This document is a student assignment submitted by Mertcan Karabuk to Dr. Donovan McFarlane for a course on delivering superior customer value. The assignment provides a review and critique of an article titled "Social Media and eCRM as a Prerequisite for Hotel Success." The summary highlights that the article discusses how hotels can use eCRM systems and social media to increase customer satisfaction and revenue. It also notes that customers now research hotels online through reviews and promotions, so an optimized website is important for hotels. The student provides recommendations for hotel managers to actively engage on social media and optimize their online presence to attract more customers.

1. H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Nova Southeastern University
Assignment for Course: MKT 5017 – Delivering Superior Customer Value
Submitted to: Dr. Donovan A. McFarlane
Submitted by: Mertcan Karabuk
Student Number: N01636380
Address West Rolling Hills Circle Rolling Hills Graduate Apartments 33314
Work phone number: 954-338-07-28
Home phone number: 954-338-07-28
Email: mk1130@nova.edu
Date of Submission: July 30 2014
Title of Assignment: Article Critique - Social Media and eCRM as a
Prerequisite for Hotel Success
CERTIFICATION OF AUTHORSHIP: I certify that I am the author of this paper and that any
assistance I received in its preparation is fully acknowledged and disclosed in the paper. I have
also cited any sources from which I used data, ideas or words, either quoted directly or
paraphrased. I also certify that this paper was prepared by me specifically for this course.
Student’s Signature: ______________________________
Instructor’s Grade on Assignment:
Instructor’s Comments:

2. Social Media and eCRM as a Prerequisite for Hotel Success
Article Review
This article is mainly about usage of the CRM system in hotel industry. As the technological
improvements increase every day, hotels are paying attention to e-CRM. With using the e-CRM
hotels can increase the customer satisfaction in a more efficient way. In order to deliver superior
customer value hotels need to work with customers to develop their services. The e-CRM system
not only helps hotels increase their revenue but also create a strong relationship with the guests.
Usage of the internet is also another part in the article. Nowadays internet is a wide distribution
and advertisement channel that can be reached easily both by hotels and the guests. Hotels also
use the internet as a promotion tool. Reputation of the hotels can both increase and decrease via
internet. Guests can read the feedbacks from other guests that stayed at the hotel and create an
image of the hotel and its services provided before making a reservation. The impact of the
internet on guests’ behaviors is significantly high. Guests usually search the hotels’ facilities,
services, price, and promotions before going to the hotel. The other channel of distribution for
the hotels is social media. With the improvements in the mobile industry comes with lots of
surprises nearly every second. Therefore people are trying to keep up with those improvements.
This situation created another market which is mobile promotion tool. People are spending huge
amount of time using their mobile phones. In the article it states that, hotel managers are aware
of that and they use social media and mobile media to both increases the revenue and develop
superior customer value. There is also the guideline and requirements for how to create a perfect
marketing tool using the Internet, social media and e-CRM. According to the Weinstein, recent
data indicates 69% of companies are now testing social customer relationship management
applications; 17% are currently using social customer relationship management at the corporate

3. or departmental level; and 14% have no plans to introduce this technology (Weinstein, 2012)
With the help of e-CRM system manager can access the guests’ needs and wants via reading the
comments and feedbacks.
Managerial Application
First of all to use the social media and e-CRM efficiently managers have to keep their knowledge
about the social media and technological improvements up to date. In the hotel industry
customers are generally considered and called as guests. Therefore customer satisfaction and
customer value is really important in the hotel industry. Managers can easily reach guests’ needs
and wants via reading the feedbacks, which were created through the e-CRM system. Knowledge
about customers and recognition of their needs enables higher quality of services that can be
offered, thereby increasing revenue opportunities through increased number of services that hotel
organizations can provide to the customer (Milovic, 2012). Internet plays very critical role in
hotel industry. Managers are willing to use the Internet as a channel that they can plan, organize,
develop by having the information about guest demands. For example, guests are allowed to
participate, read and comment on hotels’ Facebook, twitter and other social media pages. Guests’
even can have a virtual tour of the hotel and see rooms, lobby, pool, restaurant and other
facilities online. Managers should adapt these types of technologies that enable guests to have an
opinion about the hotel they would like to stay at. As a result, potential customers can easily
compare the rooms and their rates of different hotels. Furthermore, there is progress in computer
graphics and web images that hotel managers are using to display images of hotels. This way,
guests can use virtual tours to view the interior and exterior of the hotel better, and thus create a
picture of what awaits them when they visit a hotel (Milovic, 2012). Hotel managers should have

4. a social media account and post daily promotions and other hotel’s news on these accounts.
Being active on social media as a hotel will attract more customers. When people are thinking
about staying at a hotel the first thing that they do is going to the hotel’s website. Optimizing a
perfect website will enable people to make a bull’s-eye hit on what they are searching for. The
awareness about optimizing hotel websites for search engines is very important. Each traveler or
tourist uses search engines to obtain information about where they want to go. Hotel managers
need to focus large amounts of time and resources on this type of Internet traffic. Because of this,
managers need to create strategies that will help them increase their presence on search engines
(Milovic, 2012).
Extension of the Work
Article named as Social Media and e-CRM as a Prerequisite for Hotel Success. To be a
successful hotel, having a good guest service and satisfaction is really important. Thanks to the
technology, customer value can be monitored easily. If the customers are satisfied with service
provided and they will think that the hotel gives them importance. Therefore they will be loyal to
that hotel. In modern-day globally competitive environment, organizations must do everything to
reach new customers, and more importantly, to retain loyal and profitable customers. Today,
customers require the same information via the Internet, mobile phone and PDA technology (e-
CRM) (Milovic, 2012). In today’s world we can see that people are using their smart phones
nearly for everything. They always want to keep themselves up to date. So, hotels should do the
same thing also. I really liked the idea in the article, which talks about personalizing the each
customer needs and give them what they want. This is where we can talk about the e-mail
marketing. Actually I don’t agree with the article, which says e-mail promotion is helpful for

5. promotions and advertisement. Promoting company via e-mail may be a good way for company
but not for the most people. In my humble opinion, mailing list and subscription generally
disturbs lots of people because it may contain unrevealed content. These mails generally go to
the spam folder. In the article there is a guideline for e-mail marketing. Make sure you get
through the spam filters (Mackenzie, 2009). Getting through the spam filters is not a correct way
to reach people. Guests love complimentary items that hotel provide. Therefore through the
mobile applications hotels can create promotions and complimentary items that will encourage
people to use their mobile applications. If hotels have attractive designs for both their website
and mobile applications potential guests will be excited to use them. To conclude, as a hotelier I
can say that the guests are generally looking for socially active hotels. The more hotels keep
themselves up to date about technological innovations the more guests will be attracted.

6. References
Milovic, B. (2012), Social media and eCRM as a prerequisite for hotel success, Management
Information Systems, 7 (3): 26-31. http://www.ef.uns.ac.rs/mis/archive-pdf/2012%20-%20No3/MIS2012-3-4.pdf
Weinstein, A. (2012). Superior Customer Value: Strategies for Winning and Retaining
Customers (Third edition). Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press-Francis & Taylor Group.