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INF6000 Dissertation

• Final  Dissertation    o Title:  A  case  study:  how  an  app  could  support  

CRM  within  a  furniture  shopping  mall  

o Student:  Lingjia  Liu  

o Supervisor:  Miguel  Baptista  Nunes  

 

Contents

Abstract  ..........................................................................................................................................  5  Background  .................................................................................................................................................  5  Aims  ...............................................................................................................................................................  5  Methods  ........................................................................................................................................................  5  Results  ...........................................................................................................................................................  5  Conclusions  .................................................................................................................................................  5  

Acknowledgement  ......................................................................................................................  6  Introduction  .................................................................................................................................  7  1.   The  competition  between  shopping  malls  become  intense  .........................................  7  2.   How  CRM  applications  support  CRM  strategies  among  shopping  malls?  ..............  8  3.   What  will  be  changed  once  this  app  is  put  in  practice?  ..................................................  8  

Research  question:  .....................................................................................................................  9  Aim:  .................................................................................................................................................  9  Objective:  .......................................................................................................................................  9  Literature  review  .....................................................................................................................  10  1.   What  is  Customer  Relationship  Management?  ...............................................................  10  2.   What  does  CRM  do?  .....................................................................................................................  13  •   Customer  Value  ..........................................................................................................................................  13  •   Enhance  Customer  Loyalty  ...................................................................................................................  13  •   Improve  customer  satisfaction  ...........................................................................................................  14  •   Promote  interactions  between  customers  and  shop  owners  ................................................  15  

3.   CRM  models  ....................................................................................................................................  16  4.   CRM  elements  ................................................................................................................................  22  Generic  CRM  elements:  ...................................................................................................................................  22  Elements  of  QCi  model  (see  the  diagram  above):  ...............................................................................  23  

5.   CRM  technologies  in  shopping  mall  .....................................................................................  26  6.   Indoor  Navigation  ........................................................................................................................  28  •   Why  do  we  need  indoor  navigation?  ................................................................................................  28  •   What  kind  of  indoor  navigation  technology  could  be  applied  for  this  project?  .............  28  

Methodology:  ............................................................................................................................  31  Awareness  of  Problem  ........................................................................................................................  33  Suggestion  ................................................................................................................................................  34  1.   Obtained  the  requirement  specifications  ......................................................................................  34  1)   Design  of  interview  questions  ................................................................................................  34  2)   Thematic  analysis  ..........................................................................................................................  35  3)   Results  of  interviews  ....................................................................................................................  38  

2.   Requirement  Specifications  ................................................................................................................  39  a.   Functional  Requirements  ................................................................................................................  39  b.   Non-­‐functional  Requirements  ......................................................................................................  41  c.   iBeacon  selection  ................................................................................................................................  43  d.   Portable  device  selection  ................................................................................................................  43  e.   Prefabricated  map  making  .............................................................................................................  43  f.   Discussion  of  the  functioning  range  of  Estimote  beacon  ...................................................  43  

Development  ...........................................................................................................................................  46  Evaluation:  Tutorial-­‐based  method  ..............................................................................................  46  Conclusion  ................................................................................................................................................  47  

Development  .............................................................................................................................  48  1.   Functional  requirements  development  ..............................................................................  48  1)   Navigation  (Map  View)  .............................................................................................................  48  2)   Category  &  searching  (Information  View)  .......................................................................  50  

3)   Advertisements  (Main  Menu  View)  ....................................................................................  55  Evaluation  ..................................................................................................................................  57  User  perspective  ....................................................................................................................................  57  •   Navigation  ....................................................................................................................................................  57  •   Category  searching  ...................................................................................................................................  57  •   Ads  display  ...................................................................................................................................................  58  •   Visibility  of  system  status  ......................................................................................................................  59  •   User  control  and  freedom  ......................................................................................................................  59  •   Consistency  and  standards  ...................................................................................................................  59  •   Error  prevention  .......................................................................................................................................  59  •   Recognition  rather  than  recall  .............................................................................................................  59  •   Flexibility  and  efficiency  of  use  ...........................................................................................................  59  •   Aesthetic  and  minimalist  design  ........................................................................................................  60  •   Help  users  recognize,  diagnose,  and  recover  from  errors  ......................................................  60  •   Help  and  documentation  ........................................................................................................................  60  

Developer  perspective  ........................................................................................................................  61  •   Navigation  ....................................................................................................................................................  62  •   Category  searching  ...................................................................................................................................  62  •   Ads  display  ...................................................................................................................................................  63  

Conclusion  ..................................................................................................................................  66  1.   Summary  of  findings  ...................................................................................................................  66  2.   Response  to  research  questions  ............................................................................................  66  3.   Limitations  ......................................................................................................................................  67  4.   Future  work  ....................................................................................................................................  67  

Bibliography  ..............................................................................................................................  68  Appendix  ....................................................................................................................................  74  

Ø   Appendix  1:  Interview  questions  ..........................................................................................  74  Ø   Appendix  2:  Coding  tables  of  interviews  ...........................................................................  75  Ø   Appendix  3:  Ethic  approval  letter  .........................................................................................  81  Ø   Appendix  4:  Ethic  consent  form  (EN)  .................................................................................  82  Ø   Appendix  6:  Ethic  consent  form  (CN)  .................................................................................  84  Ø   Appendix  5:  Access  to  Dissertation  ......................................................................................  86  Ø   Appendix  6:  Confirmation  of  address  after  completion  form  ...................................  88  

Abstract  

Background  

The literature reveals an app can support the technology element of CRM in

shopping mall for realizing the functions. Previous work has been done barely on this

aspect we considered.

Aims  

This project aimed to provide a proof of concept of the app we supposed, and give

the theory of use of how the app could support and improve CRM in shopping mall.

Methods  

The design science research is applied for this project, which can support the app

development and tests, as well as conduct a literature research.

Results  

The literature review proved that CRM includes many functions, and they might be

supported by the app. Also the app prototype has been successful developed with

three basic functions.

Conclusions  

It is concluded that although the literature review provided the theory of use of the

app, and the prototype has been developed already, still this project has space for

improvement. Further work could include a further literature research, more detailed

requirement specification, and the improvement in app development.

 

Acknowledgement  

I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Miguel Nunes who supported a lot during this

master dissertation project work, with his wise advices and guidance and also my

colleagues and friends who help me during the project conducting period.

Lingjia Liu

 

Introduction  

1. The  competition  between  shopping  malls  become  intense  

The rapid development of technology has changed many aspects of our lives,

including our shopping behaviours; the shopping malls develop with the growth use

of the automobile and the migration of population out from the cities (Feinberg &

Meoli, 1991). Increasingly, many shopping malls emerge, following by an intense

competition of this industry. As Wakefield and Baker (1998) stated “malls have to

compete with stores and shopping centres not only within close geographic

proximity, but also with retailers and malls outside the community”. Nowadays

getting access to the Internet has become much easier than before, the online

shopping websites is becoming another competitor with shopping malls.

Currently, I think shopping malls is not just a place where is mainly for purchasing

behaviours, they are turning to social and entertainment places, where people could

not only shopping but also relaxing. Even though police stations, small hospitals

starts existing in shopping malls, which make them as if “tiny cities” literally.

Additionally, shopping malls starts dividing into two types, one is united shopping

malls, which contain numerous different shops selling various products; the other

one is specific shopping malls, which are made up of amount of shops selling the

particular sort of products. On the other hand, due to the popularity of e-commerce

customers get more choices in purchasing, while lose the face-to-face purchasing

time to make connections with shopkeepers (Chen & Popovich, 2003). In this

situation, the competition between shopping malls get increasingly intense. In order

to gain as many benefits as possible in competition, shopping malls need to know

the demand of customers, and the main advantage of CRM (customer relationship

management) is encouraging repurchase (Izadi Manesh & Hozouri, 2013), thus the

importance of customer relationship management should be concerned.

2. How  CRM  applications  support  CRM  strategies  among  shopping  malls?  

Technology, as an element of CRM, is developed to help with CRM in shopping

malls contemporarily. Shopping malls use web-based platform to collect customers’

preferences, and give recommendations, the rest even develop new CRM strategies

and apply them in their systems. Online data is rich and detailed compared to the off-

line data, one of them is called clickstream, which records customers’ path through a

website. This tech in the Internet shopping mall can provide information to help

owners of understanding shopping patterns or repurchase behaviours of customers

as Cho, J. Kim and S. Kim stated (2002). In addition, smart phones are popular and

affordable for majority of people, with thousands of applications to help with plenty of

aspects of our lives.

3. What  will  be  changed  once  this  app  is  put  in  practice?  

As there is not so much work has been done within this area, I consider creating a

mobile-based application to help with CRM in shopping mall as my aim of this

project. Nonetheless customers need to know how CRM could be supported by this

app. First, this app would provide indoor navigation function, which could save

customers’ time of looking for a shop in the shopping mall. Second, the catalo

searching function would also be included, which enable customers to find the

particular shop by its name or catalogues. Third, recommendation function might be

developed later on, which benefits merely customers to find more products they like

but shopping mall owners to collect and analyse customers’ purchasing preference

data. Furthermore, once this app has been put into practice, the shopping malls with

this sort of apps would take marginal advantages in the intense competition. In

future, with further development, this app would enable not only more

‘communication’ with customers, but purchasing habits’ data collection and analysis

as well.

Research  question:  

Which element of CRM could be supported by a smart app?

How the smart app would be?

