Executive Summary

Customer Acquisition and Retention Plan; This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Bean & Leaf Café’s current Customer CRM practices of the banking institutions and presents a better strategy that could be employed in achieving improved clients’ acquisition and retention, as well as, a satisfied customers’ experience. The current café, a family-owned business, aiming at the local people and students, has its advantages: The benefits which include personalized communication and social responsibility but has weaknesses including limited use of IT and Analytics. The specific CRM initiatives include introducing an online reward based program, developing a mobile application for pre-order of products and real-time feedback, and organizing community events for attracting customer base. And for tracking the effectiveness of such efforts, and to gain valuable insights, Customer Retention Rate, Net Promoter Score, Mobile App Engagement Rates will be the standard. Looking at the strategy through the lens of the CRM Value Chain Model and the Customer Lifecycle Framework the customer journey from acquisition to retention is smooth. Improved feedback, on individualized messages and Omni channel are some of the most important factors likely to help in developing the overall outlook for the customers. By doing so, Bean & Leaf Café can improve its competitive position in the highly crowded industry, improve the customers’ retention rate, and achieve organic growth. The recommendations consider business goals of the café while designing memorable experiences which are inspiring to the target groups.

Introduction

Bean & Leaf Café is a city centre coffee shop operated as a family business in Manchester. As an established coffee house that serves specially brewed coffee, freshly baked breads, & muffins, and inviting interiors, the café is favoured by locals, business people and students from the university nearby. To stand out from the other cafés on the market, the café focuses on providing a unique and intensive experience, where customer is a member of a community. Furthermore, like any other small business, Bean & Leaf has some issues on how they can retain customers to do business with them while at the same time portraying some appeal to new customers in the world that is rapidly flooded with new businesses (Hill and Alexander, 2017). Customer Relationship Management known as CRM is a key success area for small cafés such as Bean & Leaf on their way to obtaining sustainable development. When CRM tools and strategies are at the disposal of businesses, firms get to gather and integrate data from the buyer side hence improving on customer satisfaction. These effective customer relations not only help the organization attain acquisition objectives but also loyalty that is very crucial for profitability within the context of the hotel business (Kotler et al., 2019). A major goal of this report is therefore to benchmark Bean & Leaf Café’s current CRM activities, assess its strengths and weakness and come up with a holistic CRM plan. In this strategy, it will attempt to enhance the entire process from the time the customer is acquired, to the time he/she remains loyalhttps://finanacialconsultancy.com/.

Use of CRM to Develop Present-Day Customer Experience

Overview of CRM Practices

Customer Acquisition and Retention Plan; There are various CRM practices that are practiced at Bean & Leaf Café with an aim of improving customer experience and customer loyalty. First, the café uses a small loyalty card that gives a customer the benefit of a free beverage after some certain number of consumptions. Such approach is industry-wide, especially among small businesses as it provides the straightforward solution to lure customers back for their next purchases and retain loyal guests (Buttle & Maklan, 2019). The café also uses email newsletters as a way of sending various offers individualized for a specific customer. The customer email addresses are collected by the company either through visits to their outlets, or on their website, enabling them to forward promotions, details of seasonal products, as well as other discount offers to the customers. This approach worries the bond of exclusivity and emotionally aligns the café with its consumers (Payne & Frow, 2017). Social media is another of Bean & Leaf’s CRM pillars that remains engaged throughout the given period. In particular, Instagram and Facebook are employed for the creation of posts, stories, and comments to customers. It includes fully introducing new items to a menu, advertising customers’ experiences and achievements, and promoting events. Social media activities create a constant interaction with the public allowing it to stay relevant with customers hence creating awareness and customer loyalty. https://beanandleafcafe.com/

ii. Analysis of Effectiveness

The above CRM practices have been widely useful in improving the customer experience at Bean & Leaf Café in the following ways. A loyalty card has also been found to work in the sense that it rewards clients through repeat visitation which is in accordance with behavioural loyalty reinforcement as theorized by Oliver in 1999. Customers like to think that they are valued and therefore should be rewarded for their loyalty hence strengthening their brand loyalty towards the product. Most of the customer cases have been maintained through e-mail-some of the offers are usually customized. Generic studies show that personalization has a positive effect on customer engagement; far more so than general messages in people’s inbox, for instance, emails containing personalized content have been reported to achieve higher open and click-through rates (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). At Bean & Leaf, such newsletters help the customers feel that they belong to the café and make them recalling its products.

