Dissertation: An investigation into Customer engagement as the part of customer relationship strategy: A case of Paddy Power
Dissertation: An investigation into Customer engagement as the part of customer relationship strategy: A case of Paddy Power
Customer engagement can be defined as the process of engaging the customers in some of the processes of the company so that the sense of involvement can be developed amongst the customers. It has been analysed that the company these days are very much focused on satisfying the needs of the customers along with involving the customers in the company. Customer engagement is the very important part of customer relationship management. Engaging the customers in decision making process of the company and taking the feedbacks from the customers for improvement is the basic way of customer engagement and thus forming the relationship with the customers (Van Doorn, et al. 2010). Company are using various tools these days to engage the customers and making the relationship more strong between the customers and the company.
The key to win the leading edge in the market is to build customer attachment to the company and to the products and the services that the company are offering to the market. Customer engagement is one of the way in which the customers can be attached to the company and the products. The initial step for the process of engagement can be from the side of the customers or from the company’ side. There are different mediums that are available to engage the customers and are mainly categorized as online or offline medium. Customer engagement refers to the emotional attachment and the bond that develops between the customers and the brand they make use of or take the services from (Verhoef, Reinartz and Krafft, 2010). This can be developed only when the customers repeatedly make the interaction on regular basis with the company. Engagement develops with accumulation of the satisfaction, loyalty, excitements of the customers towards the brand. The organisations that focus on engaging the customers make behavioural change and provide the Paddy Power opportunities to the customers to interact with the brand frequent basis.
Customer engagement is the very important process for customer relationship management. It has been analysed that the relationship with the customers can be made only when the customers feel related to the company or the brand. Customer relationship management can be defined as the development of relationship and binding with the customers by the brand. The management of the company has to develop this relationship and manage the same so that the customers can be retained. The loyalty of the customers can also be attained when the customers have the engagement in the brand and the company value the customers and keep them at the first place. This suggests that the customer relations can be managed with the brand with the efforts from both the sides (Vivek, Beatty and Morgan, 2012).
Research background
Customer engagement and customers relationship management has become very important for each and every industry but what about the industries like betting industry. For the products like bet, does the companies bother abut customer’s experience and manage customer relationship? If yes, then how? It is a very surprising fact that customer relationship management and customer experience as become the main priorities for the betting and the gambling companies (Greenberg, 2010). In recent years, it has been analysed that the industry leaders in betting and gambling industry are learning about the business principles of customer relationship management and customer engagement in order to make the customers experience better. As the gambling and betting industry offers very indistinguishable products and services thus they have to take initiatives in this contest of the business so that more and more customers can be attracted towards the industry and the companies can be differentiated in the market (Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen, 2016). After all, this is the industry where very little loyalty has been shown by the customers towards the company and it is all about the excitement and the experience the customers have and above all that it is about the win which is not at all in the hands of the company but is the fate of the customer only. Recent estimated suggests that value of sports and betting industry in UK is around £650 million that includes the customer base of around 2 million people. As far as the market is concerned, it has been identified that the offerings by the companies are very similar and competition in this industry means to grow the breadth of the products (Malthouse, et al. 2013). The best way to be ahead in this industry is to provide great experience, fastest service, simplest service, loyal customer relationship etc. This suggests that the company can only differentiate in the context of customer’s loyalty and customer relationship management. The online shoppers in this industry havechanges thescenarios and took the market share of the betting shop Paddy Power.
The above figure suggests that the turnover of betting retailers is decreasing year after year. It can be identified from the data that the customers are not anymore loyal to the retailer in this industry who worksoffline as the experience is not so good
This made the requirement to learn about the customer’s relationship management in the betting industry of Ireland and UK from the reference of the online bookmaker Paddy Power. It is and Irish Bookmaker Company that deals with betting industry and serving the market with online services (Citrix.com. 2018). Understating the aspect of customer relationship management also let the researcher know both the impact of customer engagement in the customer relationship management which is the main focus of the research. The rationale of the research is to find out the importance of customer engagement in customer relationship management. It is required to prove that customer engagement has also become one of the most important aspects of customer relationship management.