Aim:  

The main aim of this project is to design and develop a CRM application with indoor

navigation function to help with the marketing in shopping mall.

Objective:  

1. To give a proof of concept of the smart app

2. To illustrate the theory of use of the smart app

1) How can an app support CRM in shopping malls?

2) How could this app help with customer loyalty, sales in shopping

malls?

Literature  review  

1. What  is  Customer  Relationship  Management?  

Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which emerged in the information

technology vendor community in 1990s, is not a new concept. At the core, CRM is

an integration of technologies and business processes used to satisfy the needs of a

customer during any given interaction (Bose, 2002). Nonetheless, the essence of

CRM is not as simple as just the integration of technologies and business processes,

which might be quite different from our thoughts. Philosophically, the nature of CRM

is to change organizations from a products-centric to customer-centric (Kim, Suh &

Hwang 2003). The focus of business was on products traditionally. Therefore,

literally, the nature of CRM means that getting to know more about customers rather

than products. Knowing more about what customers’ preferences and habits, in

order to specialize products and services to suit customers by all means, the more

details companies get, the more personalized products and services customers

would gain. According to Oracle, “CRM is about knowing your customers better and

effectively using that knowledge to own their total experience with your business,

and to drive revenue growth and profitability” (Stefanou, Sarmaniotis & Stafyla,

2003). To this extent, CRM emphasizes the significance of obtaining customer

information, which could be used to enhance the value proposition of companies

(Jain, 2005).

Due to the nature of CRM, it is an IT concept that is able to work based on IT

support. Consequentially, it has a different meaning in IT industry. In IT terms, CRM

means an enterprise wide integration of technologies working together such as data

warehouse, Web site, intranet/extranet, phone support system, accounting, sales,

marketing and production (Bose, 2002). Seemingly, the CRM in IT concept is more

technology-based. However CRM is not only a tech-supportive component within

companies, but it emphasizes the value of customers in business process, now and

future. To make it clear, the notion of CRM with customer value at its core enables

us to define CRM, which is the practice of analysing and using marketing databases

and leveraging communication technologies to determine corporate practices and

methods that maximize the lifetime value of each customer to the firm (Kumar &

Reinartz, 2012). Seemingly, the value of customers is significant to CRM. While

customers are diversity, the data analysis and communication technologies might not

be suitable for each of them. Consequentially, the data analysis and communication

technology used on CRM is not set in stone and could be various. Furthermore, it

keeps improving along with the technology development. Although the field of CRM

remains under development, CRM consulting firms gave it their own definitions

already, they consider CRM as a strategic process that is used for customers

selection in order to optimize the current value of customers for the company (Kumar

& Reinartz, 2012). To this extent, CRM can be a powerful tool for companies, as long

as they could find a right way of using it.

In order to improve the quality of service and provide products on demand, it is

evident that the aim of CRM is to strength loyalty of customers by offering products

and services that respond to their individual needs (Jain, 2005). With the

development of technology, CRM has changed from its original mode as well.

Basically, there are two types of CRM should be concerned. One is traditional CRM;

the other one is strategic CRM. The former is based on an internal operational

approach to manage customer relationships effectively (Greenberg, 2010). With

technology development, CRM has changed as well, which has grown from a tactical

marketing tool to a strategic element in all marketing decisions as Kumar and

Reinartz stated (2012), so as the latter one emerged. Better understanding of

customer behaviour and the interest of managers to focus on those customers who

can deliver long-term profits becomes a crucial need of market (Winer, 2001). The

importance of getting preference of each customer becomes crucial to both retain old

customers and get new customers. As Parvatiyar and Sheth suggest that companies

are realizing the need for in-depth and integrated customer knowledge in order to

build close cooperative and partnering relationships with their customers (2001). The

customer strategy of CRM involves examining the existing and potential customer

base and identifying which forms of segmentation are most appropriate (Payne &

Frow, 2005). As a result of CRM strategy, the interaction between customers and

companies would help companies retain original customers and attract new ones,

which would also keep the proportion between these two in a specific way for each

company.

Basically, CRM is the management of collaborative and cooperative relationship

between the company and its customers. As I mentioned above, CRM not only

keeps the relationships in between, but also keeps the original customers and

develops potential customers by all means. Parvatiyar and Sheth illustrate a more

detailed and accurate definition of CRM:

Customer Relationship Management is a comprehensive strategy and process of acquiring,

retaining, and partnering with selective customers to create superior value for the company

and the customer. It involves the integration of marketing, sales, customer service, and the

supply-chain functions of the organization to achieve greater efficiencies and effectiveness in

delivering customer value.

According to the definition above, the aim of CRM is to push marketing. Keeping the

company function effectively, and help the company gain more profits via paying

attention to the importance of customer value. All in all, CRM is a set of technologies

and business processes, which are utilized to promote marketing efficiency, aiming

to achieve greater profits.

2. What  does  CRM  do?  

• Customer  Value  

To address what does CRM do, it is important to make one concept clear, that is

customer value. The value would be delivered to customers. Customer value is a

customer’s perceived preference for and evaluation of those product attributes,

attribute performances, and consequences arising from use that facilitate (or block)

achieving the customer’s goal and purpose in use situations (Woodruff, 1997). This

tells us that customer value is about the using experience, preferences, and

consequence during and after using the product or service, rather than the potential

profitable value of customers. Kim, Suh and Hwang suggest that to maintain a long

haul relationship with customers, it is crucial to find new ways continuously for

building customer commitment and loyalty (Kim, Suh & Hwang, 2003). Company

should calculate profitability continuously, in order to adjust the CRM to the market.

To sum up, customer value is a key concept of building and enhancing customer

loyalty.

• Enhance  Customer  Loyalty  

The CRM could improve the loyalty of customers by providing personalized products

and services. Nowadays, the customer-centric business strategy helps the

organization to proactively and consistently offer (and sell) more products and

services for improved customer retention and loyalty over longer periods of time

(Injazz & Karen, 2003). The consistent good quality products and guaranteed

services would attract and actually transfer many of potential/new customers into

repeated customers. People prefer individualized and specific obstacles, like

personalized credit card, which is easy identified and distinguished from others’. Like

Kursunluoglu suggests that customer service is one of the factors that creating

customer satisfaction and loyalty (Kursunluoglu, 2011). Namely, providing high-

quality customer service can improve customer satisfaction, which could potentially

attract and retain customers.

In terms of CRM, it is about building a relationship with the most valuable customers.

As Darrell states the prime driver of customer loyalty is the loyalty of the company’s

employees (Darrell, 2003). Which suggests us to concentrate on the loyalty of

employees at the same time with customers. Also satisfaction strength plays a

crucial role in the translation of stated satisfaction into customer loyalty (Murali,

2003). Concentrating on the factors tightly related to customer satisfaction is the key.

However it is not a simple step to take. Because any resources invested in building

loyalty without focusing on profitability may tantamount to failure over time (Kumar,

2004). Company learns profitable opportunity from market, whilst knowing customer-

satisfying points from customer data analysis. The key is how company is going to

combine these two factors and use them to gain more market share and improve

customer satisfaction.

• Improve  customer  satisfaction  

Both customer loyalty and customer satisfaction are directly and indirectly

connected. Kim, Suh and Hwang provide the explanation of customer satisfaction,

that is the feeling that a product or service meets customer expectations and

determines whether the buyer will become a long term customer or not (Kim, Suh &

Hwang, 2003). CRM provides models and different strategies for shop owners to

meet and improve the customer satisfaction, in order to gain the most profits, attract

potential customers and retain repeated purchasers. In other words,

satisfaction strength is a vital determinant of customer vulnerability because it plays

a crucial role in the translation of stated satisfaction customer loyalty

(Chandrashekaran, Rotte, Tax et al, 2007). As it is important, managers must

constantly measure satisfaction levels and develop programs that help to deliver

performance beyond targeted customer expectations (Winer, 2001).

Seen from the company aspect, there exists the necessity for developing and

establishing long-term relationships with customers aimed at improving customer

service and satisfaction (Stefanou, Sarmaniotis & Stafyla, 2003). Not only can the

quality of products affects the satisfaction, but also the relevant service affects.

Overall, achieving high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty compared to the

competition is a powerful engine for growth and profitability (Thompson,   2004).

Seemingly, customer satisfaction can be a used to predict and indirectly measure the

profitability of the company.

• Promote  interactions  between  customers  and  shop  owners  

CRM is focusing on relationships between customers and the company. Referring to

relationships, another concept should be illustrated first, that is, customer interaction.

The relationships between customers and the company are similar to interpersonal

friendships. As Kim, Suh and Hwang suggest that it is the communication processes,

includes internal processes referring to the handling of the processes in the company

internally, and external processes of the interactions between suppliers and

customers (Kim, Suh & Hwang, 2003).

From the nature of business, the main purpose of each company is trying best to

gain more profits, whilst improving the efficiency of business processes within

company. CRM provides a platform for companies to interact with their customers

indirectly and directly, so that companies could learn of their customers more. The

more accurate and specific customer information they obtain, the more personalized

merchandises and services they could provide.

3. CRM  models  

After defining CRM and clarify the function of it, there are a number of CRM models

need to be concerned when utilizing CRM in practice. There is a diversity of CRM

models and structures, which enable various implementations of different CRM

strategies. Similar to business strategies in each company, diversity of business

models does exist in companies, so as CRM models. Five generic models would be

introduced here; they are IDIC model, the CRM value chain model, Payne’s five-

process model, the Gartner competency model, and QCi model.

IDIC model suggests four stages interactions with customers, which are identify,

differentiate, interact, and customize (Peppers & Rogers, 2012). This model contains

an integration of key segments of CRM. The first stage is to obtain customer

preferences and demands. The relevant information gathered is linked to individual

customers and to be used for serving them individually to satisfy their needs and

preferences (Ahmadi, Osmani, Ibrahim & Nilashi, 2012). As each customer is

different, diversity of customers leads to variety of customer values. Differentiate

stage aims to distinguish customer value and preferences, so that the company is

able to prioritize personalized products and services for the high-value customers of

the organization. Then the company customizes the products and services to each

customer to do its best to meet the need of each one from the differentiations. The

final stage, interact is to communicate with customers, delivering information to them

in particular. As it is shown on the picture below, the stages have been separated

into two groups, based on their major function. Operational CRM seems like the

process of communicating with customers, while analytical CRM is almost same as

the analyzing process. This model emphasizes the importance of interaction with

customers.

IDIC model

Value Chain model

“CRM Value Chain is a proven model which businesses can follow when developing

and implementing their CRM strategies. The ultimate purpose of the CRM value

chain process is to ensure that the company builds long-term mutually-beneficial

relationships with its strategically-significant customers” (Buttle, 2004). The long-term

frequent and profitable customers are the strategically-significant ones. This model is

suitable for business-to-business and business-to-customer settings of companies

and SMEs. It includes five primary stages (as it is shown below), which are customer

portfolio analysis, customer intimacy, network development, value proposition

development and manage the relationship. At each stage of this model, there are

concepts, tools and processes to help create and implement successful strategy.

First, in order to find out the target customer groups the firm learns of and analyses

customer information. Then firm starts getting to know more on specific groups and

utilizing their preferences as typical ones for production. On the third stage, a

relationship network would be set up; it is going to connect people and organizations

related to the business processes of the firm. An evident proposition would be

figured out on the forth stage. Finally, the last stage of this model is made for

maintenance of processes within this model. Distinguishing from other models,

supporting conditions is essential for it.

Payne’s five-process model divides CRM into five processes, which are strategy

development process, value creation process, multichannel integration process,

performance assessment process, and information management process. It has two

main components, which are key CRM implementation elements and core cross-

functional CRM processes (Payne and Frow, 2005). As it is shown on the picture

below, all the rest four processes are supported by the invisible but existing

everywhere information management process. Thus both information project

management and information change management are required for the use of

model.

Payne’s five process model

Gartner competency model regards CRM as a business strategy, which could

maximize the profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction by organizing around

customer segments, fostering behaviour that satisfies customers and implements

customer-centric processes (Eko, 2014). CRM requires a framework to be utilized;

here eight building blocks consist of this model as they are in the picture below. They

are CRM vision, CRM strategy, valued customer experience, organizational

collaboration, CRM processes, CRM information, CRM technology, and CRM

metrics. From the picture, it seems this model is more suitable for company owners

and managers. By presenting eight building blocks together, they could have a clear

vision of the current plan. It would assist the CRM strategy changing decision.

Gartner Competency model

QCi model is described as a customer management model, which excludes the term

of ‘relationships’ within CRM. It emphasizes importance of people performing

“customer management activity” processes (Woodcock, et. al., 2003). As a result of

it, the major component of this model is customer management activity that includes

eight recycled steps itself. In terms of people performing, the whole business

environment has been divided into eight components, which are external

environment, customer experience, analysis and planning, customer proposition,

customer management activity, measurement, people and organization, and

infrastructure. Apparently, technology is an assistant of people performing among

this model.

Concerning the application development, technology is significant for the CRM

model of this project. IDIC model concentrates on interaction with customers and

afterwards data analysis. It considers barely the importance of technology. However,

this project focus on an application demo development, it is apparent that this model

is not suitable for it. CRM value chain model helps the company with long-term

beneficial relationships, like business-to-business. Clearly, it is hard to get a clue of

what kind of technology is needed in this model, so that it is not an option of this

project. Information management process is the supporter of Payne’s five-process

model, thus it consider information management as key component. The function of

technology is not as important as we expect in this model. Gartner competency

model is more suitable to use as a CRM strategy maker, which could illustrate an

entire picture of either the current or the following business plan. Of course, it is not

our choice here. Thus, the model, which is going to be applied for this project, is QCi

model (see the diagram above). This model emphasizes the significance of people

performing “customer management activity” processes. Nonetheless technology

support is the assistance of it.

4. CRM  elements  

Different CRM models have different structures, however a successful CRM program

is built on four elements: the right people in the organization to engage in the right

roles well designed both internal and external processes, the supporting technology,

and reasonable expectations.

Generic  CRM  elements:  

People: Each CRM program will require numerous people working in parts of

organization. The requirements can be various depending on firms. Nevertheless

these roles should be involved for a successful CRM program, which are executive

sponsor, steering committee, implementation team, and administration team

(Kostojohn, Jhnson, and Paulen, 2011). While the rules and regular work processes

are settled, staff work at each position has his own function within the organization.

Various functional departments are made of different or similar positions, and work

compositely. Basically, people is the core element of CRM.

Processes: The processes of CRM program can be simply defined to two

processes, one is operational process, and the other one is maintenance process

(Kostojohn, Jhnson, and Paulen, 2011). The data interaction, data collection, and

data analysis are the main component of operational process. Accordingly, the

continuous controlling and maintaining work contributes to maintenance process.

These two processes function compositely and separately. Even the structure of

CRM can be different; the processes could be defined to these two still.

Technology: For many, CRM is a technology and nothing more. Considering this,

CRM applications, which should be developed to support CRM strategies within

company, might be a significant element. Choosing a suitable application could be

the first step to success (Kostojohn, Jhnson, and Paulen, 2011). Although a CRM

functions mainly depending on people, the technical support could never be ignored.

An unsuitable CRM may lead to business, even organizational failure. Therefore,

how to select a set of suitable technologies to assist customer management activities

is a key question of building up a CRM for an organization.

Expectations: As the program launching, your efforts grows, so as your

expectations. Whereas it’s importation to restrain your expectations, introducing a

new CRM strategy might be a challenge for the entire organization. As a

consequence of it, the yield would be modest early and benefits (Kostojohn, Jhnson,

and Paulen, 2011). Normally, the CRM setting up work will never be finished.

Markets change in seconds, so as the opposite business methods. As a result, the

CRM strategies might not work consistently, once it has been settled, due to the

changeable expectations of organization owners and staff.

Elements  of  QCi  model  (see  the  diagram  above):  

The elements of QCi model, which is going to be used on this project, are more

specific and detailed. The elements are external environment, customer experience,

analysis and planning, customer proposition, measurement, people and

organization, infrastructure that includes customer information, technology support

and process management, and the main element, customer management activity.

External environment: The external environment of this model includes policies,

laws, social habits, cultural differences, and consuming standard. The changes in the

external and internal environment may affect the result of CRM. Durable customer

relationships are particularly important for maintaining loyalty and satisfaction in

environments where customer preferences and technological changes occur rapidly

(Rapp, Trainor & Agnihotri, 2010). Seemingly external environment is irrelevant to

the CRM exteriorly, it has many direct and indirect connections with CRM in fact.

Customer experience: Customer experience is the internal and subjective response

customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a company (Meyer & Schwager,

2007). From its essence, it is interactions between customers and the company. To

make it simple, direct contacts mostly are the business activities, purchasing

behavior for instance; oppositely, indirect contacts could be ads on TV, emails,

website, news on journals with representations of the company (Meyer & Schwager,

2007). Both of them do affect the experience of customers before, during and after

the business process with the company.

Analysis and planning: Analysis and planning is the internal process within the

company. In this process, company needs to analyse the real and potential demands

of customers, and map the future business process. Unlike game-playing, the minor

error in business can lead to huge loss of the company, because of it, people in

management should usually pay attention to the market. If changes come, they

should make decisions as fast as they could in order to avoid much more loss.

Customer proposition: Customer proposition, namely customer value proposition,

is a promise of value to be delivered and acknowledged and a belief from the

customer that value will be delivered and experienced. A value proposition can apply

to an entire organization, or parts thereof, or customer accounts, or products or

services (Kaplan, 2004). While the company interacts with its customers, it gains

useful information for future business adjustment. On the other hand, the company

uses customer information to enhance value proposition (Subhash, 2005).

Measurement: It is hard to distinguish whether the CRM is successful or not by

simply implementing it. Particular measurements would help us with measuring the

results of CRM. Cost saving and revenue enhancement, those aspects should be

concerned as measurements. As cost measures and revenue measures can both

present problems, some companies throw in the towel and settle for metrics based

on sales and marketing activity. These can be metrics about the CRM project itself,

or about specific elements of the sales, marketing and customer service process

(Ruth, 2015).

People and organization: People is the basic elements within the company. In this

model, people and organization is one of the key elements of it. It emphasizes

importance of people performing “customer management activity” processes

(Woodcock, et. al., 2003). The importance of people tells us two potential meanings.

First, this model runs mainly by management of people. Second, the technical

support would be required to assist the management activities.

Infrastructure: Infrastructure here is not the facilities; they are the supportive

processes of CRM in QCi model. Three components consist of it; they are customer

information, process management, and technology support. As I mentioned above,

customer information is the data that the company gain from the interactions with

customers. Once this model is put in practice, it could not maintain and run very well

automatically, that is the reason why process management exists. There is no doubt

that the technology support is the assistant and foundation of this model.

