In a time when understanding the global luxury consumer is important but daunting, some brands have taken the challenge and turned to social CRM activities to enhance the luxury customer experience no matter where they are.
International brands are at constant odds with delivering a consistently exclusive and seamless customer experience globally, while also adapting to relevant nuances for local markets and consumer behaviors, and especially so when it comes to hospitality. Across geographic markets, brands implement Customer Relationship Management systems and tactics sized to fit that market, to understand those local customers better.
Yet global integration has not been without it’s challenges, with inconsistencies in market needs and variables, as well as deployment and data collection methods. Specifically in China, brands using standard email marketing approaches are met with the country’s unique intranet style internet challenges. Furthermore as a digital nation of online shoppers, brands participate in e-commerce activities through owned and third party platforms, making CRM integration even more complex.
However, with nearly 3 million trips to the US alone in 2015, the need to understand the volumes of China’s global luxury consumers is a must-do even if a daunting feat. Learning who they are, where they are and where they are going next, what they are interested in, and how to communicate to them at the right place and time are among some of the data points relevant to attract and retain them.
In China, social CRM is a solution that is taking off, leveraging the deep integration of WeChat in the daily lives of Chinese individuals. Last year Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts began Social CRM activities, gaining insights and key learnings that have shaped content development, delivery, and targeting, and improved overall activities and consumer engagement.
John Hamilton, Four Seasons Director of Marketing and Communications for the APAC region, shared about the hotel group's past year’s activities at the Luxury Society Keynote in Shanghai:
