BEMM070J – Service

Innovation and
Marketing

Exeter University
Business School
2022
Module Convenor:
Laura Phillips
Service Innovation and Marketing Portfolio Assignment Word Count:2453

Exeter Cathedral
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Portfolio
Part 1:...........................................................................................................................2
1. Customer Experience Mapping..................................................................................2
2. SERVQUAL....................................................................................................................3
3. Customer Satisfaction.................................................................................................5
Part 2:...........................................................................................................................7
Part 3:..........................................................................................................................10
References:................................................................................................................11
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Portfolio

Part 1:

Worksheet: Traditional Service Evaluation

1. Customer Experience Mapping

BASED ON THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MAPS, EVALUATE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AT EXETER
CATHEDRAL.

Based on the customer experience maps, we can extract relevant information concerning
customers’ visits and their perception of the journey in the four touchpoints in Exeter
Cathedral and the service concept the Cathedral offers.
The first touchpoint was the arrival, which was a positive experience for every customer
that participated in the customer experience map analysis, with most of them feeling
emotions of joy and awe, with admiration for the aesthetics of the building.
The second aspect on the map was the welcome desk, in this case, five out of six
experiences were neutral, and one negative, the most common feeling was annoyance
about the entrance fee.
In the moment of the tour process, it was overall a positive experience for five of the
customers that took the evaluation, with positives comments about the guided tours and
audio guides, the knowledge delivered, the level of engagement of the tours, and positive
comments about the video room the Cathedral offered, for children and visitors going as a
couple. However, a family group that wanted to take a tour but missed one struggled with
the frequency of the tours offered and explored the building independently. This family's
experience and a couple that took the audio guide stated a lack of signage and made it
hard to follow the expected points of interest.
Finally, the amenities transaction was a neutral experience for every type of visitor, half of
them did not use any of the amenities. The ones that did coincide that the toilets had
accessibility issues, mainly because there were not any toilets in the main tourist attraction
of the site; there was confusion and miscommunication about the location of the toilets and
inconvenience about the access code. The main feelings reported were annoyance and
frustration. Another comment from those customers that used the amenities services was
the location of the café; being in a different building than the cathedral made it difficult for it
to be noticed, and one couple of visitors that did use it had a negative experience
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regarding the temperature of the products, however, the café solved this because they
received a refund.

2. SERVQUAL

Calculate the mean average expectation and perception for each statement, then calculate the
gap (perception-expectation = gap):

Quality Item Mean Mean Gap

Dimension Expectation Perception
Tangibles 1 Up-to-date equipment 3.95 4.57 0.62
2 facilities visually appealing 4.19 5.57 1.38
3 employees well dressed and 5.03 4.84 -0.19
appear neat
4 Appearance in keeping with 4.54 5.43 0.89
the type of service provided
Reliability 1 When they promise to do 5.57 4.65 -0.92
something by a certain time,
they do so
2 When customers have 5.62 4.62 -1.00
problems, they are
sympathetic and reassuring
3 Dependable 4.43 5.38 0.95
4 Provide services at the time 5.49 4.43 -1.05
they promise to do so
5 Keep records accurately 4.51 4.62 0.11
Responsiveness 1 Tell customers exactly when 5.49 4.76 -0.73
services will be performed
2 It is realistic to expect prompt 5.41 5 -0.41
service from employees
3 Employees always willing to 6.24 4.35 -1.89
help customers
4 Employees should never be 4.62 4.32 -0.3
too busy to respond to
customer requests promptly
Assurance 1 Able to trust employees 5.54 4.62 -0.92
2 Customers feel safe in their 5.65 5 -0.65
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transactions with employees

3 Employees are polite 6.03 5.27 -0.76
4 Employees get adequate 5.49 4.51 -0.97
support to do their jobs well
Empathy 1 Give customers individual 4.68 3.92 -0.76
attention
2 Employees give customers 4.81 4.08 -0.73
personal attention
3 Employees know what the 5.51 5.05 -0.46
needs of customers are
4 Employees to have customer 4.76 4.19 -0.57
best interests at heart
5 Operating hours are 5.51 5.11 -0.41
convenient to all their
customers

Calculate the average gap score for each quality dimension:

Mean Mean
Quality Dimension Gap
Expectation Perception
Tangibles 4.43 5.10 0.67
Reliability 5.12 4.74 -0.38
Responsiveness 5.44 4.61 -0.83
Assurance 5.68 4.85 -0.83
Empathy 5.05 4.47 -0.58

EVALUATE THE PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY PROVIDED BY EXETER CATHEDRAL.