Customer management activity: It is the core part of QCi model. It contains

another cycle inside, which includes targeting, conversion, welcoming and getting to

know, delivering the basics, retention activity, value development, managing

dissatisfaction, and win back, these procedures. It repeats within this model, affect

and be influenced by customer experience, customer proposition, measurement,

people and organization. They benefit each other within the model. Nonetheless win

back is a considerable challenge in customer management activity, based on

Woodcock et al.’s theory, win back is a huge ‘lost opportunity’ in general and is

consistently overlooked. (2003)

Considering people and organization as the second main element of this model, it

would need the support of infrastructure. Even people is significant in this model,

they could not function well without support from infrastructure. Concerning this,

technology support is a crucial part of infrastructure.

5. CRM  technologies  in  shopping  mall  

Technology support is the element, which is going to be supported by this app.

Furthermore this app is designed to support CRM within the particular shopping mall.

Although this model emphasizes the importance of people, technology support is still

crucial. At present most organizations recognize evident benefit of CRM and almost

every enterprise either use certain CRM technologies, supporting their business, or

evaluate specific benefit of CRM technology and plan its future realization as

Urbanskienė, Žostautienė and Chreptavičienė states (Urbanskienė, Žostautienė &

Chreptavičienė, 2008). Especially indoor navigation has not been conducted into

practice broadly.

Within the last decades, technology has changed the way of life today; it will keep

affecting people’s living styles in future. Not only does the Internet become

widespread, but also technical innovations make high-tech useful to daily lives.

Mobile phones have become an important component of people’s lives. The

immense growth in the amount of applications available for smart phones and the

number of downloads per year emphasize the importance of the mobile phone

market and the mobile Internet (Bick, Bruns, Sievert & Jacob, 2011). The massive

mobile applications help many aspects of life, such as navigation, searching, e-

commerce.

Currently, mobile devices are ubiquitous. So do mobile applications. Accordingly,

shopping malls take this new way to attract customers and improve the services.

Krom illustrates that the Location Based Services (LBS) Technology uses several

different technologies to locate a customer geographically, while customer getting

close to the area of the shopping mall could be sent special promotional or discount

ads (Krom, 2010). This direct promotion method may help the shopping mall gaim

customer loyalty by forcing them to look at the promotional ads.

Other technologies with different functions have been used in shopping malls as

well. For instance, Virtual Reality (VR) and communities to create an integrated

framework for the interactive virtual shopping mall on the Internet, customers could

communicate with others in it almost like in the real life (Xu & Yu, 2010). Though

virtual shopping is not as same as shopping in real shops, it is easier for people to

find particular merchant via searching function.

6. Indoor  Navigation  

• Why  do  we  need  indoor  navigation?  

With the development of smart phone technology, individual navigation, which one

person could navigate from and to a particular location, has been applied on many

areas. Traditionally, users use GPS satellites based applications for outdoor

navigation. It works well on navigation from door to door outside. Nowadays, as the

buildings become increasingly large and more, and people spend most time indoor,

the demand of looking for the exact address in indoor-places starts arising. However

GPS is generally not well suited for indoor use for two reasons: 1. GPS does not

provide a high level of accuracy, and 2. GPS signal breaks down indoors due to line

of sight (Vassilyev, 2014). It is apparent that the existing solutions are unable to

provide reliable location service in indoor areas, as thus a new approach is needed

(Vassilyev, 2014). So we are looking for new ways to meet the demand of indoor

navigation, for example, RFID tags positioning, Wi-Fi positioning system, and

iBeacon positioning.

• What  kind  of  indoor  navigation  technology  could  be  applied  for  this  project?  

There are many approaches to indoor navigation. As our limited investment and

time, we only discuss three main common technologies of indoor navigation, Wi-Fi

positioning system, RFID tags, and iBeacon positioning.

The current Wi-Fi positioning system implementation requires Wi-Fi access points, a

data service that computes location (and keeps track of all the locations at any given

point), and a location specific context (such as a blueprint overlay the building)

(Vassilyev, 2014). Seemingly, this method can be applied for shopping malls based

on its own Wi-Fi, whereas most of the existing approaches need readings from at

least 3 Wi-Fi access points at each location to provide sufficiently accurate estimates

of position (Namiot, 2015). From the economic angle, it may cause a sum of

investment. In addition, Wi-Fi positioning system utilizes the strength of Wi-Fi to

distinguish where the exact location is. Nonetheless heterogeneous mobile devices

measure radio signal strength differently (D, Stojanovic & N, Stojanovic, 2014). It can

be seen that using Wi-Fi positioning system is not quite suitable for our project.

RFID is short for Radio Frequency Identification. In general, the RFID systems are

designed, so that the reader detects the vicinity of a tag and retrieves the data stored

in that tag (D, Stojanovic & N, Stojanovic, 2014). In other words, the RFID system is

based on tagging and called RFID positioning. The main idea is to attach users with

special tags that can be observed with reader and equip base stations with radar

(Vassilyev, 2014). Supposing applying RFID on our project for indoor navigation in

the shopping mall. Each user should have a reader for detecting the surrounding

tags, so that each of them could do navigation while entering the shopping mall.

However the quantity of customers is relatively unpredictable. Also the purchasing

and maintenance of the readers can be an extra expense of the shopping mall.

Result from them, RFID tags is not the best option for our project.

iBeacon is based on Bluetooth low energy function. Apple has been embedding

Bluetooth Low Energy in its devices since iPhone 4s. Since iOS7 release, Apple has

released iBeacon API (Vassilyev, 2014). Knowing it has the existing API, using

iBeacon may save part of our workload. Comparing to Wi-Fi positioning, it has both

advantages and disadvantages. Low power consumption allows to keep battery up

to several years and the small size allows to mount it on any surface. But due to a

lower than Wi-Fi range it needs more base stations to cover an area (Vassilyev,

2014). Because customers are able to look around once they arrive a location, no

needs to cover the entire area in our project. Users only need to know which area

they are in, and to get the routine from an area to the other. Thus iBeacon seems

more suitable for our project while comparing to the other two.

 

Methodology:  

For Information Systems projects, plenty of methodologies could be applied;

traditionally there are two common types, positivist research and qualitative

research. The traditional ways enable both conducting researches and getting

results, which are suitable for conducting studies among existing artifacts and

factors. However IS researches include more, merely studies about existing and

design new artifacts. The latter one matches this project of designing and developing

an app. To this extent, this project needs a different methodology, which should

enable designing new artifacts, i.e. innovative design.

The methodology, which paves a way and is going to be used for this project, is

design science research. The design science research methodology could be used

to many areas. It involves two parts, as Vaishnavi and Kuechler (2013) illustrates:

one is innovative artifacts (things or processes that have or can have material

existence); the other one is analysis of the performance of such artifacts along with

reflection and abstraction to improve and understand the behaviour of aspects of

Information Systems.

It makes researchers focusing on innovations, which may fill the knowledge gaps in

existing studies. By creating innovations, it makes connections between knowledge,

namely inner environment, and reality, i.e. outer environment, thus design research

science is considered as a research methodology, which is neither just design nor

research.

Considering the outputs of it, this could be explained easier. Design research

science has artifacts that are the proof of concepts, and theory of use, two outputs.

Different from traditional IS researches, the research will not stop when results, i.e.

artifacts, comes. After getting results, it will continue testing and observing the

changes that the new artifacts brings. Consequentially an evaluation would be

provided afterwards, which illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of the particular

artifacts. Even the artifacts development fails, this evaluation will make it valuable for

the following researchers.

Normally for this methodology, it needs a case study, here the case is going to be

used, called Baishijiaju, which is a furniture shopping mall located in Guangzhou,

China. It will be explained further within each process of this methodology according

to the model I used above.

As a general model of design science research, the effort proceeds of this project will

be as follows (see the picture above):

Awareness  of  Problem  

This is the beginning of our research. Via selecting and reviewing the literature

related to our matter, the awareness of the problem was got for our project. As a

result, the literature review can be used to develop both theoretical basis yet

fractional requirement specification of this project.

Through literature selection and review, having a clearer recognition of this app,

which is going to be developed so that the CRM could be supported in this furniture

shopping mall. Clearly known what kinds of functions this app must have, should

have and could have. The proposal should be an output of this phase.

Regarding our research questions and the method we are going to use, we reviewed

the articles relevant to the similar researches the others have done previously. The

recent articles have been reviewed particularly.

In terms of the relevant literatures, numerous articles that are suitable for our project

have been studied to get basic knowledge contribution, CRM definition and models,

for instance.

Gradually by reviewing different generic CRM models, and considering the aim of

our project, we decided to choose the QCi model as the model we would use in our

project.

Suggestion  

Having an investigation of customers’ demand in this shopping mall by doing

interviews in order to make sure the app would satisfy customers. Based on the

investigation results, a tentative design, namely the performance of prototype, which

the functions of this app are given based on novelty, should be given at this phase. If

after putting considerable effort on the problems a tentative design still could not

present itself, the idea might be changed.

Regarding the procedure of our project, here are aspects that we need to select the

appropriate method / approach for them:

1. Obtained  the  requirement  specifications  

Knowing the fact that we obtained our requirement specification partially from the

literature review/the inner environment, in order to complete the requirement

specification the data of reality/outer environment is necessary yet. Regarding the

case of the shopping mall, we chose interview as the data collection method of our

outer environment.

1) Design  of  interview  questions  

One of the outputs of this project is an interactive app based on the CRM model;

initially this app could be applied for both customers and staff in the shopping mall.

