CRM in Action: Integrating e-CRM and SFA

The Challenge: Avoid duplicate questioning of high-value customers
The Solution: Le Meridien is a global chain of 140 luxury and upscale hotels in 55 countries worldwide. Headquartered in London, the company offers accommodations with a European style. Part of the company's overall goal is to maintain relationships with its customers by anticipating a customer's needs and not having to pester them with questions when they arrive. That's just one of the reasons that in January 2002 Le Meridien decided to have its sales team use Salesforce.com's online CRM solution. According to Brian Jones, director of sales and marketing for Le Meridien, the sales staff uses the Saleforce.com tools for account management and data capture. And by setting up automated delivery of the information captured on the Web site to the sales staff, Le Meridien has been able to increase its depth of information while remaining unobtrusive to the customer. "As we began to use Saleforce.com we began to see things like customers' buying patterns, what competitors they use, what kind of market share we have, and even what types of hobbies our guests enjoy," Jones says.
The Payoff: In discovering how truly global its customer base is, Le Meridien has been able to network customer accounts on a worldwide basis. Additionally, the companies believes that all the customer information it has gathered allows it to serve customers more effectively.