In this last in a series of six articles about internal and external CRM and organizational change management in casinos, Charlie Mai presents the integrated model of internal and external CRM change management for casinos.
The integrated model has seven core elements: vision, key challenges, objectives, measures, strategies, initiatives and outcomes. It can be applied for internal CRM and ex-ternal CRM separately or all together.
Vision
The integrated model commences with the internal and external CRM change management vision, which paints a picture of what kind of relationships the casino wants to establish with its employees and customers. The vision should also place an emphasis on employee and customer centricity and value proposition for specific employee and customer seg-ments. Moreover, the internal and external casino CRM change management vision should be integrated with the corporate vision and strategic objectives. Finally, the vision will guide all activities of the internal and external casino CRM change management program.
Challenges
Next, the internal and external CRM change management challenges are identified. The identification of the internal and external CRM change challenges is based on ongoing market intelligence and internal and external CRM change readiness diagnosis. The identification of the internal and external CRM change challenges results in the status of the casino’s relationship with its employees and customers, which needs to be changed or improved.
Objectives
Then, the internal and external CRM change management objectives define the desired future status of the organization’s relationship with employees and customers that it wants to achieve.
Measures
These objectives are measured against a set of internal and external CRM change measures. These measures can be, for example, employee engagement scores, employee absenteeism and turnover rates, customer satisfaction and loyalty, customer experience and organizational collaboration. These measures are also used to measure the implementation of internal and external CRM change management strategies and initiatives. This measurement element links the internal and external CRM change management challenge and objective elements.
Strategies
To realize the vision and deliver the objectives, the internal and external CRM change management strategies must be in place. These strategies describe how the casino achieves its desired relationship with employees and customers. Internal and external CRM change management strategies also define the basic understanding of the internal and external CRM change management initiatives, which are required, step-by-step actions the casino needs to take to move its relationship with employees and customers from the current status to the desired future one.
Initiatives
To implement the strategies, seven main internal and external CRM change management initiatives are identified: market intelligence, innovative and creative offers, brand and communications, identification and recruitment, performance management, reward and recognition, and change management.
Market Intelligence
This first internal and external CRM initiative covers market research, employee and customer segmentations and insights. It helps define who the targeted employee and customer segments are and what their wants and needs are as well as who the main competitors and their strengths and weaknesses are The findings of this market intelligence initiative also help inform decision making.
Innovative and creative offers
Once the findings of the market intelligence initiative are defined, the second internal and external CRM change management initiative deals with developing innovative and creative offers that meet the employee and customer wants and needs and that differentiate from the competition. In other words, what does the casino have to offer its targeted employees and customers to meet their wants and needs that its competitors cannot?
Brand and communications
The fourth internal and external CRM change management initiative focuses on brand positioning and communications. It deals with the question of how to brand and to communicate the innovative and creative offers to the targeted employee and customer segments. A detailed brand and communication plan defining key messaging and specific communication channels must be in place.
Identification and recruitment
The fifth internal and external CRM change management initiative is to identify and acquire new potential employees and customers. This initiative serves the first half of the internal and external CRM change management goal of identifying, recruiting, differentiating and retaining high valued employees and customers.
Performance management
While the identification and recruitment initiative cover the first half of identifying and recruiting new potential employees and customers, this performance management initiative deals with the other half of differentiating and retaining high-valued employees and customers.
Reward and recognition
The sixth internal and external CRM change management initiative focuses on reward and recognition for high-valued employees and customers. In other words, this initiative deals with the question of how to recognize and reward employee’s loyalty and high performance, and customers’ loyalty and high contribution.
Change management
The last and central internal and external CRM change management initiative is how to manage change during the implementation process of the first six initiatives. The change management initiative deals with the seven key successful change factors (7Cs): coalition, change diagnosis and planning, consultation, communication of the change process, capability development, collaboration and change embracement. These factors were discussed in Article 5 about organizational change management practices in casinos and can be referred to for details.
In brief, these internal and external CRM change strategies and initiatives must align with the established internal and external CRM change management vision and objectives.
Outcomes
Finally, the outcomes of the implementation of these internal and external CRM change management initiatives are measured against the established measures. Key successful initiatives or factors should be profiled in the form of best practices while key failure initiatives or factors should be profiled in the form of key learning lessons for sharing and future use. Decisions need to be made whether the internal and external CRM change management program is continued, revised or terminated.
Implication for practice
As mentioned in the introduction of this article, this model integrates internal CRM, external CRM and organizational change management together. It can be applied to address each of these three areas separately and/or two or all areas together. However, this model was built based on a well-established casino in Australia where internal and external CRM and organizational change management had already existed. There may also be some distinctive cultural, legal and industrial aspects of employee and customer management practices in casinos in Australia. Therefore, the model may or may not work in other casino-rich regions like Asia, Europe or North America or in other organizations and industries.
In conclusion, this final Article 6 has presented the integrated model of internal and external CRM change management for casinos. This model is also the solution for the issues of internal CRM, external CRM and organizational change management in casinos in Australia highlighted in the previous five articles.