Of course, the indoor navigation is the main feature of this app according to

customers’ demands. On the other hand, promotion marketing is the major purpose

of the shop owner and staff. Although the features they demand are distinguished

from each other, we have to learn their requirements to complete and accurate our

requirement specifications.

For the reasons above, we designed two sets of interview questions (see appendice

in regard to shopping mall staff and customers. As far as is concerned on keeping

balance of data quantity of those two groups, we conducted our interviews with 10

staff and 10 customers. The interview questions are provided in appendix. While the

interview transcripts and records will be stored in a university PC.

According to the literature review, we obtained the initial basis of the features that

the app should have. Result from that, the interview questions are based on the

technology component of CRM and indoor navigation the function itself.

2) Thematic  analysis  

After the data collection, thematic analysis would be conducted for data analysis.

The result of data analysis can be found via the thematic analysis process that

requires researchers repeatedly read the data (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2008).

After that, the data needs to be coded into the coding table. The coding processes

needs to identify the importance priorities of data and then summarise the key

patterns (Boyatzis, 1998).

Diagram 1 illustrates the details of the use of thematic analysis to look for the themes

and match the related codes.

Diagram 1: The procedures of the thematic data analysis

The first stage of thematic analysis is to be familiar with the data; it requires the

researcher to transcribe the interview data into transcription form firstly. In this

project, the transcription of data all comes from the interviews. Then the researcher

needs to read through the transcripts many times to have a better understanding of

the data obtained. It is crucial to keep the consistency of transcription in order to

reduce biases as much as possible. Also researcher should criticize the quality of

raw data by ignoring the useless data and concentrating on the key points. After this

stage, the researcher should be able to recognize the potential patterns in

interviews.

The second stage of thematic analysis is to generate the initial codes, it is the

process of developing the initial list of items from the data set that have the similar

pattern. It seems that the researcher cannot finish the coding in first stage normally.

The data patterns from interview are the answers and maybe the related further

explanations. Thus the researcher has to keep coding repeatedly and add potential

codes when demanded to make the result as accurate as it can be. To make the

data organized, the researcher should catalog the data into different sorts via data

reduction and complication.

The third stage of thematic analysis is to search for themes. The codes from the

second stage enables researcher to find the initial themes, which is the procedure of

summarizing phrases that identify the data in different categories. The themes of

data should summarize the content of the data and illustrate the patterns.

The forth stage of thematic analysis is to review themes, this stage allows revision of

themes as they develop. Consequently the researcher keeps checking if the codes fit

themes and can provide the answers of research questions. Once they are

contradicting to each other, the researcher should recode the data and develop new

themes until it fits to each other.

The fifth stage of thematic analysis is to define and name themes, the research

needs to define and give an explanation of each theme. And the names of themes

should give readers a full sense of the theme and its necessity. Note it is important

the researcher think of the definition of each theme among the theme list, and

identify if the theme contains subthemes. If so, it needs to be divided into subthemes

and named differently.

The last stage of thematic analysis is to produce the report. In this project, the report

from thematic analysis is the theme table and a concept map. The presentation of

the interview story is clear, while the report is provided.

3) Results  of  interviews  

It suggests (see the concept map below) that there are ads and products info

display, category searching, rating, comments, and interactions in between, five

main functions. Even under different views (staff and customers), while regarding

them as the functions of the app, they might be the same.

Diagram 2: concept map of functions customer need

Diagram 3: concept map of functions staff need

 

2. Requirement  Specifications  

We chose Swift as the programming language, and decided to build up an app on

iOS platform.

According to the result of interviews and literature review, the expected functions of

this app are shown in the table below.

a. Functional  Requirements  

ID Requirement Description Priority

(M, S, C)

1 Indoor navigation The function, which enables users to navigate

themselves, by the support of external devices or

hardware, within buildings or other architecture, in

this project, it is a shopping mall. The essence is

similar to Google map, users would see the

routine on their screens, and once they decide

the shop they want to visit.

M

2 Cataloging

Ø Style cataloging

Ø Material cataloging

Ø Price presentation

This function enables users to check the

information of particular shop or product of

different catalogues whilst using the app on their

mobile phones. They could just look up the name

of them by scanning the contents in the app and

get the direction to.

M

ID Requirement Description Priority

(M, S, C)

3 Within app searching This function works together with the cataloging.

It enables the users to search the particular name

of the exact shop or product within this app. It

only supports key words searching, picture

searching is not considered at this moment.

M

4 Shop introduction

presentation

Once the user uses this app, it is natural that they

may not know each shop very well among the

shopping mall. The reason why this function

exists is that an introduction of the shop may give

an impression of it and attract new customers.

M

5 Advertisements Ads can be an indirect way of interaction between

customers and the shop based on the literatures.

However, during the interviews, the shop owners

would like to put ads in this app so that they may

obtain more new customers. This function

enables ads to be presented in the content of the

app.

M

6 Customer review

module

After purchasing, the customers may want to

leave a review of the shop. It could not only

promote service quality of the shop, but also help

the shop to gain customers’ thoughts. This

function enables customer to leave comments

about the service of the shop, also customers is

able to see others’ comments that may affect their

decision.

C

ID Requirement Description Priority

(M, S, C)

7 Customer rating

module

As the result of interviews, both customers and

shop owners want to have kind of ranking module

within this app in order to compete with other

shops. This function would enable customers to

give a rating (1-5) of the shop. Each customer,

who sees the page of the shop, could check the

rating and the rating population of it. This would

be an indirect supervisor of the shop.

C

8 Customer account-

setting module

According to the interviews and the literatures,

gaining customer information is a useful method

to make business adjustment. Here we provide

an account-setting module, enabling customers to

set up an account of this app, via providing name

and mobile numbers for instance. This

information would be stored in the database of

this app, and the shop owners might get access

to this info.

C

b. Non-­‐functional  Requirements  

ID Requirement Description Priority

(M, S, C)

ID Requirement Description Priority

(M, S, C)

1 iBeacon This is the hardware; we are going to use to

support the indoor navigation function of this

app. It is not about exact location of each

product, but only about the location of each shop

M

2 Portable devices with

IOS system

Typically, it should be iPhone 4s, 5, 5s, 6, 6 plus.

It might work on iPad as well.

M

3 Prefabricated map The pre-designed map, which will be installed in

the app and can be seen while using.

M

4 Database The database stores the location data of each

shop, which includes the level info, location info

and the routine info. Also it has the storage of

shop introductions, prices and customer account

setting info.

S

5 WIFI support in the

shopping mall

This would enable customers to download the

app whilst visiting the shopping mall by scanning

the QR code.

S

6 QR code This code would be produced for customers, in

order to enable them download the app easier

via scanning it.

S

7 Server The server connects with the database and could

send information, including location info, shop

info, and price info, to users. The capacity of

server depends on the size of shopping mall and

the data in database.

C

c. iBeacon  selection  

As the discussion of the three mainly used supportive hardware has already been

made in the literature review, we chose iBeacon as our hardware support. To be

specified, we decided to use Estimote beacons.

d. Portable  device  selection  

In this project, iPhone 4s was taken as a test model since this device has the

Bluetooth Low Energy function and can be applied for the beacon based navigation.

The main goal of using this particular device is because the IOS system is running

on it.

e. Prefabricated  map  making  

In this project, we drew a plan map of level 2 in information school according to the

plan structure of level 2. Then utilising it as the navigation map in our app. It was not

relatively precise on scale, as an app prototype. However, the scale control should

be concerned while applying in practise.

f. Discussion  of  the  functioning  range  of  Estimote  beacon  

Ideally, if the beacon is in a line shape, the magnificent field around it should be

almost like a donut. On the thinner side of the beacon, there is a short wire sticking

out of the CPU: the antenna. It’s broadcasting electromagnetic waves with specific

length and frequency, namely, 2.4 GHz radio waves. If you would open a beacon,

you would notice that the antenna is nothing like the one your old TV set or radio set

had. Not only because is it much smaller, but also because it is twisted and looks like

a zigzag. There’s a reason for that. The electromagnetic field around a straight wire

is shaped like a donut - the waves do not propagate in every direction with the same

strength, leaving out sort of blank areas. The best solution to that is to reshape the

antenna. The desired outcome is to achieve a perfectly spherical field. This,

however, is not possible in real-world conditions, so there’s a lot of data science

going into figuring out the right shape of that wire. There are tons of books available

on antenna theory, and the scientists of Estimote also conducted their own lab tests

to equip Estimote Beacons with an antenna providing the strongest and most reliable

field.

As it is mentioned above that the desired outcome is to achieve a perfectly spherical

field. Nonetheless walls and other obstacles would affect the magnificent field of

beacon in reality. Also the signal strength is a bit weaker than the expectation value.

Thus we decide to change the range of each beacon according to the location of it,

in order to get the most use of them. For the corners, it is easier to use modify the

functioning range of each beacon in order to prevent the undesirable extra

magnificent field as much as we could.

Spherical functioning range in ideal situation

The real functioning range in reality

An imitation picture of ideal functioning range on a corner

Development  

The tentative design should be further implemented to a real IOS application at this

phase, and Swift was been chosen for the app development. The development

environment is Xcode. Other software packages and tools related to IOS application

development, like graphic user interface design tools, might be used also. The IOS

application is the output of this phase.

In this project, we only need to produce an app prototype, while there are many

functional and non-functional requirements. For this reason, we merely develop

requirements with the highest priority (must). The detailed are in Development

Chapter.