Research objectives
It is the research that has been conducted on the company called Paddy Power. Paddy power is the company that was founded in 1988. This business was created by the merger of 40 shops of three Irish bookmakers. The company owns a great expansion strategy. At the end of year 2005, the company owns 195 outlets. It was considered as one of the Britain’s most admired companies. The company proposed a merger with Betfair, one of the biggest competitor and successes in the same in the year of 2005. This proposal was resulted in acquisition of Betfair by Paddy power.
Research objectives can be defined as the major concern of the research. The overall research revolves around the objectives of the research and any deviation from the objectives may result in deviated results as well. This is the part of the report that provides the idea around which the research revolves.
As discussed in the above section that customer relationship management is becoming the very important part of the organisational functions irrespective of the industry that the company operates in. In betting industry, the major concern these days is to how the companies can mage customer relationship so that the industry can grow in the later tears ad customer loyalty is very much required. These dilemmas results in development of the objectives of this research Following are some of the objectives on which the research needs to be conducted:
- A critical analysis of the concept of Customer Relationship Management.
- An evaluation of the importance of Customer Engagement within and Customer Relationship Strategy
- To make recommendations as to how Paddy Power can Develop and maintain effective Customer engagement strategy
This is the part of the research that provides the future implications of the research and also the use of the research in order to understand the issue that has-beenrose in this research. This research needs to be conducted in order to analyse the role of customer engagement as the new perspective of customer relationship management. Analysing the relation between customer engagement and customer relationship management helps the companies like Paddy power to satisfy the needs of the customers and develop the image in the market. This is because customers are the whole and soul of the companies and of the customers are not satisfied than there is no sense running the business activities.
As per the discussion above, it has been analysed that the problems that has been enquired are not cardinal in nature but are ordinal in nature. The issues are highly subjective in nature as the research focus on analysing the impact or the integration of customer engagement in the field of customer relationship management. The customer engagement is dependent on the perception of the customers and the efforts of the companies in this path. It cannot be estimated in numbers and thus subjective and theoretical aspects are required to be understood. Such researches are mostly sod nein qualitative manner so that effects and the cause of the issues can be analysed and examined.
Scope of the research
Keeping this in concern, the concerned research focuses mainly on the qualitative methods of research in order to conduct the research and collect the data and information related to the topic (Kothari, 2004). For the purpose of collecting the data in the quantitative manner, it is required to select the participants for the research and in this research; questionnaire survey has been used as the method to collect the data.
This research claims significance in the contemporary world of considering customers as the most important part of the organisation and it is required by the government to engage those customers in the organisation to maintain customer relationship especially in the industry that does not have differentiated products to offer to the market. The main purpose of this research is to analyse customer engagement as the new perspective of customer relationship management. This research focuses on betting industry because it is the industry that does not have the scope of offering the market with the differentiated products thus it has to make certain efforts in differentiating their marketing practices by involving customers and giving them more importance than other competitors.
