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Essay Instructions: 1. Advance or deeper study of the topic related to advance cost accounting
2. The topic is customer relationship management (CRM)
3. Could you add a table or graph in addition to the 7 written pages
4. Sources must be within the past 3 years

Essay Instructions: Here is assignment #2:

First let me introduce you to CRM, or Customer Relationship Management. The attached document contains an overview of what CRM is all about. Read it and use it to consider the following:

Companies that believe in CRM often face a problem. They have two major objectives that they need to meet, but unfortunately, they are sometimes considered mutually exclusive. That is, it is hard to succeed in one, without screwing up the other.

First, a company needs to be successful, and turn a profit. At the end of the day, the company needs to be profitable to survive. On the flip side, the company also needs to be able to satisfy the consumer, whose spending power is the lifeblood of the business. Unhappy customers, mean no business. But what happens if you are caught in between? What if satisfying the customers needs affects your profit margin?

Say you are the manager of a retail store. One morning, you come into work, and realize that two of your cashiers called out sick. There is a major sale going on, and you need to make sure all of your registers are covered. You could handle one of the registers by yourself, but that would keep you from managing the rest of the store operations. You could call in another employee, but because they would be working overtime, you would need to pay them time and a half...and you are already over budget for this months salary. Your boss frowns upon budgets being exceeded. Your third option is to just try and get by without two of the cashiers and ask your other cashiers to try and speed things up, while you walk the store and help customers....How do you handle this situation? What is best for you? What do you think will be best for the customers? What would be the best for your employees? What matters most in this scenario?

This may seem pretty simple, but there really isn't a right or wrong answer. Is there something else you can think of to help solve this problem?

Again, please respond to this scenario in a 2-3 page paper. Justify your responses, and tell me how your solution relates to CRM
There are faxes for this order.

Essay Instructions: Assuming that you work for an organization or company, it might be an interesting project to do the customer service audit / customer relationship management plan for that company. If information about your organization or company is proprietary, or if you do not have ready access to the information required in the customer service audit / customer relationship management plan, you can

(a) audit/plan for a company that is publicly held and/or on which there is a lot of easily accessible information about it on the Web. However, please don't choose Wal-Mart, USAA, Best Buy, Target, John Deere, or other companies that have been discussed by students a great deal. Better to choose a smaller, lesser-known company.

OR

(b) talk to a friend who owns a company or business. You might be able to interview the owner of a small business. This option is *better* than auditing a big company like Wal-Mart.

Take a few minutes to choose an organization that will help you apply the concepts effectively. Choose an organization where you have easy access to the information you need.

You may use a military unit that is involved in customer service activities, such as a base PX. However, I do NOT recommend choosing a company like Boeing, which has huge-ticket items and few customers. Those companies do not grow by building customer relationships the same way we discuss here.

If you do not have access to company or organization information as an insider, I suggest that you pick a publicly held organization or company. The reason for this will become obviously shortly: if the organization or company is publicly held, to attract investors, it publishes detailed information on the customer service it provides. However, you will gain most from the class if you choose an organization where you know the owners and/or key managers.

Once you have read the Overview and selected the organization you will audit, start compiling basic information about your organization. Information collection will be time consuming. You need to collect and document this information as early in the session as you can.

For SLP1, please use section headings as you address each of the topics outlined below.

NAME AND ADDRESS of (the division of) the organization or company you have chosen to examine.

The Company's SITUATION (A statement about "where we are including its Products - goods and/or services (What does the firm/company/division/department sell))

Does the firm you are auditing have a program in place to practice develop customer relationships? If not, why not? What data could be mined?

If known, what data does the company obtain about its customers? If not known, what data should the company collect about its customers? For example, do they (or should they) obtain name, address, credit info, buying patterns, demographics, psychographics? If the customer is an organization, do we know organization size, purpose and so on?"

If you can identify data collected, indicate 3 ways the company can use this data in a CRM program.

If you cannot identify this info, then identify 3 types of data the company could collect and discuss how they might use this data to strengthen customer relationships.

Checklist for Grading:

==> Demonstrate understanding of CRM

==>Not just descriptive: analytical and crtical

==>Evidence of use of required references and background materials==>Use of APA formatting Guidelines here.

==>Length of 2 pages 600-800 words (number of pages not as important as word count)

==>Few quotes and absolutely no copying or close paraphrasing from any source without appropriate citation

==>No definitions and no summaries from the sources you use

==>No general statements with "all," "none," "must," "should," "mandatory," and similar terms


Background material:


Beatty, Sally (2002, October 31). Mass Levi's, Class Levi's --- Wal-Mart to Neiman Marcus Is Jeans Maker's New Goal; Top Price: $220 `Vintage' Pair, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y. p. B.1. Available on July 25, 2007
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=&sid=1& Fmt=3&clientId=29440&RQT=309&VName=PQD


Danna, A & Gandy, O. H. Jr. (2002). All that glitters is not gold: Digging beneath the surface of data mining. Journal Of Business Ethics,1 40(4), 373-386.
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=&sid=15& Fmt=3&clientId=29440&RQT=309&VName=PQD


Medford, R. (2007). Cut to the Chase: Practical Advice for Successful CRM. Supply Chain Europe. London. 16(5). p 26

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1&sid=5& Fmt=4&clientId=29440&RQT=309&VName=PQD



Paul Tullo. Brand Strategy. London: May 8, 2008. pg. 30
http://tinyurl.com/cvmarticle Here's a thought-provoking article from the Wharton School database: http://wharton.universia.net/index.cfm?fa=viewfeature&id=1452&language=english


Here are some notes from an online forum. It is not an academic or published source but I found it accurate and helpful: http://www.customerthink.com/forum/important_customer_value_management

Essay Instructions: The research paper general topic is to discuss Relationship Marketing and Customer Relationship Management. Please include an abstract and Reference page. Thanks