RETAIL

MANAGEMENT

Customer Relationship
Management @ Big Bazaar
& Reliance Mart

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER CHAPTER NAME PAGE

NO. NO.
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
• Meaning of CRM
• Goal of CRM
• Evolution & growth of CRM
• Options for implementing CRM
• Various aspects of CRM
Chapter 2 Research methodology SUBMITTED BY: 8
• Objective of research • Deepak Majhi 03
• Nancy 05
• Type of research • AritroMukherjee 07
• Data collection technique • Raja Rowin 35
• Gunjan Parmar 42
• Sampling procedures & sample
• size
Lalit Mukul Kindo
• Vijay Mishra
• Limitations of the research • Anuradha – 63
Chapter 3 CRM @ Reliance Mart • Anurag Singh – 69
• Ritu Kumari - 77
Chapter 4 CRM @ Big Bazaar
Chapter 5 Customer’s opinion about CRM @ Reliance
Mart & Big Bazaar
• Sales person’s assistance
• Expectation fulfilment

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 • Discounts & failures
• Product arrangement
• Accessibility
• preference
Chapter 6 Comparison between CRM @ Reliance Mart &
Big Bazaar
Chapter 7 Conclusion & recommendation

CHAPTE
INTRODUCTION
“it is not enough to have great qualities, we should also have the abilities to manage them”.
The same concept can also be applied in an organization. For e.g. a company may produce a
very high quality products but it won’t be able to succeed if it fails to manage or satisfy their
customers.

According to Harward Business Review “an exceptionally satisfied customer is 6 times more
likely to buy again as one who is merely satisfied & only 5% increase in customer loyalty
can boost profit from 25% to 85%”.

Thus all these quotes & experts opinion highlights the importance of Customer Relationship
Management. Customers are considered to be king of every business enterprise and loyal
customers are the backbone of their business. So customer satisfaction is the primary motive
of every business which can be attained through effective CRM (Customer Relationship
Management) policy

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1.1 Meaning of Customer Relationship Management (CRM):
CRM is a comprehensive strategy & process of acquiring & retaining customers to create
superior value for the company as well as the customers. It consists of the processes a
company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers.
To support these processes, various CRM Software like SAP, ORACLE Sales force.com etc.
are used. These software record and store information about customers, various customer
interactions, their problems etc which can be accessed by employees in different departments
of the company. These information are used by the organization to make future plans that
can satisfy the customer on a better way and retaining them for a longer period.

1.2 Goal of CRM:

The goal of CRM is to provide improved services to the customers, and to use customer
contact information for targeted marketing.

1.3 Evaluation and growth of the CRM:

CRM passes through three generations such as 1st generation in 1990, 2nd generation in 1996
and the 3rd generation in 2002.

In 1st generation following systems were applied for CRM:-

➢ Call centre management-

It is a web based CRM technology, the enables users browsing a company’s web site to leave
a phone number where company representative can call back with more information.

➢ Customer service support-

It is a part of a company’s CRM department that interacts with a customer for their
immediate benefits.

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 ➢ Sales force automation-

It is software that automates business tasks like inventory control, sales processing, customer
interaction, etc-.

➢ Campaign management-

It is a planning, executing, tracking and analyzing of direct marketing campaigns.

In 2nd generation following improved systems were used for CRM:-

➢ Integrated customer facing front end-

It is face to face interaction between the customers and sales man. This system is used for
marketing, sales and services.

➢ ERP integrations-

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is a business management system that
integrates all functions of the business.

➢ Customers analytics-

It comprises all the programming that analyzes data about an enterprise’s customers for
business decision.

➢ Complete web integration-

It allows end users to have access the data function of a serve hosted application through
internet browser window.

In 3rd generation the strategic CRM was followed and is continuing-

Strategic CRM updates and expands the original content and combines into one,
convenient value that guides users through the entire CRM implementation process, from
strategic planning software.

Scope and goals of different generations:-

There is successful increment in the scope of CRM from 1st generation to 3rd
generation. In 1st generation the scope consists of service function and sales function, in 2nd
generation it includes another function i.e. marketing function and in 3rd generation it
includes entire function of the organization.

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 Goals of the CRM have also changed with better customer service from 1 st generation
to 3rd generation. In 1st generation the goals were improve service operation and increase
sales efficiency, in 2nd generation reduce cost of interaction, improve customer experiences,
and increasing the customer interaction; in 3rd generation cost reduction & revenue growth
and competitive advantages.

