Customer relationship management in Australian seaports:

1
Customer relationship management in Australian
seaports A necessity for seaport success Dr
Stephen Cahoon and Chris Triebe Department
of Maritime and Logistics Management
Australian Maritime College

2
Overview

• Understanding of customer relationship management
  (CRM)
• Coverage of CRM in seaport literature
• Findings of 2 empirical studies
• CRM in Australian seaports
• Highlighting research lagging practice

3
Customer relationship management (CRM)

• Previously transactional approach
• Now long-term profitable relationships
• Attract and retain customers via
• IT, employees
• Processes, policies
• Role of IT

4
Benefits of CRM

• Build trust
• Reduce perceived risk
• Establish customer loyalty
• Improve customer retention
• Reduce marketing costs
• Stronger customer relationships

5
CRM in seaport literature

• Focus on transactional marketing
• Little coverage
• Customer orientation needed
• Paradigm shift emerging
• Importance of employees
• Research lagging practice

6
Triebe research

• Process of CRM
• 5 major components of CRM
• Profitability
• Strategy
• Customer relationships
• Employees
• Technology
• Methodology
• 18 senior managers, 94 items

7
Relationships with customers

• Diverse customers
• More demanding
• Initial contact important
• Creating relationships necessary
• Customers as partners not clients

8
Strategies to maintain customer relationships

• Customer call plan to ensure contact
• Objective of customer satisfaction
• Aligning managers with key customers
• Little use of CRM-related software
• Employee role recognised

9
Cahoon research

• Methodology
• 30 mainports representing 61 Australian seaports
• Telephone interviews, 184 items
• 4 components of seaport marketing
• Promotion
• Community liaison
• Trade and business development
• CRM

10
CRM in Australian seaports

• Customers highly valued
• Customer focus
• Retain staff retain customers
• Personal contact is central
• Cost-effective market research

11
CRM outcomes

• Customer retention
• Customer satisfaction
• High service levels
• Complaint management
• Service recovery
• Training of employees

12
Concluding comments

• Scarcity of CRM research surprising
• CRM evident in Australian seaports
• Transitional phase
• Formalised approach to CRM
• CRM important role in seaports
• Recommend
• further interest and investigation

13

• Thank you
• Any questions?