The business environment is very dynamic in nature. It has been realised that most of the companies these days are fighting for getting the brand visibility in order to attain the competitive edge over the other companies (Bijmolt, et al. 2010). In today’s era, the preferences of the companies are changing. Earlier, the companies mainly focus on their processes and selling the products and services for earning high revenues but now the scenario is different. The major aim of the companies these days is to satisfy the needs of the customers and making the customers as the important part of the organisation by increasing their engagement in the company’s operations. Managing the relation with the customers is the major aim of the companies. This is because the competition is very high in the market and thus the customers have many options. Moreover, the switching cost of the products is also very low thus the customers can easily switch to other brands (Van Doorn, Lemon, Mittal, Nass, Pick, Pirner and Verhoef, 2010). The customers need to be retained only if they have trust on the brands and the brands have made good relationship with the customers. Customer engagement is defined as the interactions between the company and the customers. The offers of the relationship are given by the company but the customers have the options to choose. It has been analysed that most of the companies are working towards customer service and all the strategies that are being used for customer service are from the point of view of the company and not from the point of view of customers (Verhoef, Reinartz and Krafft, 2010). Thus, all the strategies that are being implemented to serve the customers may not be according to what the customer’s needs are. This is the reason why companies face issues in engaging the customers effectively. To resolve these issues the companies are integrating the customer relationship management with customer engagement and provide the chance to the customers that how they wants to interact with the companies
Modes of research
Customer engagement is becoming the key element to win over the other customers because the companies these days do not believe in the selling concept but Paddy Power is following the marketing concept (Heller Baird and Parasnis, 2011). Only selling is not the motive of the companies but their major aim is to satisfy the needs of the customers and retain then for longer period. The companies with shorter goals cannot survive is the market of tough competition. Thus, it is required by the companies to differentiate some of their processes so that they can withstand the market competition. It has been analysed that customer satisfaction is one of the important aspects that is very important for the companies to fulfil (Dutot, 2013). This can be done by implementing various strategies and customer engagement is one of them. Customer engagement is confided as one of the very new perspective of customer relationship management. For understanding of the topic, it is required to understand the meaning of customer engagement in depth (Heller Baird and Parasnis,2011).
Customer engagement is the term that talks about engaging the customers and treating them as the part of the organisation (Neslin, et al. 2006). It is defined as the emotional attachment of the employees with the brand that develops at the time when the customer make repeated and frequently visit to the store of the brand to make frequent connections with the brand in one or the other way (Faase, Helms and Spruit, 2011). The key to acquire and retain customers is to create the environment that makes them feels important for the brand and that engages them in the company’s processes. It is required to participate in the two way conversation with customers where not only the companies display their feeling and offerings but the customers can also make share their views and opinions (Metz, 2012). When the customers are need with the brand it leads to a deep emotional connection between the brand and the customers. This connection creates and develops a strong positive and optimistic feelingamongst the minds of the customers for the brand that results in high affinity and zeal. Another positive return that the brand gets is high participation of the customers in the company (Askool and Nakata, 2011). The customers who are loyal or engaged with the brand show their loyalty by their actions. Such actions includes visiting the stores again and again, contributing their efforts in making the brand popular in front of others and positing new and positive things about the brand on online and offline mediums (Luo and Bhattacharya, 2006). A long term relationship is formed by these positive actions of the customers towards the brand are the result of the positive experience that the customers get because of the brand’s action towards them (Giannakis-Bompolis, and Boutsouki, 2014).
The process of customer engagement initiates with developing the understating of how the customers of the company wants to be entertained and wants to be served. The concept is very clear, if the company focuses on providing efficient service to the customers they return back to the company.
There are 7 principles of customer engagement:
- Be eager to serve: the company’s eagerness to serve the customers is more about their perception. It is the way the customers have been dealt with at the first interaction.
- Be welcoming: it has been analysed that welcoming nature of the brands attracts the customers in the one go (Stone and Woodcock, 2013). It is the type of the gesture that shows that the company is not only going to serve the customers but they are happy to see them as they have chosen their brand for the service.
- Inclusive atmosphere: this is the third and themost important principle of customer engagement. It has been analysed that when any of the company wants to engage their customers it is required to create that hassle free environment for the customers in which they can feel free to interact with the company. Creating this environment can help the companies to enhance customer engagement (Lehmkuhl and Jung, 2013).
- Create a total experience: this is the most crucial part and the principle of customer engagamnet.it has been analysed that when the customer needs to engage customers,it is required to satisfy the needs of the customers and that needs can be satisfied only when the customer have great experience with brand (Bijmolt, et al. 2010). This requires the company toprovide right roles to the right people.
- Turn customers into ambassadors: this is the strategy to foster loyalty. Most of the business that are in service industry like betting does not count their success by counting the amount of new customers adding to their market share but for them success is about the repeated purchase of the customer or the loyalty of the customers (Jolley, Mizerski and Olaru, 2006).
