UNIT 2:MANAGING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

ICON College of Technology and Management

Department of Travel & Tourism Management

BTEC HND in International Travel and Tourism Management

Coursework

Planning for Customer Experience Management

Tutor: Claudia Vasto

Submitted by

Cristian-Dumitru Cojocaru

ID No: 15737

Session: February 2019

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................ 3

L01.............................................................................................................................................. 4

The necessity to understand the preferences and needs of customer groups...........................

Factors that drive customer engagement of different groups of customers................................

Customer engagement factors that determine the on-boarding strategies for customers of
different groups..........................................................................................................................

L02.............................................................................................................................................. 7

A customer experience map......................................................................................................

Different Customer touch points.................................................................................................

A detailed customer experience map and interactions at the touch points.................................

L03........................................................................................................................................ 10

The use of digital technology to shape the customer experience...............................................

Digital technologies employed in CEM that changes CRM systems to acquire and retain
customers..................................................................................................................................

L04............................................................................................................................................ 11

Customer Service Strategies in the service sector.....................................................................

These strategies creating customer experience meeting the needs of customers and also
business standard......................................................................................................................

Application of these strategies in the service sector organization and make recommendations

Conclusion............................................................................................................................... 13

References............................................................................................................................... 14

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Introduction
Customer experience is necessary and in fact crucial to a company which deals with the
customer service. Customer experience is the experience the customer gathers from the
interactions he/she has with the organization (Farkas, 2011). So, in short, this is the perceived
image of an organization, its products, services, and even the employees’ behaviour to a
customer. This perception is gathered after the customer interacts with an organization through
its various touchpoints or interaction points.

Customer experience management refers to the tools that organization use to handle
customers’ behaviour, their choice of product and their interactions with the given organization.
So customer experience management handles how the customer experiences the organization
and its services or products(Karsten Hadwich., 2012). This assignment will dive into the
expectations of customers driven by needs and an organization’s understanding of them. The
assignment will also attempt to create a customer experience map and evaluate the opportunity
to use digital tools in making a proper customer experience.

Organizational Review:

The Tower Hotel of London is situated on the bank of the River Thames and on the east side of
the tower bridge. The hotel was opened in 1973. It was Designed by Renton Howard Wood
partnership and owned by J. Lyons & Co(Guoman.com, 2019). Later the hotels changed
ownership several times and now is owned by BIL International, which turned the hotel into a
luxury brand named Guoman Hotels.

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L01
The service sector is existent only because of its customers. So, there is no telling that
customer satisfaction is the only way that an organization in the service sector can thrive. A
service sector company serves a big number of customers. So, an organization working in the
sector must know what his customer needs and what he wants, in order to give the best service
possible. So, the service sector gives through their interaction, a proper satisfactory experience
to the customers. This interaction is otherwise known as Customer experience (CE)(Palmatier,
Kumar and Harmeling, 2018). If the customer gets a positive response from the organization
his/her experience would be good, if otherwise is true, then his/her experience will be not
satisfactory.

An organization to know what the customer needs also need to understand what they want. And
to do so only knowing the basic necessity is not enough. All the possible information that an
organization can know of a customer like his/her hobbies, personal tastes, opinions, the cultural
background is important. Even his/her religious views might help to understand what his needs
might be. The organization to understand its customer better need to ask is the customer buying
the product or service for themselves, or for someone else, then they should also know why the
particular product or service was chosen by the customer and why not anything else. To
understand them better an organization should also know how often the customer wants the
service or product.

These details can set the tone for very good customer experience with the organization. In
addition to this, the organization should also have a system to collect non-intrusive data of their
customer's habits, needs and thoughts to provide them with a better service. This is not difficult
to implement in the modern scenario(Schwartz, 2017). This topic will be discussed in a later
paragraph. Listening to feedbacks are also important for building good customer experience.
Many customers, if not asked, would not give feedback. So, having feedback from the customer
will help the organization to assess where they are now. Thus, understanding the customer
gives a company in the service industry insight into where they stand in the business. If an
organization understands its customer, it will be able:

1. To assess the possible competitive price for the service or product sold by the
organization
2. To grow the profit of the company.
3. To build brand loyalty.