Evaluation:  Tutorial-­‐based  method  

As the app exists at this stage, the evaluation needs to be given, based on both

developers and normal users experience. A kind of criteria should be created before

it, which should be done in the Awareness of Problem phase. And a hypothesis

should be made according to the performance of this app. Considering if the app

could work well or not, having interviews with normal users (can be students within

University of Sheffield) is the way to get feedbacks.

The evaluation has not only the part of criticizing quality of this app, but also

analysing and calculating the quantity, such as the accuracy of navigation, how the

size of searching catalogue is. The tutorial-based evaluation method will be applied

for this project, which provides a pragmatic evaluation of usability of the software in

the form of a reproducible record of experiences (Jackson, Crouch & Baxter, 2011).

It is a mirror, which can reflect the functionalities and weaknesses of the app.

Afterwards, comparing the feedbacks and hypothesis to give a fair enough

evaluation. Typically even if the app development fails, this evaluation about

attempting and experimental results should be given still. The evaluation in real life is

an output of this phase.

Conclusion  

This phase could be the end of the research cycle. A finale of research should come

out. It is merely the application itself and the knowledge contribution that the theory

of use, which could be applied repeatedly in future for other shopping malls. For this

aspect, this is not the real end of the research, thus the model of design research

science is a cycle. At the end of the research cycle, a statement of knowledge

contribution should be consolidated in this phase. The output of this phase is the

combination of theory of use and findings.

Development  

1. Functional  requirements  development  

Due to the hardware support and expense limitation, we decide to take information

school (level 2 only) as the case for the development and testing of the prototype

app.

1) Navigation  (Map  View)  

As we could see in the screen shot below (red areas), the level 2 of information

school has been divided into 7 areas. Once a person enters in a room, there is no

need for knowing where exactly they are. Thus, based on it, we mapped 7 areas on

our footprint map; they were Lab, Labway, iSpace, Corridor1, Corridor2, Corridor3

and Reception. Using the SDK Estimote provided on its website, we added codes of

“if” for the app to distinguish which area the user is in. While entering the functioning

range of a beacon, the relevant area would turn red until the person walk out.

Knowing the fact that navigating routine instant display is the key function of a

navigation app, thus, we created another two Picker Views (start point and end point)

inside the map view. And listed out all the possibilities of the option combinations in

those two views. While each option combination was referred to one routine. Also in

this project, we stored the option combinations and routines in total in our codes.

Once user select two different options in those two Picker Views, a routine will be

shown on the map instantly.

Screen shot: area division on map

Screen shot: Map View

2) Category  &  searching  (Information  View)  

A Table View was created so that the categories (names) of existing locations can

be displayed on screen. Additionally, not only the referencing contents of the Table

View, but also the related details of each location have been pre-designed and

installed in the codes of this app. While pressing a name of the location, the details

of it will be shown instantly. Whereas it is not quite convenient for users when there

are numerous location names in the table view. For this reason, we added a

Searching Bar View on top of the Table View, in order to provide a searching

function.

Information View

Screen shot: detailed view of each location

The Searching Bar View was connected to the location names in the Table View.

User could type in the name of a particular location in the Searching Bar View, while

the Table View would keep refreshing the contents on screen according to the words

or letters. It seemed that searching function made this app a bit user-friendly though,

another issue with high occurring likelihood arose. What if the user only wants to

search one type of locations rather than all the location in the Table View. Under the

consideration of this issue, we designed a scope selection function to meet the

demand of potential users.

Screen shot: Scope searching

The scope selection function would only be shown, when the user want to search a

location. While user press the search bar, every scopes/type of location will be

displayed just right beneath the searching bar. It enables users to type in location

names and search under a specific scope by choosing different scopes on screen

during the searching procedure.

Screen shot: Main Menu View

3) Advertisements  (Main  Menu  View)  

According to the requirements of shop staff, advertisement display was an

indispensable function for marketing promotion. Supposing ads come from many

shops, i.e. different locations, it should be included in the details of each location.

Nonetheless this app is a prototype only, giving the evidence that this function could

be done, is enough. Based on the reason above, we created an Ads Banner View on

the bottom of the Main Menu View.

This Ads Banner View could display ads when the app has the access of Wi-Fi. It

keeps refreshing the contents in the view while using the app. Furthermore, it can

push different contents while they are coded and stored in the data of the app. In

addition, creating an ads notification remote pushing account would be an easy way

to keep ads updating. In this project, we only put the original Apple ads in, and did

not create our own ads contents.

Screen shot: Ads contents

Evaluation  

We cannot let the real users (shop staff and customers) test this app, due to the

necessity of supportive hardware. Tests have been done in information school

though, it can reflect the functionality of the app still. We evaluate this app in two

perspectives and use the usability guidelines from the software sustainability institute

(as below):

User  perspective  

The evaluation focuses on ease of download, installation and use of the app, with no

programming being required.

For an indoor navigation app based on CRM, we consider three main functions first:

• Navigation  

Seemingly the user could see his location only, while entering the range of the

closest beacon. However, the ranges are various adjusted to the location of each

beacon. Thus, an issue arises. While entering the overlapping range, how users

could know where exactly they are. This needs to be considered for future work.

Selecting start and end locations to get the right routine, is a useful function. It runs

well, when the quantity of locations is relatively less. While there are plenty of

locations for selection, picking up them would take more time.

• Category  searching  

When moving into the information view, all the categories can be seen on the

screen. However, touching the searching bar, while no category is visible under each

scope unless typing something in the searching bar. In addition, fast typing may lead

to app corruption. Those issues are not convenient for users.

Screen shot: using searching function without typing anything in

• Ads  display    

Currently the ads can be touched and show the detailed content to users.

Nevertheless, it is uncomfortable that users need to search the location names on

ads, after they see them. The users want to get a direct access to the relevant

details on ads in fact.

Then we considered the following usability:

• Visibility  of  system  status    

Does it give users response within reasonable time?

Yes, the current location can be displayed on screen within 3-5 seconds after user

enter in.

• User  control  and  freedom    

Does it provide clearly marked buttons for switching interface within the app?

Yes, it provides this sort of buttons on each interface/view of the app. However it

might be inconvenient for users that there is no exit button of this app.

• Consistency  and  standards  

Is it consistent within the app, and with platform conventions?

Yes, it is, because it was developed in Xcode environment, which includes the entire

standard set of IOS platform.

• Error  prevention  

Does it prevent errors in the first place or help users avoid making them?

No, as a prototype, it corrupts sometimes and has no error preventing methods

currently.

• Recognition  rather  than  recall  

Does it make objects, actions and options visible and reduce the amount of

information a user has to remember?

Yes, currently this app makes all the touchable buttons and options visible. And the

information with the app is quite limited, so is the info for user to remember.

• Flexibility  and  efficiency  of  use  

Does it offer shortcuts and support macros for frequently- done action sequences?

Currently nope, each action only could be done via a pre-set sequence, there’s no

shortcut. The shortcuts and macro support can be considered as a future

development task.

• Aesthetic  and  minimalist  design  

Does it avoid showing irrelevant or rarely-needed information?

As a prototype with limited information, if considering the ads as relevant information,

there’s no irrelevant or rarely-needed information currently.

• Help  users  recognize,  diagnose,  and  recover  from  errors  

Does it make errors clear, comprehensible, precise and suggest solutions if

possible?

Nope, in current situation this app couldn’t help users recognize, diagnose, and

recover from errors. Even it corrupts sometimes, users can only reopen it. And they

wouldn’t be able to know what errors they meet. Additionally, after corruption, the

app provides no recovery currently. While the data of the app goes larger, a recovery

function would be required definitely. Those three functions can be developed in the

later on projects.

• Help  and  documentation  

Does it provide concise, accurate, clear, easily-searchable task- oriented doc

centered around concrete lists of steps?

No, the app looks quite simple. Seemingly it can be used without doc.

 

Considering supporting resources provided for users since these will form part of a

user’s experience (especially if running into problems or having queries):

• Release  packaging  

Is the app release packaged for immediate use in a suitable archive format?

Yes, it is an instant app file currently.

Is it clear how to install the app? Does it have version numbers?

No, there’s no need for knowing how to install the app on IOS, because the app can

be simply downloaded from the app store.

Yes, this app has a version number in case of further development.

Is it clear what the copyright is in the app?

Yes, the copyright information has been put into the development files.

• How  to  get  started    

If the package is an app, is it clear how to start using it?

No, now no user manual exists. The only thing users could do is to attempt and to

guess the functions within the app via both touching and reading the contexts on

views.

Developer  perspective  

The  evaluation  should  be  focused  on  development  tasks  relating  to  changing  the  app,  to  

extend  it,  improve  it  or  fix  it.    

For  an  indoor  navigation  app  based  on  CRM,  we  evaluate  three  main  functions  first:  

• Navigation  

The  accuracy  of  navigation  is  not  a  big  issue  now.  However  the  overlapping  beacon  

range  cannot  be  simply  avoided.  Triangulation  method  might  be  used  in  further  

development  in  order  to  give  user  a  correct  location  display  while  entering  overlapping  

area.    

 

Also  the  non-­‐beacon  range  area  can  be  a  problem.  The  user  may  lose  the  way  when  

entering  this  kind  of  ranges.  It  is  crucial  to  map  the  beacons,  so  that  the  non-­‐beacon  

ranges  are  as  less  as  possible.  Putting  more  small  range  beacons  in  corridors,  while  

adjusting  the  beacon  in  room  with  a  covering  range  of  the  room,  can  be  a  solution  for  

future  work.  