- Offer a gracious good bye: it is not only welcoming that helps in providing goo experience but offering them with great goodbyes is also very important.
- Earning customer confidence: the customer returns back to the brand only when they have the confidence the brand and this confidence comes when the brand provides various types of rewards to the customers (Harrigan, et al. 2017).
As per the discussion in the above section, it has been realise that customer engagement is adopted as the strategy by many of the companies these days for customer relationship management purpose that is customer relationship management (Coussement and De Bock, 2013).
Before understating and examining the conceptual foundations of customer relationship management, it is required to understand what customer relationship management actually is? In aspects of marketing, the term customer relationship management and relationship marketing are used interchangeably (Nadeem, 2012). Both of these terms are used for explaining variety of themes and perspectives. Some of the perspective offers narrow marketing aspects while some other offers brad marketing aspects (Hendler and Hendler, 2004). One of the narrow perspectives is database marketing that emphasize on promoting the offerings in the market by the database efforts. Another relevant perspective is customer retention in which the after selling and marketing strategieshasbeen use by the companies to retain the customers. This is required to develop bonding with the customers.
Customer relationship management is considered as the strategy that is performed by the companies as the process of acquiring, connecting and associating with the selected group of customers that develop and create great value for the company. There are many tools that the companies use for customer relationship management (Jones and Sasser, 1995). As the base of customer relationship management is interaction of the company and customers. Customer relationship management is the management process that deals with understating the needs of the customers and fulfilling the same by one or the other way. The major aim of the organisations is to provide the platform for the byers and the sellers to meet (Grönroos, 1989). If the organisation wants to survive for long term and long term relationship needs to be maintained with the customers (Harrigan, et al. 2015). The term customer relationship management is about communicating the customers with the long term vision. Marketers of the organisation need to understand the fact that sale is not the only process but it is just the initial step of developing the relationship between organisations and the customers. The relationship that developed between the customers and the brand intensified when the sales occurs frequently (Stone and Woodcock, 2013). The process of development of customer relationship initiates when the customers feels and received ore that his expectations from the brand. Satisfied customer trends to come back again and the probability of him being the loyal customer of the brand is more (Adebanjo, 2003). For developing a strong relationship, it is required by the firm to provide the service in the similar satisfied way as it was experienced by the customers at the first time. Targeting to the new market and achieving new customers is the part of company’s success but developing strong relationship and retaining the customers with the company is big challenge and the real measure of the company’s success. It is not only the quality that makes the company successful, but it is the quality that provides success to the firm (Javalgi, Martin and Young, 2006).
As per the theory of customer relationship management, customer relationship management is the combination or integration of relationship marketing and customer centric paddypower approach (Feinberg and Kadam, 2002). When the justice theory is paddypower on customer relationship management it has been analysed that it results in elements of trust, loyalty, satisfaction etc. as the feeling amongst the customers after taking services from the company. Again, the justice theory divides into three categories. The first one is interactional justice, distributive justice and procedural justice.