The social media marketing on the part of the café has also mostly played a great role in keeping the communication with the audience active. Explaining customer inquiries and comments show that Bean & Leaf is careful about their customers, which is very important when it comes to earning the customers’ trust (Buttle & Maklan, 2019). Such content as user-generated posts and behind the scenes video positively reinforce the cafe’s positioning and remind the audience about the brand. However, these practices have some constraints in its operation. It may be easy and widely used but it lacks depth, and hardly gathers important customer information. It becomes almost impossible to decipher purchasing trends or even defining what a very valuable customer is, without a digital way of tracking. In the same manner, while email newsletters are targeted, they are employed with a measure of customer differentiation which is, again, relatively low (Payne & Frow, 2017).

There is another factor that I consider important that has been completely neglected: engagement is based on social media. While the café ensures that it is constantly promoting its café through social networks, it is still lagging in this area as a standalone technique, and has not harmonized these promotional techniques with an overall CRM digital system. This integration may allow for the gathering of usable information from the social media communication which could help better manage the marketing and service approaches (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019).

iii. Challenges

However, Bean & Leaf has the following challenges in optimally applying these CRM practices potentially, the benefits of these CRM practices are numerous. This lack of consistency with follow up activities on the collected customer feedback is one of the major hurdles. Although customers are welcome to fill in suggestion boxes placed within cafés or post their ideas on social networks, nobody obligates the café management to consider them regularly. Such a contradiction may result in failure to identify potential for change and damages customer relations where they seem unwelcome (Buttle & Maklan, 2019). Another problem is ‘‘manual generation and processing of the loyalty programs.’’ The current model involves the use of stamps on cards and keeping record of each issue and redemption which is very tiresome and less accurate. Furthermore, this approach does not offer the data analytics required to place a customer’s behavior into perspective, including how often he or she uses the service or even how he or she likes it (Oliver, 1999). The absence of data constrains the café from developing competitive strategies when it comes to products to sell, and promotion and customer segment to target.https://finanacialconsultancy.com/

The lack of integration of digital CRM hinders providing the consumers a nice and good experience while visiting the café. For instance, customers cannot retrieve loyalty programs or take advantage of the delivery of free stuff through a mobile application or website, a reason that may turn off technologically integrated patrons (Kotler et al., 2019).

3. Outlook and Recommendations for CRM Development

i. Critical Evaluation

This paper calculates Bean & Leaf Café’s current CRM practices into a basic level in accordance with the functions and activities of CRM but a wide gap is witnessed when it tried to align with the Customer Relationship Management Value Chain Model proposed by Aite Payne (2006). These areas of centrality include the customer data capture, customer relation analysis as well as the value creation. Currently the café gathers only a small amount of customer data through loyalty cards and e-mail subscription but does not employ a rigid system to sort and use this information to develop specific marketing schemes. This means that without data analytics, Bean & Leaf lacks comprehensive ways of recognizing valuable customers as well as estimating the future purchasing behavior. Of all these, a considerable gap is the poor incorporation of social media platforms for CRM automation. The recognized communication tools that the café has are the social media and email that they used to engage with their customers, however; these two are not integrated in a CRM system. Such an inconsistent model hampers the café’s prospects of enhancing efficiencies in customer interactions and engagement (Buttle & Maklan, 2019). Functionality, like CRM software, can make an immense difference as well because it accumulates all the information, allows sending unique messages, and provides intelligent recommendations based on the customers’ activity.