There was a small but negative gap of -0.39; overall, this indicates a failure to meet visitor
expectations. A negative gap shows a lack of satisfaction with the cathedrals' service to
visitors.

Of the five quality dimensions, four of them are negative. However, the tangible aspects
were the only positive dimension of the survey and the most outstanding for the
customers; within this dimension, the most remarkable item was how visually appealing
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the thought the cathedral was, and the appearance of facilities at Exeter Cathedral is in
keeping with the type of service provided, with a gap of 1.38 and 0.89 respectively.
However, the following dimensions did not perform well, and all of them showed a negative
gap, with the lowest being Reliability with a difference between the expectation and
perception of -0.38 and the highest being responsiveness and assurance, both with a gap
of -0.83.
 
Out of the 22 items, 17 of them performed under people’s expectations, leading to a
negative gap. Five of these dimensions had a difference more significant than -0.90, the
highest being -1.89 in the responsiveness dimension when customers were asked if
Exeter Cathedral employees were always willing to help. However, it is noteworthy that of
the five lowest items, 3 of them are in the reliability dimension, which are:
 
-   Exeter Cathedral provides its services at the times it promises to do so: (-1.05)
-   When you have problems, Exeter Cathedral is sympathetic and reassuring: (-1.00)
-   When Exeter Cathedral promises to do something by a certain time, they do so:
(-0.92)
 
Moreover, it is essential to note that there was no positive gap in the dimensions of
responsiveness, assurance and empathy, which means that the cathedral failed to meet
people's expectations in all of the 13 items related to the dimensions discussed earlier.

3. Customer Satisfaction

Calculate the mean average customer satisfaction score: 4.32

EVALUATE THE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION OF VISITORS TO EXETER CATHEDRAL

In this case customer satisfaction was 4.32 out of 5 which means that out of the 37 people
surveyed, the average was satisfied with the experience offered by the Cathedral.
Overall, there were no dissatisfied customers that ranked the experience with 1 or 2.
However, more than 15% of people who had undertaken the survey stated the experience
as “Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied”. And 35% thought the experience was more than
neutral but were not completely satisfied. Finally, 18 people, or almost 49%, ranked the
experience as satisfactory, meaning the perception of the process was more significant
than what they were expecting.
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USING THE DATA AVAILABLE IN THE SURVEY, HOW MIGHT WE EXPLORE SATISFACTION FURTHER?

With the data available in the survey, we can explore satisfaction and how it changes
within different customer segments. For instance, the motivation for the visit has a big
impact on the level of satisfaction depends on the type of visit that each visitor had:

From this data, we can infer that those who went to the cathedral to bring a friend or family
member had expectations, and the perceived experience the cathedral offered did not fully
meet them. However, on average, they ranked the experience as neutral but almost
reached a satisfaction point because it wasn't a bad experience.
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Part 2:

Eye-tracking technology shows measures of the movement of points of interest in real-time

and allows to determine the participants' visual attention. (Wedel et al., 2008). This type of
study of eye movements provides an extensive set of data that helps determine and study
the different points of interest people pay attention to. With that information, research can
explore or examine that helps others take action (Scott et al., 2017).

This tool can have its advantages and drawbacks. This type of technology can accurately
record real eye movements and their fixations. This reduces the concern of people
adjusting their consumer behaviour if they feel observed; this allows to have quality
information to be able to study, and it also allows to collect a large amount of quality
information (Khachatryan et al., 2017). However, on the downside, some visitors could be
excluded from these technologies. For example, those who wear contact lenses or glasses
can impact the camera’s ability to register eye movement (Jacob R. et al., 2003)

In the case of the eye-tracking study in Exeter Cathedral, the Data collection process, 37
visitors were part of the study with a Mobile Eye Tracking technology, and all took an
independent tour. The study was able to collect more than 3 million data points.

