado, Hassan and Nasir, 2015). Customer relationship management applies beyond the traditional products as well as services offerings to the clients. CRM has turn out to be the core strategic aspects to the sports clubs which identify on the significance of managing and understanding their supporters (Ausloos, Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). To most of the fans, football brand is an individual because of the cultural ties in addition to the emotional appeal, sports club can exceed organizations operating outside the realm of the sports in the brand adoration and loyalty. Nevertheless, this brand craze could make a complicated environment which necessitates cautious management and anticipation (Palsa, 2015). This approach at times might be complicated to the football sector where competition over the supporters might occasionally be fierce. It is apparent that football without the fans would possibly not have been the sport it is at present. This implies a weakened fan base can easily lead to ruins of the football clubs (Paramio-Salcines, Downs and Grady, 2015). The fans who are the clients are the base to the football club economic model and they should not be taken for the granted because they fill up the stadiums, purchase the merchandises and they can attract sponsorship. In this case study report it will describe the use of the customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Manchester United club.

Manchester United is an English club and a global club. It is amongst the first English club to perform in European Cup and the first club to actual wins it (Doidge, 2014). Moreover, they are the main English club to have become the winners of the world clubs champion (Ausloos, Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). The club used to be MU in 1902 when the collection of the entrepreneurs assumed on its control. It was then they embraced the red shirts in which they are known with up to this day (Ausloos, Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). They first won their championship under the leadership of Ernest Mangnall back in 1908 as well as 1911, which included their first FA Cup in the year 1909. Nonetheless, there were no significant honors not until the Second World War.

Importance of CRM in the Sports Industry

The club redeveloped on their key communication channel with the world wide fans. They moved to invest to the creation of the fans relationship management solution. The CRM initiative would be the growth engine for the club going forward (Doidge, 2014). Manchester United works closely with many partners, it was important for the CRM initiative could aggregate on the data from across their entire business ecosystem which represent 12 data feeds, which included the ticketing, museum and the financial services partners (Doidge, 2014). This consolidated data could form the basis to marketing and the delivery of the services in innovations in order to reinforce the loyalty of the fans and at the same time leverage on the global value of the Manchester United brand (Doidge, 2014).

CRM goes beyond conventional products as well as services offerings. CRM has turned into the vital aspects to the sport clubs which perceive the significance of understanding and overseeing on their supporters (Khodakarami and Chan, 2014). Football brand has been enthusiasm to some fans. The football clubs they have transcended on the organisation working outside of the domain of the brand loyalty and adoration.  The football industry has fallen behind the various industries especially when it comes to executing CRM systems the supporters are the point of interest in gaining from the missteps which are made somewhere else (Khodakarami and Chan, 2014). Nonetheless, there is essentially contrast when it comes to football as compared to the conventional organisations (Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp and Agnihotri, 2014). This is based on the excellent CRM models which have been examined in writing the needs which are to be adjusted to each professional area (Ado, Hassan and Nasir, 2015).  CRM is a concept which could be used to enhancing the customer relationship and gain competitive benefits. To enhance marketing much effectively Manchester United they need to change on their administration from creating football matches for the general populace, to more unpredictable plans of actions, in regards to the customer focused relationship (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015). Customers are the lifeblood to any business, but the significance of having strong relationship is all the significance when the clients are the fans. Manchester United enjoys one of the most recognized brands in the sporting fields (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015). Manchester United is more than a club. It is a global sport organization which has interest in the retail, media as well as financial services (Bradley and SugarCRM Inc, 2016). To attain on their goal the club had embarked on global customer relationship management programme (Khodakarami and Chan, 2014). The initial phase was to further develop channels which would enable them to connect with their customer and at the same time maximise the potential of Manchester United brand either directly or indirectly via the partners’ network (Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp and Agnihotri, 2014).

Manchester United – A Brief History

To the heart of their CRM strategy there was the desire to get 360 degrees of personal supporters. At the end they have pulled together information from the numerous databases using incremental data which captures strategy that are developed through dimension data (Edwards, 2013). They were able to pull the data from various systems which included membership, ticketing, museum as well as the financial partners (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015). The club has complex business from the retail with the sales of the shirts and Mermorabilia via visits to their museum or restaurant to subscribing to one of their magazines. Moreover, they do also credit cards and mortgages (Ausloos, Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). They want to know when they talk to their customer if they have a season ticket with them. The type of the conversation they have had with the clients is totally different to what they would have with someone who just highlights they are Manchester United fan.

The club being able to access such kind of the data and having a comprehensive view of the client is vital to the level and the nature of service the club could offer. One of the issues is that the demand could exceed the supply in their ticket office (Edwards, 2013). The club over the past they have turned more than twelve thousand individuals who have tried to buy tickets for each of their match (Petríková and Soroková, 2015). The single view they have with the clients, remains work in progress. The relationship the club has had with their fans is the lifeblood to the business (Edwards, 2013).  They are at the early stages and CRM is a long project which might probably never end, since is something they would develop and they continue to refine It (Nufer and Bühler, 2015). The good thing with the club they have model which would assist them to serve well their clients.  

To enhance on the best CRM practices across the organisation Manchester United need to implement aspect such as the following;

Manchester United differentiated themselves from the competition (Edwards, 2013). Their site was created with the fans, which has offered some substantial competitive advantage. The website is user friendly to the fans and it consists of absolutely no advertisements (Edwards, 2013). The site has undergone extensive market research which was aimed in comprehending on the needs of the fans and expectations. This could display some sense of the empathy together with the responsiveness to their online community (Doidge , 2014 ) . This website has played a part in several of their quality dimensions such as tangibility and access. It does contain every aspect which the fans would have wanted to know in regards to the club (Edwards, 2013). The website has had extensive reports and highlights on the matches along with the team sheets, match as well as comparative player statistics (Nufer and Bühler, 2015). The fans are also able to submit their opinions and predictions in regards to the match and interact with the other fans across the globe.