1.4 Options for Implementing CRM:

Increasing customer is not the ultimate objective of any organization but to retain customer
and t build long term relationship with them is important. It is only through CRM that a
prospect can be turn into customer and then finally into a client. But to achieve these any
organization require proper implementation.

But at the same time CRM implementation is a challenging task because it ties together
many people, process, technologies within the organization which are separate from each
other.

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 1) IN HOUSE DEVELOPMENT- This means all the strategies, processes are
developed and implemented within the organization.
Advantage-

1. It is tailored made according to organization needs and structure thus is flexible as

compared to others.
2. Avoid dependency on others be it software or outsourcing.

Disadvantage

1. It is at the same time expensive

2. And comparatively takes longer time depending on the organisation.

1) BUY LICENSED CRM SOFTWARE- This is purchasing software and

implementing in organization.
Advantage-

1. Usually the maximum chance of success.

2. It just need to install and trained the workforce accordingly.

Disadvantage-

1. Again it is expensive because of many costs as license cost, renewal cost etc.
associated with it.
2. Adding new software with change is a complex task.

1) OUTSOURCING A MANAGED SERVICE- This means hiring from outside.

Advantage-

1. Most of the times lower cost.

2. Can adopt “pay- as- you go” approach with visible result.

Disadvantage-

1. For any new requirement needs to contact the company and pay for the development.
2. Also there is a risk of losing CRM solution investment if outsourcing company goes
out of business

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STAGEWISE- In this CRM software is offered in different, independent modules,
Im
according to specific department needs.

Company buys sales automation software and contact management module from different
providers.

ENTERPRISE WISE CRM SOLUTION- This is composed of different modules from

same providers; it is implemented as a whole by connecting different modules and existing
database.

1.5 VARIOUS ASPECTS OF CRM

CRM includes many aspects which relate directly to one another:

• Front office operations — Direct interaction with customers, e.g. face to face
meetings, phone calls, e-mail, online services etc.

• Back office operations — Operations that ultimately affect the activities of the front
office (e.g., billing, maintenance, planning,
marketing, advertising, finance, manufacturing etc.)

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 CHAPTE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research is a systematic and objective investigation of a subject or a problem in order to

discover relevant information or principles. Research methodology is basically the method
of how to collect data. The information regarding our research are as follows:

2.1 Objective of our research: We wanted to understand as well as compare the

“customer relationship management” followed by the Reliance Mart and Big Bazaar.

2.2 Type of research: Our research was empirical kind of research since we were dealing
with the behavioral or qualitative aspect of customers and not the quantitative data’s.here
we were not supported with any exterenal data nor were adopting any secndory data to do
our reaserch.

2.3 Data collection and analysis: collection, and analysis of the information gathered by
Interaction with employees and customers and also by observing activities of the
employees. For better understanding of CRM in Big Bazaar and Reliance Mart we also had
prepared a questionnaire for both customers and managers.

2.4 Sampling procedure and sample size:persons selected by us were randomely selected
.and were from different age group,sex and educational backgroun .this diversification was
done to measure the different choice and preferences prevailing in customers
demographycally different.

2.5 Limitations of our research:

1. Our sample size was composed of only 20 customers which is extremely small sample
to represent entire population of customers who visit in these two retail stores.

2. No demographical or psychographic differences was considered before choosing the

customers for interview purpose.

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 3. many of the policies which were not in force due to smaller market potential their
description is also been provided by managers.

CHAPTER-

CRM POLICY OF RELIANCE MART

CRM policy of reliance mart can be divided into four major parts, namely;
1) Customer loyalty
2) Customer retention
3) Customer communication

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 4) Customer gratification

There exists a blanket customer relationship programme called the reliance one membership
programme for the purpose of maintaining customer loyalty. The membership programme is
a very simple one where a willing customer is required to fill a form giving personal
information and he gets a temporary card which will be made permanent after six months.
On each purchase of rs. 100 the customer gets one redeemable point on the production of
card at billing counter. The collected points can be redeemed in form of discounts on future
purchases on demand of the customer.
The customers also get the opportunity of availing four different kinds of insurance on the
payment of a nominal fee. For example a customer can get an accidental death insurance of
rs six lakhs on the payment of rs. 400 only.
Other forms of insurances are disability, hospitalization and home insurances.
The members of relianceone get the opportunity of taking part and winning prizes by the way
of lucky draws on regular intervals.