The other concern is that the café has minimal Omni channel interaction; they just apply it to one aspect. He social media interaction in a physical setting and fixed experiences, but there’s mostly no continuity between the two worlds. For instance, while using the Customer Loyalty Program, the customers cannot claim their rewards online or make their complaints. Omni-channel contact increases the capability of the customers to reach out to the organization through an individual choice of their contact channel, which results in their satisfaction and hence retaining them .

ii. Recommendations

To address these gaps, Bean & Leaf Café should implement the following recommendations:

1. Adopt CRM Software: The café should invest in a CRM tool such as, Zoho CRM that is designed for SMEs. This software allows customers to communicate with businesses in an automated fashion and to monitor customer journey and analyse data to enhance customer relationship. For example, Zoho CRM can suggest email marketing for the café and give details about the customers’ tastes and buying behaviour in order to improve the types of promotion (Buttle & Maklan, 2019).
2. Develop a Mobile App: Having a Loyalty program integrated within a Mobile application and the use of push notifications can go a long way in customer retention. The convenience includes tracking rewards, making offers individual, and facilitating pre-order of products all from the app. Mobile messages can be applied to revisit customer’s attention to the remaining unused bonus points or to an upcoming Sale event.
3. Enhance Feedback Collection: The use of digital surveys after the purchase should begin in order to gain feedback from the customers. These surveys can be sent through the email or included as a section in the mobile application. Analyzing feedback can help to find some trends and prove the café’s willingness to meet the clients’ needs (Kotler et al., 2019).
4. Staff Training: Some measures that can be taken in order to make effective the application of CRM tools are providing training and instructions for the programme and customer information understanding for the staff. Skilled employees make it easy for the customers, beginning from handling inquiries and enhancing the overall store interactions.

iii. Theoretical Support

Based on the outcome of the evaluation presented in this paper, the Customer Lifecycle Framework is a useful approach for understanding the processes of acquisition, retention, and development. When CRM strategies are aligned with this framework, Bean & Leaf can gain new customers through marketing using the internet, build one-to-one relationship with existing customers to ensure their repeat business, and develop a business relationship by understanding their customer’s needs and preferences (Payne, 2006). Furthermore, this paper also focuses on the principle of the SERVQUAL Model that recognizes aspects of service quality including reliability, responsiveness and assurance. When applied on to the development of CRM strategies, the café can improve on the customer satisfaction level and cultivates loyalty among its patrons. For instance, when organization deploys a mobile app, it increases it’s responsively by providing handy services while using data analytics for personalization increases reliability and assurance communications (Parasuraman et al., 1988).

4.     Comprehensive CRM Strategy

Customer Journey Mapping

To deliver a seamless and rewarding experience, Bean & Leaf Café’s CRM strategy will centre on a well-defined customer journey that includes three key touch points: identification, interaction, and mobile user acquisition and conversion.

1. Discovery: This stage involves the effort to ensure that the clientele is informed about the existence of the enterprise and it is propositioned to potential customers. As for the kind of media, Instagram and Facebook profiles will act as main sources through which the café’s food, atmosphere, and events will be promoted.
2. Engagement: Consumers’ engagement is observable across stores and online. In store it entails providing quality customer services, and creating a comfortable atmosphere. In digital, it entails use of a mobile application to interact with the other party and emails.
3. Retention: Retention strategies will include the use of loyalty program, individual selling and feedback. Consistent interactivity on the virtual and real world platform will ensure that customers stay engaged with the brand (Payne & Frow, 2017).

Acquisition Strategy

To expand its customer base, Bean & Leaf will implement the following acquisition strategies:

1. Host Events: That is why the café will host community events such as ‘Coffee Tasting Evenings’ and will hold convection, for example, workshops on brewing. These events will help attract new customers because they demonstrate to patrons their knowledge in food and create a community setting. Indeed, Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick (2019) has postulated that events are an effective marketing strategy that helps small businesses to develop memorable experiences and also.
2. Partnerships with Local Businesses: Sometimes it’s possible to negotiate cooperation agreements with other stores, fitness clubs, or universities with an opportunity to exchange promotions. For instance, the café can give discount coupons to buyers of associated companies in a bid to create a gateway to new clients.
3. Targeted Social Media Ads: Even through advertising online, the café is able to select the campaigns that are based on location and thus reach the residents, students and working population within the area such as through Facebook Ads. Being paid, the social media campaigns for small businesses enable targeting specific audiences with specific interests, so it has high ROI (Kotler et al., 2019).

