CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management

Introduction

Retailers are facing dynamic and competitive retail environment. With globalization amplifying, market saturation, competition and amplified through mergers and acquisitions, retailers are seeking competitive advantage through better coordination of customer relationships.

Companies recognize that customer's attachments are units of a value inherent to the construction of customers, and finally identifying the customer value enhancement is the key to increasing the value of the company. Customer satisfaction is an outcome of customer expectations and perceived service quality. The level of customers' satisfaction is determined by what customer expects and the performance of the company. The success of a business depends on its ability to create a satisfied customer (Agins, 2007, 10).

In a globally competitive world, firms have to satisfy their customers in order to survive in the business environment. Customer satisfaction is closely related to the quality of the service provided to customers. This paper deals with the same phenomenon of customer relationship management. The main objective of this paper is to compares and contrasts the customer relationship strategies of two firms. In order to fulfill the purpose of this paper Tesco and Wal-Mart has been selected. Both the firms belong to the same industry of retailing and have the same nature of business but different origins.

About Tesco and Wal-Mart

Tesco came into existence in 1919. It was Jack Cohen's idea that gave rise to such a huge and gigantic organization. Tesco is involved in grocery and general merchandising retailing. Tesco is considered on number three largest retailer in the world if we gauge its position in terms of revenue. First store of Tesco started its operation in 1929. Tesco is one of the companies that are listed in London Stock Exchange. Tesco has diversified both geographically and into areas such as retailing of books, clothing, electronics, furniture, finance, telecom and music download. Founded by Sam Walton Wal-Mart today is America's largest grocery retailer.

Today it has existence different countries of the world including the United Kingdom, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, and Canada. Right from the beginning Wal-Mart adopted a competitive strategy based on pricing. Low or affordable pricing and mass marketing became its hall mark. Due to large volumes Wal-Mart was able to manage its competitive edge. However, things started changing on the retail landscape in America and abroad demanding a more focused approach towards different target markets. This demand has impacted all aspects of the organization and also the way the organization used to manage its relationship with customers (Zimmerman, 2006, 11).

Customer Relationship Management at Tesco

The customer anticipations at Tesco part with esteem to service and satisfaction overall enumerations on varied constituents and issues. The firm uses worth in customer service as apparatus to increase customer foundation or increase in revenues. The customer service does not inescapably be affiliated with satisfaction degrees of customers but more over endowing competitive advantage over its peers. Retail part has many attributes to its worth string of attachments and all of them substantially sway firm production and its ...