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4. To have a good relationship with the customer through his journey

5. To increase how often the customer would buy from the organization

Service sector basically provides its services in every sphere of business. Thus the service
sector covers many different customer groups. Customer engagement is how the customers are
approached by the organizations. Most of the organizations use the same type of tools to
communicate with their customers. But with the rise of the internet, the customers are now
informed and knows about possible competitors. So the service sector has to come up with new
ideas to engage the same customer groups differently(Service strategy, 2010). This essay will
try to point out some of the factors that drive the customer engagement factor. But before that,
the different customer groups for a hospitality organization like the Tower Hotel should be
pointed out. The tourists visiting the hotel can be segmented in these categories:

1. Geography: Consumer divided according to the different places

2. Demography: This is the division by factors like education, occupation and sex
3. Behaviour: This informs that if the customer knows the product or not
4. Phycology: This is the division of customer on the basis of their lifestyle attitude and
personality.

Considering these different customer groups would require a different approach to engage
them and give them a unique customer experience. Keeping these points in mind here are
some of the factors which drive customer engagement in a service sector like the Tower
hotel of London:

1. Quality service: quality product or service are crucial to any service organisation. Only
providing quality services can satisfy a customer. Like all service sector organization,
The Tower hotel of London if gives quality service to its customers will gain customer
satisfaction.
2. Competitive price: If a service sector organization can get a good competitive price than
others, then it would attract customer satisfaction. The tower hotel of London has a
relatively cheaper price than the rest of the hotels near in town.
3. Brand value: Any service organization’s dream is to create a brand value that the
customer will love and cherish. Creating a brand value and using that value goes on a
long way to make the customer experience good.
4. Ask for feedback: Many customers are not eager to give reviews if not asked. But if
asked then a customer can give insightful feedback to improve the customer experience.

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5. Communication: This is the first thing that a service sector organization should have
among them and the consumer. An organization which communicates with its customers
are sure to make a good impression on the customer.

Customer onboarding is the most important step in the customer journey or cycle. This is a pre-
customer journey essential, meaning this is done even before the customer is even a customer.
The organization guides the customer through its products to have an overview of what they will
experience throughout the whole journey(Service strategy, 2010).

Different customer engagement factors seen above can influence the onboarding of customers,
such as:

1. Quality products or services are important to let the customer know what they are going
to have throughout the journey of his customer experience. If an organization has
offered a quality service or product the first impression of the customer would be
positive. Thus, the customer would be interested to have the product or service.
2. Competitive price: This comes next to quality product. If an organization offers a quality
product at a reasonable price, a customer is sure to be interested in the service and
gladly stick for future purchase.
3. Brand value: This is perhaps the most important segment in a service sector
organization. Creating brand value is a must for a service sector organization. A
customer in his onboarding experience would consider the value of the brand before
anything else.
4. Asking for feedback: Even though the customer hasn’t started the journey with the
company yet, when onboarding, if the customer is asked for feedback it would make a
positive impression on the customer.
5. Communication: This is another important factor driving the customer engagement as
the customer communicated regularly through flyers emails and surveys will likely to
have the product of a company and good on-going experience in the future(Soudagar,
Hildebrand and Iyer, 2012).

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L02
In a customer lifespan, possible scenarios are to be calculated and prepared for. The
process that the company uses for this is called the customer experience map. This is
an attempt to create a customer experience map for the Tower hotel in London.

enquiries the customer might have will affect the customer experience.

Figure 1: Customer Expereinces Map (Self-made)

Based on what kinds of problems a customer might face and what

Touchpoints are the instances of interaction between the customer and the service organization.
The media used by the organization to interact with the customer is called a channel. These
touchpoints can create business opportunities for a service sector organization. Pleasant
interaction between the customers and the organisation through touch points will help the
customers have a pleasant experience(Schwartz, 2017). Touchpoints are mostly active
interactions but there are instances of passive interactions with customers also.