Retention Strategy

Neglecting customer loyalty is a great mistake for companies as major gains can be achieved in the long term. The following strategies will ensure customers remain loyal to Bean & Leaf:

1. Digital Loyalty Program: A mobile application will act as a loyalty program instead of using cards like many businesses have been doing. One of the mechanisms of the loyalty program is that clients get points for the products purchased for free drinks or at a discount. This has an added advantage the approach as it is much easier to implement with the millennial generation who are mostly more inclined to technology use (Buttle & Maklan, 2019).
2. Referral and Repeat Discounts: For this reason, customers will be encouraged to refer to friends the café through provision of discounts on the same. Furthermore, the habitual purchases will be encouraged by relevant bonuses for customers.
3. Personalized Communications: E-step communications as a newsletter type of communication will be used to send personalized emails and SMS that have details of new product releases, special offers, and event schedules. Moreover, customer personalization makes customer engagement higher and helps build more favorable emotion schemas of customers (Payne & Frow, 2017).

Enhancing Customer Experience

Improving customer experience is a cornerstone of the CRM strategy:

1. Pre-order and Pickup Options: In a way, the capabilities of the proposed mobile app will also include anticipated order taking so that customers can order drinks and food and pick them up at a specific time. Such features are useful for the customers with the tight schedule, for example office clerks and students.
2. Real-time Feedback and Issue Resolution: There will be a feedback form available through the application and online, allowing customers to provide feedback instantly. The fact that the CA’s prompt responses to concerns will show the café‘s eagerness to meet the needs of their customers (Kotler et al., 2019).

Integration of Metrics

To evaluate the effectiveness of the CRM strategy, key metrics will be tracked:

1. Repeat Purchase Rate: This metric will therefore have a focus on the repeat customers and the number of times that they visit the business.
2. Average Order Value (AOV): Hence in this case, if the café follows a specific IML and ambience strategy; AOV will help the café in the evaluation of the success of the upselling and cross-selling efforts.
3. Customer Feedback Scores: A survey and the app will give feedback that will help in understanding the satisfaction level of the customers as wells as the areas of discontent (Buttle & Maklan, 2019).

The following five-step CRM plan that is developed from the company’s customer journey map and new acquisition and retention strategies will assist Bean & Leaf Café to improve the relation with its customers. By using efficiency proper utilization of digital technology and putting much focus on individuality, the café will get better the consumers’ loyalty and future cash flow.

Towards this end, it is possible to identify certain specific measures to be used for monitoring and evaluation:

However, the final two preconditions for CRM strategies are the monitoring and evaluation of the CRM activities. Since customer acquisition and retention and the management of an overall attractive customer experience is an essential vital ingredient of success at Bean & Leaf Café, the measures defined will assist the company to begin to measure the ways in which it is moving in the right direction. The three metrics will therefore act as a parameter from which correction may be made.

Proposed Metrics

Customer Retention Rate (CRR):  CRR measures the percentage of customers who continue to engage with the business over a specific period. This metric is vital for understanding loyalty and the effectiveness of retention strategies. A high CRR indicates that customers are satisfied and see value in returning to the café.

CRR=(Customers at End of Period−New Customers Acquired/Customers at Start of Period)×100

Retention is more cost-effective than acquisition, making CRR a key indicator of long-term success (Buttle & Maklan, 2019).

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC):  CAC evaluates the efficiency of acquisition strategies by calculating the cost of attracting each new customer. This metric helps determine whether marketing campaigns and events like “Coffee Tasting Evenings” are yielding a positive return on investment.