Customer retention policy implementation is at the zonal level. Generally each state is
regarded as a zone and the offers and discounts in a zone are not available in other zones.
Such policy helps reliance retail to understand and capture the local markets better.
The products which show improvement due to offers and discounts on them are repeated
with these offers again so as to retain the sales of the customers who bought it the last time.
Also such the days best offers are constantly announced in the store making the regular
customers aware about them.
Maintaining a good store ambiance is also a part of customer retention policy of reliance
retail. Clean and hygienic environment with properly and well spaced products along with a
uniform color theme attracts the existing customers to the store again and again.
A fast billing system and good and easy grievance handling system which can be accessed
thru customer service desk and company website, ensures that customers feel satisfied with
the store management. Less harassment to customers means better customer retention.

Communication to existing customers takes the form of sms and e-mails, generally sent to
reliance one members. They get information about ongoing offers and also information and
latest news about their nearest stores and the company in general.
Another source of customer database is the information collected during the organizing of
special events in the stores. Customers participating in such events provide their contact
information which are also used in form of database for communication purposes.
Thank you and festive cards on special occasions are an innovative way of communicating
with the customers.

Trained salespersons make customer gratification very easy. A simple thank you with a smile
goes a long way for the store to keep the customers happy.
The special events organized by the stores across india are also a way to gratify the
customers by allowing them to play and win prizes.
Gift vouchers and discount coupons are an attraction for the customers and give them the feel
that the store cares about them and their money.
Local customers many a times make limited personal contacts with the store staff just like
that made at a kirana store and help the store to some extent to maintain a relationship with
the customers.

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The implementation of the policies brings out certain limitations in them. Few major ones are
as follows
The personal contact numbers of reliance one members are open to tele marketing calls from
various marketers as they leak out of the reliance retail’s database, causing unnecessary
harassment to customers.
The customer communication policy is less followed in small towns and cities and is more
concentrated towards the metro cities.
There is a common crm policy for both reliance fresh and mart. This should not be the case
as both the stores offer different kinds of merchandize and generally attract different kinds of
customers.
Reliance retail generally delays the processing of permanent membership cards to those
customers who have not paid for such a card. Customers have been waiting for over three
months for their card. Those who have paid the nominal fee of rs. 50 get their permanent
card within 15 days but the rest who have optioned not to pay the fees do not receive the card
until too late.
Unmanned billing counters create long queues at the open counters. This creates impatiens in
the customers as they expect faster billing at the stores and do not want to stand with too
much of goods held in their hands while billing.

CHAPTER 4
CRM @ BIG BAZAAR

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✔ Database is formed through the issue of future card and card is of three types silver
card, gold card and sakthi card. Sakthi card is issued to ladies and this card provides,
free sugar(1 kg) per month.
✔ Customer profitability analysis (CPA) is done on the basis of transactions made
through the future cards.
○ Platinum customers (most profitable).
○ Gold customers (profitable).
○ Iron customers (low profitability but desirable).
○ Lead customers (unprofitable and undesirable).

✔ Differentiate customers in terms of: (1) their needs and (2) their value to company.
✔ Interact with individual customers to improve the knowledge about individual needs
and to build stronger relationships.
✔ There are four type of analysis done for analysis of CRM
✔
○ Periodic Surveys: It’s done on quarterly, its an overall survey done by the
future group authorities and CRM is a part of it.
○ Customer Loss Rate :
○ Mystery Shoppers: They pose as normal customers perform specific tasks—
such as purchasing a product, asking questions, registering complaints or
behaving in a certain way – and then provide detailed reports or
feedback about their experiences
○ Monitor Competitive Performance

✔ Complaint Handling Procedures:

• Screening And Logging -- The type of product or service;

manufacturer/brand name; model name/number; date of purchase/contract;
warranty expiration date; salesperson; cost of product/service; date problem
occurred; and a description of the problem is listed. This allows organization to
exercise control, and assure proper follow-through.
• Investigating -- customer's explanation of a problem provides much
information. Nevertheless, to assure they have all the information needed for a
thorough review of the facts involved, by:
○ Researching in-house records on the customer;
○ Requesting receipts, or other records;
○ Inspecting the product, or service performed; and
○ Following-up with the customer for any necessary additional information.

