Benefits and Challenges of A Loyalty Program: The VIP Club at Parsian Chain Hotels, Iran
Abstract: In today’s competitive market, retaining existing customers is more profitable than attracting new ones. Customer Relation Management (CRM) is a strategic approach to keep and fulfill customers and push them to return to the company.
Loyalty program is known as a useful tool to meet the goals of CRM. Based on the importance of customers in the hospitality industry loyalty program is a common strategy which is employed in different segment of this industry such as the hotel business. The purpose of this thesis was to gain a better understanding of the characteristics of loyalty programs in the Iranian hotel industry. To do a better implementation of this research we study customer loyalty program of Parsian complex which is run under the name of VIP club as a case study.
For this thesis we developed the questionnaire with 38 questions which were filled by 60 managers of Parsian hotels and VIP program designers. The data suggested that VIP program will not interest any of the studied benefits; Strong database and financial benefits.
The findings indicate that The VIP program faces with some challenges; Inappropriate rewards system, not well designed loyalty program structure and lack of goals clarification.
Based on this study Parsian complex should clarify the goals of loyalty program and consider managers and customers’ view to design a strong loyalty program which can increase customer loyalty and employees’ support.
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