CAC=Total Marketing and Sales Costs/ Number of New Customers Acquired

Low CAC accompanied by constant customer development hints at the efficient CAC process (Kotler et al., 2019).

Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS simply determines the customer satisfaction and their willingness to refer other people to café. Customers rate their likelihood to recommend on a scale of 0–10, and the scores are categorized as follows:

• Promoters (9–10): Online communities that serve as organic contributors to growth.
• Passives (7–8): Forgotten but loyal customers; loyal but barely interested customers.
• Detractors (0–6): It may lead to dissatisfied consumers who may in fact harm the image of the brand out in the market.

NPS=%Promoters−%Detractors

NPS correlates with customer satisfaction and brand loyalty; hence a higher NPS (Reichheld, 2003).

Mobile App Engagement Rates: Measuring the engagement levels of mobile application developed for the café, can show where customer experience is being improved by digital solutions. Data that may be used could include the number of active users, how often they use the application and the number of pre-orders placed may go a long way in helping to make business related decisions.

Loyalty Program Participation: An important means of assessing the views of the overall performance of the program can be calculating of the participation rate in the loyalty program, meaning that it will effectively show the interest of the customers in the certain program. Research can also determine its effect on retention as well as the number of people performing repeat purchases by tracking the number of loyalty members that are active and the number of rewards that are redeemed (Payne & Frow, 2017).

Tools for Tracking

To effectively monitor and evaluate these metrics, Bean & Leaf should utilize the following tools:

CRM Dashboards: Sales and marketing automation tool like Zoho CRM will help in the real-time monitoring of various performance indicators as CRR and CAC. These dashboards compile customer information and present the reports in a manner that can be easily scrutinized making decision-making easier.

Google Analytics: Digital interactions can be tracked with the help of Google Analytics, and it can be connected to the site and the application that belongs to the café. Web traffic, time spent on the site, or quantity and quality of application downloads give insights into the success of online marketing communication or digital communication activities (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2019).

Monthly Sales Reports: Monthly sales records can give information about total revenue and customer buying pattern of a month. Combining such data with metrics on loyalty programs may enable a company to recognize regular and valuable customers and evaluate the effects of freebie offers.

Customer Feedback Reports: NPS collected through digital surveys and real-time feedback and real-time reviews will be archived into monthly reports. These reports can also bring out issues of quality and satisfaction recurring with customers and specific areas that need to be overhauled.

Integration and Action

These metrics and tools shall be incorporated into Bean & Leaf’s CRM evaluation technique to contain a systematic examination course of. For example, if CRR decreases, the café should consider what has been done in terms of retention: promotions, freebies, etc. Likewise, high CAC may require changes in the marketing strategy to optimize its results. Practical metrics should be reviewed on continuing basis so that adjusting CRM strategies to meet changing customer needs or other market conditions can be effectively done by Bean & Leaf Café. It provides an effective approach to empowering that the café would maintain the high repeating customers along with frequent attracting new customers in a competitive market.

Conclusion

The assessment of the Bean & Leaf Café’s current CRM system exposes considerable CRM successes such as customer-oriented approach and inclusive community relations. However, these gaps including the following slow down the café on its customer relationship optimization strategies: lack of use of digital tools and insufficient data analysis. These areas potentially provide the ability to improve the acquisition of customers, engagement others, and overall experience. The above formulated CRM strategy outlines the best way to improve by identifying digital loyalty program, establish a mobile pre-order and feedback application, and hosting community events for additional clientele. The above initiatives, together with Customer Retention Rate (CRR), Net Promoter Score (NPS), mobile app customer engagement rates will be key metrics through which the café will monitor progress and make relevant changes as may be necessary. Thus, Bean & Leaf Café can enhance its competitive advantage and reach the strategic goals of this industry in a highly competitive market, as well as develop long-term cooperation with clients and work more efficiently. This integrated strategy guarantees not only the real immediate changes, but also prepares for sustainable development of the café. Implementing investment in these solutions will make it possible for the café to realize its aims and objectives to customers, provide quality experiences thus making the customers loyal and advocates of the café.

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