 

The  Picker  Views  of  start  and  end  locations  are  simple  to  use  right  now.  Imagine  the  

locations  in  the  list  is  100,  picking  up  the  desirable  ones  is  relatively  difficult.  Thus,  we  

will  need  a  database  for  location  storage,  and  a  typing  searching  function  of  both  start  

and  end  location  selection  in  future  work.

• Category  searching  

Although  the  table  keeps  refreshing,  while  user  uses  the  searching  function,  it  only  

display  location  names  until  typing  in  something.  This  is  inconvenient  for  users.  It  should  

be  displayed  all  the  time  according  to  the  selected  scope.  It  would  be  done  in  future  

work.  The  developer  needs  to  figure  out  why  fast  typing  could  cause  app  corruption  in  

further  development.  

 

The  details  of  each  location  should  be  able  to  display  texts  and  pictures.  While  the  

location  pictures  can  replace  their  names  as  well.  In  that  case,  the  app  might  be  user-­‐

friendlier.  And  it  is  considerably  easy  to  find  a  picture  rather  than  a  text  name  on  

screen.  

• Ads  display    

The  current  ads  is  independent  with  no  connection  to  other  functions  in  the  app.  

Nonetheless  the  user  may  be  interested  in  the  content  of  ads,  and  want  to  see  more  

details.  It  is  paranoid  that  the  user  needs  to  search  the  location  name  after  watching  the  

ads.  Ideally  the  ads  should  provide  a  direct  access  to  the  detailed  information.    

 

The  ads  content  is  embedded  in  the  app,  but  ads  changes  a  lot  with  time  goes  by.  So  

having  an  ads  notification  pushing  account  would  be  under  consideration  in  further  

development.  A  related  database  may  be  required.  

Then  generally  evaluate  and  comment  on:

•  How  easy  is  it  to  set  up  development  environment  to  change  the  app?    

The  development  environment  needs  to  be  installed  on  OS  system.  Just  simply  do  an  

installation  of  Xcode,  the  app  could  be  modified  afterwards.  

•    How  easy  is  it  to  understand  the  structure  of  the  source  code  repository?  Is  there  information  

that  relates  the  structure  of  the  source  code  to  the  app’s  architecture?    

The  source  code  has  comments  and  explanations  in  each  file.  Also,  detailed  explanations  are  

written  for  the  codes  with  different  functions.  There’s  no  information  relates  the  structure  

of  the  source  code  to  the  app  architecture,  it  can  be  figured  out  once  seeing  the  original  

project  file  of  the  app  only  now.  

•    Is  it  clear  what  third-­‐party  tools  and  software  you  need,  which  versions  you  need,  where  to  get  

these  and  how  to  set  them  up?    

No,  for  this  prototype  development,  there’s  no  need  for  any  third-­‐party  tool  or  software.  

•    How  easy  is  it  to  compile  the  code?    

Once  all  the  views,  buttons  and  user  control  actions  are  mapped  in  the  storyboard,  

compiling  the  code  is  almost  a  routine  work  in  Xcode.  

•    How  easy  is  it  to  build  a  release  bundle?    

The  release  bundle  can  be  built  via  a  development  account  only;  a  registered  development  

account  is  the  essential  condition  of  it.    

•    How  easy  is  it  to  validate  changes  you’ve  made?  This  includes  building  the  app,  getting,  building  

and  running  tests.    

It  is  straightforward  in  Xcode,  while  keep  the  testing  device  connecting  with  it.  While  

finishing  modifications,  rerun  the  app  on  the  device  by  rebuilding  the  app  via  stimulation.  

•    Is  there  design  documentation  available?  How  accurate  and  understandable  is  it?    

No,  no  design  documentation  for  this  app  currently.  Instead,  it  provides  comments  in  codes  

to  give  further  developers  a  better  understanding.  The  comments  are  blur  to  some  extent,  

thus  they  are  not  relatively  understandable  to  all  the  developers.  

• Are  there  tutorials  available  for  developers?  Are  they  accurate,  and  understandable?    

No, there is no tutorial at all.

• How  readable  is  the  source  code?  Well-­‐laid  out  with  good  use  of  white-­‐space  and  indentation?    

The  source  code  is  not  hard  to  read,  but  the  comments  inside  are  difficult  to  understand  

somehow.  There  should  be  an  extra  development  documentation  of  this  app.    

• How  accurate  or  comprehensive  is  the  source  code  commenting?  Does  it  focus  on  why  the  code  

is  as  it  is?    

The  comments  are  blur  sometimes,  which  makes  the  source  code  hard  to  comprehend.  

Parts  of  the  comments  focuses  on  why  the  code  is  as  it  is  except  the  blurring  comments.  

• Is  the  copyright  of  the  app  and  third-­‐party  dependencies  clear  and  documented  so  you  can  

understand  the  implications  on  changes  you  develop?    

The  copyright  of  the  app  is  clear  and  documented  only  in  the  code  files,  so  as  the  open  

source  code  used  in  the  app.  However  still  it  is  difficult  to  understand  the  implications  on  

changes  without  a  clear  documentation  file.  

Conclusion  

1. Summary  of  findings  

As we created a prototype and tested, it is clear that a beacon based navigation app

could work to support the CRM in shopping mall. In short, we have succeeded in

realizing the most basic function of CRM in an indoor navigation app. The app

revealed the possibility of this sort of app. While the literature review revealed that

the app could help many functions of CRM, as long as having a connection with the

functions embedded. Although this app has problems as a prototype, it proves that

the hypothesis is possible.

2. Response  to  research  questions  

The first research question “Which element of CRM could be supported by a smart

app?” was answered in the literature review chapter. It is clear that technology is the

element supported. According to the functions of CRM in literature review, it is

apparent that almost all the CRM functions can be supported by this app. And parts

of the functions (the most basic functions) are already developed successfully in the

app.

The second question “How the smart app would be?” was answered in development

chapter as well as the screen shots of the app. The prototype contains three main

functions; there are navigation, category searching, and ads display. Still the app has

development space for further work.

This project can be seen as an attempt towards beacon based indoor navigation app

in shopping mall. The app itself can be regarded as a combination, including both

CRM functions and beacon based navigation functions.

3. Limitations  

The time is quite limited for a developing project. While as a non-programmer, all the

coding technique, testing skills, and evaluating methods used in this project, were

learned by myself during the conducting process. Thus the stability of the app would

be not as good as the completed version ones.

The navigation routine could not be shown properly due to the lack of programing

knowledge. Also this app has only been tested on iPhone 4s, other problems may

occur running on other versions of iPhone, such as the locations of buttons changing

on different devices.

4. Future  work  

This app is just a prototype. Future work could possibly improve the development of

the app and try to use algorithm to realize the instant navigation function. In this

project, we only gave the possibility of our hypothesis. In other words, we only

considered the roots of terms. We will do further research of terms in future. For the

CRM model we used in this project, we will develop our own model in future

research.

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Appendix  

Ø Appendix  1:  Interview  questions  

Pre-condition:

Once we have an in-door navigation app on our mobile phones…

Questions for Staff:

1. What contents do you need to present in the app for customers? Why?

2. What kind of information do you need from customers? Why?

3. What could we do to promote repurchasing?

4. What could we do to improve satisfaction of customers?

5. What could we show new customers in the app to impress them?

6. What should we do if wondering who’s the potential customer?

7. Any suggestions?

Questions for Customers:

1. Except navigation, what other functions do you need, or contents do you expect

to get via this app? Why?

2. Do you expect to see others’ review for stores?

3. What do you wonder of the stores before you start purchasing?

4. What makes you go to the same store to repurchase?

5. What makes you want to have a look at the store?

6. Any suggestions?

Ø Appendix  2:  Coding  tables  of  interviews  

Theme Sub-theme Codes Quotation

Functions staff need

Promote

marketing

Ads display

“Of course, we want

to sell as more

products as

possible, if this app

could promote it,

we’d like to use.”

“Well, as you can

see, this shop is not

popular in the

shopping mall. But

our quality is

considerably good.

Therefore could this

app help us sell

more products?”

Category searching

“I think customers

want to learn more

about the furniture

under the category

they prefer.”

Product detailed

info

“Customers want to

get a brief

introduction of the

product they like. If

they could get those

info from the app,

they may come to

have a look.”

Attract new

customers

Ads display

“As a shop, we

cannot just sell

products to the

same customers.

Part of them may

only purchase once

especially. Thus we

want to gain new

customers always.”

“For furniture shops,

normally each

customer only

purchases once. We

want to put ads in

the app to get

potential

customers.”

Rating

“If the customers

could give a rating

of our shop after

purchasing, it would

be great.”

“If the app provides

a rating function,

new customers can

make their decision

based on the

ratings. This can

benefit us.”

Comments

“Some new

customers are

friends of my

previous customers,

they hear of our

good quality from

comments on chat.”

Retain

customers

Interaction with

customers

“The repeated

purchasing

customers are

always welcomed.

Because of knowing

each other very well,

we can make the

trade easily.”

“Keeping in touch

with our repeated

customers is a way

to provide them

after-purchasing

services and retain

them.”

Theme Sub-theme Codes Quotation

Functions

customers need

Get discount info

Ads display

“We know the

discounting event

from ads

sometimes, and it

may stimulate us to

have a look.”

Products detailed

info

“I want to know the

price of the product

and if that shop has

a discount on it.”

Know product

quality

Products detailed

info

“The quality of

products is vital for

furniture purchasing.