As per the discussion, it has been analysed that there are some of the major perspectives of customer relationship management such as customer experience, customer satisfaction, customer retention, customer intensions etc (So, et al. 2016). Now, as and when it entered the process of organisations along customer relationship management, it has been analysed that the face of customer relationship management changes from customer relationship management to social customer relationship management (Maklan, Knox and Ryals, 2008). Traditionally, customer relationship management used to be referred to as the company managing the relationship with the customers (Pan and Lee, 2003). Introduction of social media has affected almost every sector and every process of the companies and one of them is customer relationship management. The convergence of customer relationship management and social media resulted in integration of various new perspectives in customer relationship management process and one of them is customer engagement
Customer these days have started using the social media paddypower applications to a great extent in order to connect with the friends, peers an now with the companies from whom they take the services. The change in the value of the customers in the companies and the demands of the customers is challenging the business to make use of one of the other social media techniques to make interactions with the customers (Mitussis, O’Malley and Patterson, 2006). Thus, the concept of customer relationship management has extended to the new capabilities of integrating social media as the tool of customer relationship management. This leads to the development of social customer relationship management (Wagner and Majchrzak, 2006). Social customer relationship management can be defined as the process of maintain the customer relationship by the use of social media tools. Social media has allowed the customers to interfere in business practices and also allow then to share their own views on the social media platforms (Jayachandran,et al. 2005). Now, the customers are not only informed about the products or the services that the company is offering but they are also informed about the process of the companies. This is also because the companies are using the medium of social media to keep their customer informed in order to make better relationship with them here; transparency is the term that can be used. The companies are becoming transparent and this transparency gives birth to the concept of customer engagement
The overall discussion above suggests that social media integrationist reason why customer engagement has become the part of customer relationship management system of the organisations. This is because social media tools are used to engage the customers in the organisation by taking their views and informing them about the company (Gustafsson, Johnson and Roos, 2005). There are various factors that make the customer engagement as the important part of customer relationship management. There are various benefits of using social media tools as the technique for engaging customers and managing the relationship with the customers. Engagement of the customers helps the company to make them feel related and develop the sense of belongingness amongst them (Nambisan and Nambisan, 2008). When the companies started using social media tools such as Facebook, instagram, snapcaht etc., it has been realised that the relation between the customers and the companies has become stronger (Ebert, 2010). This is because the customers get the chance to interact with the companies directly. This is the reason why the companies are becoming conscious about serving the customers as well.
Data is considered as the key to understand the customers and personalizing the experience for the same. William Hill is one of the leading players in betting industry. This company has developed its analytical and business intelligence in order to innovate its services and the major goal is to answer the queries of the customers in order to make their experience effective in the company. Customerre the major part of the organisations in betting industry and thustheirexperience in the company matters a lot to retain the customer. Customer in betting industry are hungry, they always wanted to have better experiences all the time they deal with the company. Thus delivering those with great experiences require the company to engage the customers so that they needs can be identified and fulfilled. In recent times, the traditional bookmakers such as William Hill, Gala Coral, etc. are challenged by the online bookmakers such as Paddy power to a great extent with the newer and digital technologies to provide great experience to the customers (Paddypowerbetfair.com., 2018). These digital only firms like Paddy Power have developed more and more online capabilities to create a grand that attracts and can engage the customers at the same time. Earlier, betting in sports used to be thoroughly an experience that can be achieved in stores. Consumers became accustomed to the ease and simplicity of betting online, and the market saw an influx of new types of customers who enjoyed the anonymity of placing bets in the privacy of their home. The popularity of online betting services has developed a demand of robust customer experience. Betting in play is the capability of the user to place a bet during a match. As per the rule, these types of customers require quick navigation and fast performance times. Buildingand developing the online platform for the customers in order to provide the betting practices has some of the obstacles as well. It is the industry where the price changes every time, it has been analysed that the online bookmakers have to develop the robust architecture in order to back up the massive information that flows every time.
Paddy Power is the company that is serving the customers by providing them great experiences. As a large organisation in the betting industry, paddy power deals with massive transactions on daily basis and doing it effectively and securely. Simultaneously, the company is making innovations in its processes and keeping the customers engaged in the flow of new products and services. The company associated with RedHat solution and upgraded its infrastructure(Redhat.com. (2018). This company named Paddy Power deal with 3.5 billion requests daily and also deals with around 130 million transactions on the daily basis. Company very well knew that it has to provide better services to the employees and also engage them by one or the other means. Paddy power used the services of RedHat solutions to innovate their systems that results in improved services and customer experience(Campaignlive.co.uk. 2018).
Research methodology is the portrayal of information accumulation process and information examination method that would be useful in finishing an exploration. Research isn’t bound to science and innovation. It has been identified that research methodology encourages the analyst to build up the arrangement for leading the exploration (Newman and Benz, 1998). Research approach is the manner by which the examination issue has been settled methodically. It can be characterized as the science to think about a specific subject. Not just the strategies should be known however the entire procedure ought to be comprehended by the analysts keeping in mind the end goal to lead the examination appropriately. From the above dialog, it has been dissected that examination system has numerous measurements. Its degree isn’t restricted to inquire about strategies yet it incorporates the all finished plan of the exploration.
A research philosophy can be characterized as the manner by which the information about the research phenomenon should be assembled and recognized. It has been identified that when any of the research conducts, it is required by the analysts to make numerous number of suspicions. These suppositions are made based on a few esteems and convictions (Newman and Benz, 1998).
There are mainly four types of research philosophy, positivism, interpretivism, realism and post-positivism.
Positivism: Positivists are the individuals who have faith in steadiness and admit the realism.
Realism: it is the tactic that also deals with methodical approach. There are two types of realism approaches that are direct and indirect
Interpretivism: this type of philosophy deals with the researchers who infer the results or the situations as per their indulgent before directing the research practically (Peffers, et al. 2007).
Post positivism: post positivists suggest that theories, background, knowledge and values of the researcher can influence what is observed.
This is the research in which the research is conducting the study with the approach of positivism. There researcher believes that customer engagement is the very important and new perspective of CRM. This approach helps the researcher to analyse the data scientifically.
The research approach is the methodological method to gather information and break down it with a set example. Research approaches are of two types principally, inductive approach and deductive approach. Inductive approach is the approach that deals with starting the research with perceptions and takes speculations as the consequence of the perceptions. To the extent the deductive approach is concerned, the approach manages surrounding the theory first and after that making the technique to test the speculation. Both of the research approaches have their own particular advantages (Patton, 1990). Deductive research causes the specialist to analyse the connection between the ideas and furthermore benefits the analysts to sum up the exploration discoveries to some degree. Inductive research then again is the research that takes after the base up procedure.
As far as this research is considered, it has been analysed that the approach that has been sued by the researcher is inductive in nature. This is because the researcher is collecting the data and observing the tings before concluding anything.
The research design is the general system to coordinate distinctive segment of the investigation for gathering the information. It additionally causes the researcher to gather the information in the intelligent and reasonable way. The significant capacity of the research design is to guarantee that the confirmations or the information that has been accumulated aides in tending to the issue of the exploration appropriately (Patton, 1990). Researchers for the most part start the accumulation of information early at that point really considering the exploration. Without considering the exploration plan, the aftereffects of the examination would be powerless and may not significant to what genuine research is. There are for the most part three types of research plan, exploratory, explanatory and descriptive research design. Exploratory is the type of research that deals with looking into the issue that has not yet been examined appropriately. This plan causes the specialists to unmistakably choose the information accumulation and other research techniques. The following outline is explanatory research strategies. This is the type of research strategy that arrangements with clarifying the circumstances and end results of the subject. It gives a legitimate clarification of the subject from both of the perspectives. The last one is the descriptive. Its more spotlightsare on depicting the qualities of the populace that has been utilized for explore.
As the name recommends data collection techniques are utilized to gather the information for the exploration. It is the exceptionally vital step of the research as it is information on which the various parts of the exploration depend on. The precision of the outcomes is likewise in light of how and what information has been gathered to lead the exploration. There are two sorts of information gathering techniques, essential and optional. In essential information accumulation, crude, direct information are gathered from the members of the exploration. Researcher needs to contact the members keeping in mind the end goal to gather the new and the first information which is extremely solid as it is gathered specifically by the members or from the essential source. In the event of optional information, second had information from on the web or pieces of literaturesis gathered (Peffers, et al. 2007). A large portion of the circumstances, the auxiliary information is accessible to the specialist and hence the scientists don’t need to take choice over the example. The information that is now present should be checked whether it is refreshed or not on the grounds that it might be conceivable that the information gathered is lapsed as of now.
Mixed method has been used by the researcher in this research. This is because the researcher has to analyse the literature as well as the data collected from the questionnaire. Thus both primary and secondary data has been used by the researcher in this study.