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Here are some touchpoints for the tower hotel of London which might create a business
opportunity for the organization:

1. Thanks to the internet, the main website of the Tower Hotel of London has a rapid help
desk equipped with 24 hours of support, to solve any problems that the customer might
have with the service.
2. The Call centre of The Tower Hotel of London is another crucial touch point for the
organization. Through the call centre, the organization can solve problems and also
notify customers of latest offers and packages.
3. Then there comes to email. This is the most used touchpoint in today’s competitive era.
The service sector organization can send out flyers and offers through the email and
also provide continuous support to the customers in need creating interest among them.
4. Advertisement both of the internet nature and printed nature are interaction points for the
customer. A customer when sees an interesting or eye catchy advertisement might click
or skim through/ thus in the modern era advertisement is one of the most important
factors that engages the customers.

As discussed above customer map will provide an understanding of how the customer might
experience throughout his journey with the company. This is the customer experience map
detailed out and briefly discussed:

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Figure 2: Detailed Customer Expereinces Map (Self-made)

The customer map discusses how the customer might want a good place according to their
needs and expectations. After meeting those ends the customer might go for the tourist
destinations or look for a comparison(Farkas, 2011). If he/she ultimately chooses the destination
they might face difficulties understanding different things and aspects of the organization. These
problems are solved through different touch points for customers.

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L03
The organizations now use various digital tools at their disposal to analyse customer behaviour.
Previously the organizations couldn’t do that. But now the internet has empowered the service
sector to analyse discuss the customer’s behaviour and shape his/her experience by using that
data(Greenberg, 2009).

The various tools used by digital technology shape the customer’s experience and analyse how
their decisions will be. The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning has helped to this
venture. As the customer with their digital life leaves pockets of information the tools and
analytics by the service sector organizations can analyse them and come up with a customer
experience plan that will benefit both the customer and the organization. The automation system
of the service sector has brought the customer closer than ever before. Any company can
restructure itself with a digital backbone and completely change their game plan and take a
strong place amongst competitors(Brown and Gravely, 2004). Most of the companies in the
world are implementing modern digital systems among their infrastructure.

A customer who is digitally engaged by a company will likely buy services from the company, or
refer and recommend the service to their friends and families and more likely to buy the service
even when there are better prices offered by other organizations.

There are different CRM software provided by the leading technology companies like Microsoft
Dynamic CRM, Insightly, Nimble. These software can turn the tide of a service sector
organization and smooth out the customer experience management. Now that the CRM system
is digitized thanks to the different software offered by tech giants a company can easily:

1. Track the actions and internet activity of a customer

2. Gather a customer’s information providing an insight into what the customer might want.
3. Gather all the information in a central location for easy handling and processing.
4. Lower the expanses of a product or service
5. Assess trends and new patterns in the service industry
6. Provide instant feedback through the internet and social media

The CRM systems were before operated in hand. But this new digitized CRM systems has
really been a revolution in the service industry (Singh, 2014). The CRM software assess the
data collected by the service sector organizations. Customer relationship management is of
three different types:

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1. Strategic: Concerning a customer-centric service,

2.Operational: Concerning automate sales and marketing,

3.Analytical: Concerning the analyzation of the data collected of the consumer.

The proper collection of customer data will help an organization to assess what the customer
might want or need. This will further be assessed by the online activity of the customer. The
customer through online surveys, polls and social media adverts and interactions give
information of their choice to the service giving companies. The social media also sell the
information for advertisements. All of this information is gathered into a compilation to make a
profile of the customer which is then used to target that potential customer and retain him/her.