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 • Acknowledging -- When Big Bazaar cannot resolve an issue immediately, it
is important to let customer know that the matter is receiving attention. Customer
is given information about how long it will take to complete action on the
complaint. If there is further delay, it’s made sure to advise customer why and
when Big Bazaar expects to have an answer.
• Formulating A Solution -- solution is made to be consistent with established
customer relations policy and important criteria are taken into account:
○ Contractual and/or warranty obligations;
○ The customer's expectations;
○ expectations of the customer;
○ The cost/benefit of alternative solutions;
○ The probability and cost of customer seeking redress in some other way;
○ The comprehensiveness and fairness of solution;
○ ability to perform the solution; and
○ What to do if the customer rejects solution.
• Responding -- The response is made clear and appropriate. The customer
must understand the response, and the response must address the issues raised in
the customer's original complaint.
An explanation of decision preserves the goodwill of customer, even if the decision
itself is adverse.

• Following-Up – Customer is contacted following response to verify whether

or not the matter has been resolved satisfactorily. If customer is unhappy with
response, organization refers the matter to a third party dispute resolution
mechanism for assistance.
✔ Steps Involved in customer Satisfaction through Service:

○ Seeing problems from the customer’s perspective

○ Managing customers' "moments of truth"
○ Communicating effectively through better listening
○ Analyzing how customer perceptions are formed
○ Managing anger and other service behaviors

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 ○ Dealing with long-term consequences of service breakdowns
○ Negotiating solutions
○ Generating an action plan for improved on-the-job effectiveness

CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION:

Future group maintains its records of customers by observing their purchasing habits &
categories them into various groups like high revenue, moderate revenue & low revenue
customers. They communicate to the customers through various medium like SMS,E-mail,
Mobile vans, Print media etc.This is the way to built a strong presence in the existing
customers & prospective customers. Presently they are using oracle software to maintain
database. Recently they have tied up with California based firm GREENPLUM to provide
new software for data warehousing.

The company boasts strong share of its profits from top line customers who provide them
around 70% of their revenues in total. The company can said to be going on the famous
management principle i.e. 80/20 PRINCIPLE which says that 20 percent of variables cause
80% effect. In big bazaar it can be related to the fact that 20% of its top line customers
provide 80% of its revenues in a year. This is the reason why the retail giant is focusing
strongly on customer retention in order to boasts its sales numbers substantially.

CUSTOMER GRATIFICATION is an important element of a sales process. Every

company should survey their customers in order to find out the satisfaction level among the
consumers. Big bazaar also conducts periodic surveys in order to ascertain the satisfaction
level in their consumers. Various activities are done in order to enhance the shopping
experience among buyers & various offers, discount coupons; exchange offers are initiated
by the firm in order to develop a good satisfaction level in their existing customers. Special
coupons are given to customers who can be redeemed by the costumers in their future
purchases from the store.

CUSTOMER PERCIEVED VALUE (CPV) is calculated by the retail store in order to

asses the costs and benefits received & given to the buyers. The following are some key
features of CPV

1. CPV is the difference between the prospective customer’s evaluation of all the benefits
and all the costs of an offering and the perceived alternative.

2. Total customer value is the perceived monetary value of the bundle of economic,
functional & psychological benefits customers expect from a given market offering.

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3. Total customer cost is the bundle of costs customers expect to incur in evaluating,
obtaining, using, disposing of the given market offering, including monetary, time, energy &
psychic costs.

LOOPHOLES:

The retail store has also various loopholes especially here at ranchi.The major drawback
which was found out initially was lack of proper parking place but now it has been corrected
to some extent. Secondly the store is very slow in execution of online orders which is given
through company web portal “FUTURE BAZAAR”. To quote a few examples of late
delivery Mr. David Kerketta,a resident of lalpur-peace road purchased a furniture for Rs
37000,the date of scheduled delivery was 15th of November,2008 but he received his order
37 days late. One more incident of such late delivery is MR Pradeep Kumar, a resident of
Upper Bazaar who purchased a dining table for Rs. 15000,but as usual he got his final
delivery a whopping 65 days late than the scheduled date of delivery. So these incidents
speak a lot of inefficient delivery. The other drawbacks are inefficient billi.ng counters as
they are not updated with the current offers and schemes. Also the billing counters remains
unmanned that add to the problem of customers who needs to stand in long queue in order to
get their purchases billed. The other problem is related to the slow processing of applications
of membership cards like Shakti card, future cards etc.It takes around 30 days minimum to
become a member of future card schemes. This is very slowly considering the industry
average of 15-20 days to process a card. Finally the contact numbers of customers are open
to the telemarketing personnel as they get the database from the future group through some
sources or the other.