To collect primary data, the researcher will be using the survey questionnaire that will be formed to be distributed amongst the customers of paddy power. 10 mixed need questionnaire will be distributed so that the feelings of the customerscan beanalysed in detail. Some of the open ended questions have also been asked to the participants so that they can share their sentimentsand views in broader terms. This helps the researchers to get the in depth evidence about the topic.
Furthermore, to collect secondary data, the researcher will collect data from scientific journals, marketing articles, online pdf, websites, organisational webpage, books and periodicals. A literature review has been shaped in order to examine the previous researchers concerning the topic.
Sampling is the method that has been used to select the sample or the group of participant’s o which the researchneeds to be conducted. The sample is the representative of the whole population of the research. As far as the primary method of this research is considered is online questionnaire survey that has been sent to select 50 participants on the random basis these 50 participants are customers of Paddy Power and used its services at least once. Simple random sampling method has been used to select the sample because it is the easiest method that is free from biasness, every members of the population has the equal chance to be selected. As it is the survey amongst the customers thus there is not specificity to select the sample. The view ofeachand every customer may differ and may be similar in nature thus random sampling is thought to be the best method to select the sample.
Sampling population |
Sample size |
Sampling technique |
Sampling frame |
Customers of Paddy Power |
50 |
Simple random sampling |
Questionnaire through email (soft copy) |
Table 1: Sampling for survey
As the primary and secondary sources are considered for conducting the research thus qualitative and quantitative both types of data needs to be analysed.
Qualitative analysis is done by analysing the content of the literature reviews. This is because it is the data that is descriptive and theoretical in nature and thus does nothavenumericvalues. It can be analysed and understood and the theories can be framed after observing and analysing the whole data of the different literaturesrelevant to the topic.
As far as the quantitative data is considered, it has been identified that it can be analysed by graphical representation if the answers that has been given by the participants through the online questionnaire survey. Providing graphical representation of the data helps the readers to understand the conclusion very easily rather than reading the whole content.
Ethical considerations acted as the most important element of the research that is very small o be defined but very important to be considered. The researchers have to adhere to all the ethical and legal rules and regulations that are considered during the time of conducting the research. Following the ethical framework in the research helps the researcher to be more efficient in nature (Patton, 1990). If the research is ethical then it gets better support from the outside world as well. Some of the major values that are associated with all types of research are accountability, mutual respect, intellectual property rights, accountability towards general public, etc. Another major consideration is regarding the participants, it has been analysed that the data collected from the participants should not be leaked along with their identities. Any kind of coercion or no transaction of money will be done during collection of data. In addition, the researcher will ask the participants of the research to fill in the Informed Consent forms.
The participants of the research involves the people in who are major and the loyal customers of Paddy Power along with some of the people who are not the loyal customers and took the services few times from Paddy power. It has been analysed that out of 50,only 36 customers who have replied were loyal customers of the brand and 14 were the customers who have taken the services few times. This suggests that the customers who are loyal to the brandtake interest in filling the questionnaire rather than the people who are not loyal to the company. As they are not loyal and linked to the brand thus they have not even made the efforts to reply.
On the basis of the discussion, some of the recommendations for Paddy Power are:
Social media interaction: improving the social media interaction is the most important step that needs to be focussed on. Although, Paddy Power is doing well with the social media ranking but more efforts are required in this area as it is the most popular and the effective medium to reach out to the customers and interact with them.
Interface: As paddy power is the firm that offers the services online thus it is required by the company to make the interface easy for the customers. The user friendly interface of the website helps the customers to access the options without any assistance and this is a great turn on for the customers to avail the services.
Consistent services: It is also one of the perspectives that deal with customer engagement and customer relationship management. It has been realised that providing consistent quality of service helps the company to gain the attention of the customers. If the customers get frequent services with equal level of service then it results in customer satisfaction and customer retention as well.
Answering the employees: Although Paddy power is the company that is engaged in serving the customers by resolving all their queries on time, it is still required to make improvements. This is the major aspect that the customer look for to select any of the company for availing the services.
Customization: it is the strategy that helps the customers to make special offers for the customers who are regular.
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