I want to know more

details before

purchasing in order

to make a right

decision.”

“Comparing the

quality between

shops is a way to

select the proper

products. So it is a

necessity to know

info of products

before purchasing.”

Rating

“Similar to Taobao, if

there’s a rating

function, it is easy

for us to select. Just

go to the high rating

ones.”

Comments

“When shopping

online, I check the

comments of the

product. I only buy

products with good

comments. For

shops, it is hard to

distinguish whether

it has good quality or

not without any

comments from

others.”

“Know what

previous customer

thinks, I can concern

on less options by

reducing the lower

commented ones.”

Interaction with

staff

“While using the

furniture, we may

want to know how to

maintain and repair

it properly.”

“I left my mobile

number to the shop

staff, so that I could

call him and get

products quickly. We

are good friends

now.”

Ø Appendix  3:  Ethic  approval  letter  

Ø Appendix  4:  Ethic  consent  form  (EN)  

The  University  of  Sheffield.  Information  School    

A  case  study:  how  an  app  could  support  CRM  within  a  furniture  shopping  mall  

 Researchers  Lingjia  Liu,  lliu22@sheffield.ac.uk  Dr.  Miguel  Nunes,  j.m.nunes@sheffield.ac.uk      Purpose  of  the  research  The  main  purpose  of  this  research  is  to  design  and  develop  a  CRM  application  with  indoor  navigation  function  to  support  the  customer  relationship  management  within  the  particular  furniture  shopping  mall.    Objective:  To  give  a  proof  of  concept  of  the  smart  app  To  illustrate  the  theory  of  use  of  the  smart  app  How  can  an  app  support  Customer  Relationship  Management  in  the  shopping  mall?  How  could  this  app  help  with  customer  loyalty,  sales  in  the  shopping  mall?    Who  will  be  participating?  We  are  inviting  the  staff  of  a  particular  shop  and  customers  in  that  furniture  shopping  mall.      What  will  you  be  asked  to  do?  We  will  ask  you  to  complete  a  brief  demographics  questionnaire  so  that  we  have  a  profile  of  our  participant  group.  Then  we  will  conduct  a  10-­‐20  min  interview  about  what  kinds  of  other  functions  would  be  needed  if  an  app  with  indoor  navigation  function  has  been  installed  on  your  mobile  phone.      What  are  the  potential  risks  of  participating?  The  risks  of  participating  are  the  same  as  those  experienced  in  everyday  life.      What  data  will  we  collect?  We  are  audio  recording  the  interviews.      What  will  we  do  with  the  data?  We  will  be  analyzing  the  data  for  inclusion  in  my  masters  dissertation.  After  that  point,  the  data  will  be  destroyed.      Will  my  participation  be  confidential?  We  are  anonymizing  the  data  and  coding  the  audio  files  with  an  arbitrary  number.  No  identifying  information  will  be  retained.      

What  will  happen  to  the  results  of  the  research  project?  The  results  of  this  study  will  be  included  in  my  master’s  dissertation,  which  will  be  publicly  available.  Please  contact  the  School  in  six  months.      I  confirm  that  I  have  read  and  understand  the  description  of  the  research  project,  and  that  I  have  had  an  opportunity  to  ask  questions  about  the  project.    I  understand  that  my  participation  is  voluntary  and  that  I  am  free  to  withdraw  at  any  time  without  any  negative  consequences.    I  understand  that  I  may  decline  to  answer  any  particular  question  or  questions,  or  to  do  any  of  the  activities.  If  I  stop  participating  at  all  time,  all  of  my  data  will  be  purged.    I  understand  that  my  responses  will  be  kept  strictly  confidential,  that  my  name  or  identity  will  not  be  linked  to  any  research  materials,  and  that  I  will  not  be  identified  or  identifiable  in  any  report  or  reports  that  result  from  the  research.    I  give  permission  for  the  research  team  members  to  have  access  to  my  anonymised  responses.    I  give  permission  for  the  research  team  to  re-­‐use  my  data  for  future  research  as  specified  above.    I  agree  to  take  part  in  the  research  project  as  described  above.          Participant  Name  (Please  print)     Participant  Signature          

   

Researcher  Name  (Please  print)     Researcher  Signature  Lingjia  Liu    Date      Note:    If  you  have  any  difficulties  with,  or  wish  to  voice  concern  about,  any  aspect  of  your  participation  in  this  study,  please  contact  Dr  Jo  Bates,  Research  Ethics  Coordinator,  Information  School,  The  University  of  Sheffield  (ischool_ethics@sheffield.ac.uk),  or  to  the  University  Registrar  and  Secretary.    

Ø Appendix  6:  Ethic  consent  form  (CN)  

英国谢菲尔德大学 信息学院    

����:  ��应���������������场��户����  

 ���员  ����,  lliu22@sheffield.ac.uk  Miguel  Nunes��,  j.m.nunes@sheffield.ac.uk      ����  

这项研究的主要目的是设计和开发⼀一款具有室内导航功能的 CRM 应用程序以支持指

定家具商场的客户关系管理。

目的：

为了给出该智能应用程序可以被实现的证明

为了说明使用的该智能应用程序的理论：

1. 它将如何支持该商场的客户关系管理？

2. 该应用程序将如何在客户忠诚度，销售，这些⽅方面对此家具商场给予支持？

谁�����  我们将会邀请在家具商场中⼀一特定的商店的⼯工作⼈人员和该商场的部分顾客。

 ���������  

我们会要求你完成⼀一个简短的问卷调查，使我们便于统计参与者范围。然后，我们将

进⾏行 10-20 分钟左右的采访，如果有此商场已将带有室内导航功能的应用程序安装在

您的⼿手机上，届时，您还会需要哪些额外的功能。

 �������风险�  参与的风险与在日常⽣生活中可能经历的风险相同。

 �们�����资��  �们�把采访录音。    �们���处����  我们将分析好的数据列⼊入我的硕⼠士毕业论⽂文。在这之后，该数据将被销毁。

 请问��������吗?  我们将匿名化数据和音频⽂文件，并用任意数编码音频⽂文件。⽆无任何可识别信息将被保

留。

 该���产��样�结�?  该���结�������员���硕�论��,  该论���������详��请��������联��  

我确认我已阅读并理解该研究项目的说明，我可以询问有关该项目的问题。

据我所知，我的参与是自愿的，我可以在任何时候退出，没有任何不良后果。

我明白，我可以拒绝回答任何特定的问题或问题，或者做任何的活动。如果我在参与

过程中任何时候退出，我的所有数据将被清除。

据我所知，我的回答将被严格保密，我的名字或身份将不会被链接到任何研究资料，

⽽而我在随后的研究报告中将不会被识别。

研究小组成员给了我匿名回复的权限。

我给了上面规定的研究团队重新使用我的数据对未来的研究许可。

我同意上述参与的研究项目。

���姓名  (Please  print)   ���签�  

���员��  (Please  print)   ���员签�  ���  

��  

注意：如果你有任何困难，或想关注你参加这项研究的任何方面，请联系谢菲尔德大学，信息学

院研究伦理协调员，乔·贝茨博士（ ischool_ethics@sheffield.ac.uk），或联系大学接待处处长和秘书。

Ø Appendix  5:  Access  to  Dissertation  

A Dissertation submitted to the University may be held by the Department (or School) within which the Dissertation was undertaken and made available for borrowing or consultation in accordance with University Regulations. Requests for the loan of dissertations may be received from libraries in the UK and overseas. The Department may also receive requests from other organisations, as well as individuals. The conservation of the original dissertation is better assured if the Department and/or Library can fulfill such requests by sending a copy. The Department may also make your dissertation available via its web pages. In certain cases where confidentiality of information is concerned, if either the author or the supervisor so requests, the Department will withhold the dissertation from loan or consultation for the period specified below. Where no such restriction is in force, the Department may also deposit the Dissertation in the University of Sheffield Library. To be completed by the Author – Select (a) or (b) by placing a tick in the appropriate box If you are willing to give permission for the Information School to make your dissertation available in these ways, please complete the following: (a) Subject to the General Regulation on Intellectual Property, I, the author, agree to this

dissertation being made immediately available through the Department and/or University Library for consultation, and for the Department and/or Library to reproduce this dissertation in whole or part in order to supply single copies for the purpose of research or private study

(b) Subject to the General Regulation on Intellectual Property, I, the author, request that this dissertation be withheld from loan, consultation or reproduction for a period of [ ] years from the date of its submission. Subsequent to this period, I agree to this dissertation being made available through the Department and/or University Library for consultation, and for the Department and/or Library to reproduce this dissertation in whole or part in order to supply single copies for the purpose of research or private study

Name: Lingjia Liu

Department Information School

Signed LINGJIA LIU

Date 15th Sep, 2015

To be completed by the Supervisor – Select (a) or (b) by placing a tick in the appropriate box (a) I, the supervisor, agree to this dissertation being made immediately available through the

Department and/or University Library for loan or consultation, subject to any special restrictions (*) agreed with external organisations as part of a collaborative project.

*Special restrictions

(b) I, the supervisor, request that this dissertation be withheld from loan, consultation or reproduction for a period of [ ] years from the date of its submission. Subsequent to this period, I, agree to this dissertation being made available through the Department and/or University Library for loan or consultation, subject to any special restrictions (*) agreed with external organisations as part of a collaborative project

Name

Department

Signed Date THIS SHEET MUST BE SUBMITTED WITH DISSERTATIONS BY DEPARTMENTAL REQUIREMENTS.