L04

Customer service strategies are a must in the service sector. These strategies come together to
make unique customer experience(Palmatier, Kumar and Harmeling, 2018). Some strategies
that might be used by the service sector are:

1. Training the employees with proper and adequate knowledge of the service.
2. Build a unique customer service management team.
3. Resolve customer’s problems and shortcomings in a convincing way.
4. Understanding the empathy of customers.
5. Personal recommendations and deal offering to the customer.
6. Use CRM software to gather and assess customer data and enhance their experience.
7. Welcome reviews from the customers and take notice of them
8. Treat your employees well

These strategies are briefly discussed in a later paragraph.

In the previous paragraph, some strategies of customer service were pointed out. This
paragraph will discuss how they relate to the needs of customers and business standards. The
employees trained properly in the service that the provider is providing will help them to be
ready to serve the customers. Whenever the customer comes in contact with an employee
through a touchpoint, the employee can give proper information to fulfil the customer’s needs
and keeping the businessstandard intact.

A good customer service management team is more likely to have a great impact on the
customer relationship. A good management team is equipped with the latest of intonations and

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tools that can help the customers with their needs and wants. Which will, in turn, keep the
service giving the company an edge to the other competition. The use of a CRM software also
will enable a better customer experience to the customer using the data and information
gathered, successfully predicting what the customers might need(Greenberg, 2009). The
customers if encouraged for feedbacks and reviews can give powerful insights to the service
organization which can help it to give a much better experience to the customer and meet the
business standard.

The building block of a service organization is the employees. If the employees are not well
behaved with the standard of customer experience is not possible to achieve, as they are one of
the touchpoints. So the employees should be well treated to ensure a smooth operation of the
organization.

The Tower Hotel of London is one of the most popular organizations in the hospitality industry.
The organization, to satisfy its customers follow all these above strategies to give a buttery
smooth customer experience. As discussed above a customer experience is the whole journey
that a customer might have with the organization. As an example, let's take a scenario where
the customer has come to the hotel to book a room for himself and his family.

The first interaction would be with the employees of the hotel(Barnes, 2006). If the employees
present cannot give an answer to a basic question the customer might get a bad impression. So
the employees should be informed to help the customers with possible solutions. Having a great
CX management team would solve the problems regarding what kind of rooms and services the
customer would want. So the customer would have to their liking the best possible service that
their needs and expectations meet. Next, the customer might be offered a discount or offer
unique to him to satisfy the customer. So the customer might be interested to stay with the hotel
further in the customer lifespan. Then the customer should be encouraged to give feedback on
how the service of the first touchpoint was and recommendation how the service could be
improved.

The hotel can up their game by increasing its social media coverage and giving interactive
advertisements to attract customers to the service.

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Conclusion

CX, CR and CS are terms that interrelate with each other.

A service sector organization like the Tower Hotel of London can really help itself by taking
proper measures relating to customer service strategies and customer experience
management.

If they stick to their plan and execute them with the help of these tools, they can easily flourish
as a great service sector organization.

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References
Barnes, J. (2006). Build your customer strategy. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Brown, L. and Gravely, J. (2004). Using Microsoft CRM. Indianapolis, Ind.: Que Pub.

Farkas, V. (2011). Customer relations. New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Greenberg, P. (2009). CRM at the Speed of Light. New York, USA: McGraw-Hill
Professional Publishing.

Guoman.com. (2019). The Tower | Luxury Hotel Near Tower Bridge | Guoman Hotels.
[online] Available at: https://www.guoman.com/en/london/the-tower.html [Accessed 5
May 2019].

Karsten Hadwich. (2012). Customer Experience. Gabler Verlag.

Palmatier, R., Kumar, V. and Harmeling, C. (2018). Customer Engagement Marketing.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Schwartz, E. (2017). Exploring experience design. Birmingham: Packt.

Service strategy. (2010). London: TSO, The Stationery Office.

Singh, A. (2014). Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Marketing Automation. Packt

Publishing.

Soudagar, R., Hildebrand, V. and Iyer, V. (2012). The customer experience edge. New
York: McGraw-Hill.

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