The CRM Cynic: It Takes a Country
We’ve heard about internal marketing. We’ve heard about getting affiliates on board. But how do you get an entire country to support your brand?
That question was raised during an exchange about CRM in the Cayman Islands. Everyone agreed that the hotel is only one part of the brand experience at a travel destination.
“For tourism products to be successful, it is necessary for everyone-not just those in tourism—to put the visitor at the center of their attention,” wrote Belinda Blessitt-Vincent an article on Cayman NetNews.
Fair enough, given that people are affected by “the way in which things are said, face-to-face interactions, and personal appearance,” as Blessitt-Vincent stated.
But that didn’t go far enough for one reader. Oliver Mills countered that “in a service economy like that of the Cayman Islands, customer relationship management extends to the entire community, since there is a spillover from the hospitality sector to the society as a whole, including businesses and other types of service institutions such as schools, hospitals, and government agencies which are ‘customer satisfiers.’”
If this is true, then Cayman clearly should launch an “internal marketing” campaign directed at all islanders.
Other locales have tried it—for example, New Yorkers were urged in to welcome Republicans to their city during the 2004 GOP convention.
But the effort, consisting of ads on busses and constant hectoring by politicians, was only partially successful. More effective in preventing rudeness was a sweeping exercise in crowd relationship management by the police.
New York’s a bad place for it. No real New Yorker wants tourists or Republicans traipsing about, no matter how much money they spend.
Of course, this marriage between PR and CRM may be useful when the product or service is revolutionary, or when an entire industry can be hurt by the screwups of a single company. But you’d better know what you’re doing.
This sounds like a good subject for the guys at Northwestern University. We’d be happy to join them on a junket to the Cayman Islands for further investigation.
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