The Use of CRM in Manchester United

The club has directed on their advertising campaign to stress on the strong link between club and the world and they aim at charming a number of the stakeholders along with appealing goodwill or the spiritual awareness of some of their fans (Kennedy, 2015). In their community program, they club organizes numerous fundraising and volunteering events. This is a form of adding value to the community and in return they gain numerous numbers of the fans across the world.

The use of CRM would allow Manchester United to streamline on the business process, better management their fans and new clients to the onboarding process and at the same time handle the scheduling and projects (Nufer and Bühler, 2015). CRM provides an efficient as well as convenient way in centralizing on the operations across the business, while at the same time keeping efficient and quality services. CRM is utilised to record, track as well as report on the entire prospect, fans activities and the club transactions (Nufer and Bühler, 2015). It allows the club to have data which is immediately available, and complete as well as up to data which enables them to respond faster to any requests highlighted by the supported which enables them to work at the peak efficiency (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015). Through CRM Manchester United would offer personal services to the supporters. It is important they exceed the clients’ expectations when everybody knows what they had promised, and what they have scheduled from them for the future (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015). Full featured CRM would tie all the operations of the club, which would become one stop shop to access all the data they need to build and also maintain amazing relationship with the fans. CRM has enabled Manchester United to provide services anytime and anywhere to their supporters. In their instant access omni-channel globally, the client requires quick responses (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015). Gone are the days which the clients had to wait for the news or response in regards to information about the club or matches (Ogbonna and Harris, 2015). CRM helps them to gain access to the real time club data when they need it in terms of any transfer, injury of the players, matches to be played and anything about the club (Olson, Duray, Cooper and Olson, 2016).

Manchester United is the most powerful and valuable sports club brand worldwide. Their use of the CRM supports them to gain immense revenues from the sponsorship and sales of various merchandises worldwide (Nufer, 2013). The market position of the club might be appreciated by the fan base client that is around 330 million which happens to be 5% of the total population of the world. This huge fan is the bases of their strong brand image and there is absolutely no solitary reason that explains why it could encounter virtually any issues.

CRM Strategies to Enhance Customer Experience in Manchester United

The primary weak point of Manchester United is their high volume of the debt they have got on the market (Ausloos, Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). The debt is really substantial that the strength of the club might be defied with this element. Moreover, the rules as well as the regulations of the UEFA and FIFA do not permit the club

Conclusion

Manchester United found out the best solution to develop customer loyalty is acquire good data of all their customers and make use of this data to generate a programs that could focus on each customer preferences. The most reliable to these programs provides everybody within the club to access the clients’ data which helps to serve the supporters better.

The club needs to utilise CRM since it would enable them to create strategies which could focus on the entire enterprise to serving the supporters much better. This will enable them to increase on their earning much faster if they know who their customers are much better. CRM helps to the club to have a better picture of the clients and this assists them in tailoring their services better.  They are able to cross sell and up sell to them different merchandise across the globe. In this report, it has described the use of the CRM in Manchester United. Moreover, it has highlighted who are the customers of the club and how they are using CRM in the club.

References

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Ausloos, M., Gadomski, A. and Vitanov, N.K., 2014. Primacy and ranking of UEFA soccer teams from biasing organization rules. Physica Scripta,89(10), p.108002.

Bradley, B., SugarCRM Inc, 2016. Natural language processing (nlp) of follow up to a scheduled event in a customer relationship management (crm) system. U.S. Patent Application 14/469,407.

Doidge, M., 2014. Book review: The Global Football League: Transnational Networks, Social Movements and Sport in the New Media Age. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 49(1), pp.121-124.

Edwards, K.G., 2013. The Biggest Game in Town: The NFL, The EPL, and a New Model for Value Creation in Professional Sports.

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Kennedy, D. and Kennedy, P., 2015. Grass-roots football, autonomous activity and the forging of new social relationships. Sport in Society, 18(4), pp.497-513.

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Nufer, G., 2013. Ticket pricing in European football-Analysis and implications. International Journal of Human Movement and Sports Sciences, 1(2), pp.49-60.

Ogbonna, E. and Harris, L.C., 2015. Subcultural tensions in managing organisational culture: a study of an English Premier League football organisation. Human Resource Management Journal, 25(2), pp.217-232.

Olson, E.M., Duray, R., Cooper, C. and Olson, K.M., 2016. Strategy, structure, and culture within the English Premier League: an examination of large clubs. Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal,6(1).

Palsa, J., 2015. Customer Relationship Management in Sport Business: Case: The Spectator Profile of the Finnish National Football Team.

Paramio-Salcines, J.L., Downs, P. and Grady, J., 2015. Football and its communities: the celebration of Manchester United FC’s Ability Suite.Soccer & Society, pp.1-22.

Petríková, D. and Soroková, T., 2015. Economic and Psychological Aspects of Importance of Real Madrid Brand in Marketing Communication.Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(3), p.504.

Trainor, K.J., Andzulis, J.M., Rapp, A. and Agnihotri, R., 2014. Social media technology usage and customer relationship performance: A capabilities-based examination of social CRM. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), pp.1201-1208.