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 CHAPTE

CUSTOMER’S POINT OF VIEW

1) Sales Person’s Assistance: This refers to the extent of help an individual gets from
the sales person present in the store in choosing a particular product or in case of any
query. There can be two instances i.e. inadequate help or excess help. Inadequate help
is a very case because most of the time sales person is there to solve our queries.
Instances of excess help can arise which makes the customer feel that the person is
interfering in his decision or pushing the product to him.

50% people preferred the sales person assistance of reliance mart and only 35% preferred
Big Bazaar in this respect. 15% people were neutral that means they thought it to be the same
in both the stores or they didn’t need any such help from the sales person.

2) Expectation Fulfilment: every customer has certain expectations when he visits a

store. This expectation will vary from person to person. It can be getting a particular
brand of product or particular quantity or variant of the product.

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 55% people felt that their expectations are more fulfilled at Big Bazaar while 45%
preferred Reliance Mart. This may be because of greater product depth at Big Bazaar
than in Reliance Mart.

3) Discounts & Offers: these are announced from time to time to lure customers to buy
more.

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60% people preferred the Discounts & Offers of Big Bazaar while only 40% preferred that of
Reliance Mart. This may be because more people are aware of the discounts offered by Big
Bazaar due to their huge advertisements.

4) Product Arrangement: this basically means the sequence or order in which different
varieties, brands or segments of products are arranged so that customers feel at ease
in selecting the product of his/her choice.

55% people preferred the product arrangement of Reliance Mart while 45% preferred that of
Big Bazaar. This is because Big Bazaar has large space due to which products are more
fragmented or scattered on the contrary Reliance Mart has smaller space in which products
are more logically arranged. Also it has more space between the shelves which provide ease
of walking to customers and they think less space means less energy wastage.

5) Accessibility: it refers to the reach of the store to the customers.

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50% people preferred Big Bazaar, 39% Reliance Mart & 11% were neutral that means
accessibility doesn’t matter to them. Majority likes Big Bazaar because it is situated in the
main city while Reliance Mart is located at a very posh area which is very far from the main
city.

6) Preference: it refers to the preference of the customer regarding making a choice

between the two stores i.e. Big Bazaar & Reliance Mart.

On the whole 65% people prefer shopping at Big Bazaar and 35% people preferred to do
shopping at Reliance Mart. This may be because of any of the above mentioned reasons.

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CHAPTE

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 CHAPTE

CONCLUSION
• Transformation by integrating customer facing front-end with back-end systems and
partners and suppliers.

This will effectively help in generating better filtered data source from feedbacks
received. Also the feedbacks will be dealt with in a much more careful and
professional way.

• Growth of CRM facilitated by growth of IT.

In this age of Information Technology an effective IT planning on the CRM can help
the organization earn a lot of repute.

• New database solutions.

This will help to filter and clean the raw data received from feedbacks more
efficiently.

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 • Mutual benefit through CRM.

The stores and their customers can mutually benefit through the application of CRM.
So at this “era of customers”, the companies should project themselves as customer
oriented as possible to help them benefit in a long term survival plan.

• Effective segmentation of customers.

With more and better quality of data, this can be done very easily.

• Enhancing the shopping solutions.

This is the age of innovation. Especially in Indian markets, low cost innovation is the
ultimate tool to win the battle for the companies. Thus, the companies need to be
innovative with their ideas and always try to deliver the customer with some added
value for their purchase.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Many CRM project "failures" are also related to data quality and availability. Data cleaning
is a major issue. If a company's CRM strategy is to track life-cycle revenues, costs, margins,
and interactions between individual customers, this must be reflected in all business
processes. Data must be extracted from multiple sources (e.g., departmental/divisional
databases such as sales, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, finance, service etc.), which
requires an integrated, comprehensive system in place with well-defined structures and high
data quality. Data from other systems can be transferred to CRM systems using appropriate
interfaces.

Because of the company-wide size and scope of many CRM implementations, significant
pre-planning is essential for smooth roll-out. This pre-planning involves a technical
evaluation of the data available and the technology employed in existing systems. This
evaluation is critical to determine the level of effort needed to integrate this data.

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Equally critical is the human aspect of the implementation. A successful implementation
requires an understanding of the expectations and needs of the stakeholders involved. An
executive sponsor should also be obtained to provide high-level management representation
of the CRM project.

An effective tool for identifying technical and human factors before beginning a CRM
project is a pre-implementation checklist. A checklist can help ensure any potential problems
are identified early in the process.

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