From the data collected from the study, we can infer the following information:

On average, the participants spent 1634,67 minutes visiting and touring the cathedral, of
which the visitors spent 20.93% or 342.11 seconds on average focusing in total on all the
focus points. And were spent according to the following distribution:

Interest duration
70.00
60.00
50.00
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00
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ck s el b e b
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From this chart, we can see that the point of interest in which visitors spent the most time,
and therefore was the most visually engaging, was the Pulpitum Screen, with an average
interest duration of just over one minute.

From the Heat Map, we can see that people were more focused on the top part of the
screen at this point of interest. On average, the visitors looked at this point of interest
eleven times.

The following points of interest that the people showed the most interest in are the
Courtenay Tomb, Martyrs’ Pulpit and Organ, all of them with an average of 30 seconds of
fixed attention to each one of them.

Becket Boss and Elephant Misericord, were the points of interest with the lowest attention
from visitors. In the case of Becket Boss this point of interest was in the ceiling, and of all
the visitors studied, only 5 of them fixed their attention to this point of interest and the
others did not look at this point at all. In the case of the Elephant Misericord, the heat map
shows the interest in the point of interest and in the signage below, however, it is very
small and easy to miss, and although only 20 people noticed it for an average of 8.38
seconds, 10 of them only looked at this point of interest once, and for an average of 2.48
seconds.
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As we investigate this data further, it is possible to segment the visitors into different
categories; in this case, the chosen categories to explore different engagement levels are
the motivators for a visit to the Cathedral, which were divided into three different groups,
visitors that brought families or friends, those who went to feel a sense of peace both of
this groups could be further classified as non-tourist. Finally, the third group were tourists
that went to visit the cathedral for various reasons

The results of their eye-tracking are shown in the following chart:

Interest duration depending on motivation of the visit

100
80
60
40
20
0
ck s el b ne b w rd ry pi
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Clo B os od om hro om indo ico a l le ul rg P c re om cre ndo
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m
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Bring a family/Friend Feel a sense of peace Tourism

Using this chart, we can observe that the tourist group is the group that is more visually
attracted to the various points of interest that are outlined in the leaflet. But, in contrast to
what the overall chart shows, this group showed a greater interest in the Courtenay Tomb
in comparison to the non-tourist groups.
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As shown in the pictures, this could be explained because of the explanation this point of
interest has. It provides more information than the leaflet can describe and is easy to spot;
therefore, more people engage with it more easily. Although, in the second picture, we can
recognise that the hot spots of the image are not in the Courtenay Tomb itself but are
focused higher up, which is another point of interest in the tour, which is the Astronomical
Clock.

From the chart, we can see that it illustrates the tendency that was described in the
original chart, with the minor engaging points being the Wooden Screen and Becket Boss;
in this case, we can see that the latter almost did not cause any interest, especially for
those who were looking for a sense of peace.

Lastly, compared to all the points of interest, the West Window was the only point of
interest in which all groups displayed a similar level of engagement, with an average of
12.45 seconds of fixed focus on this aspect of the tour.
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Part 3:

Exeter Cathedral is a medieval cathedral based in the South West of England. The
imposing tower has been there for almost a thousand years (Exeter Cathedral, 2018) and
receives nearly 100,000 visitors yearly.

The cathedral’s primary source of income is visitors and private events; in this case, the
focus and recommendations will be focused on the tourist sector, where the main focus is
on visitors, which could be walk-ins or groups that have already booked their visits. These
visits can be either by private tours or also an individual tour guided by a leaflet.

According to the results of Costumer Experience Mapping, one of the most significant
issues of the neutral and negative experiences customers found was the price of the
entrance fee. Currently, the fee visitors have to pay to enter the cathedral is £7.50, and the
average visit is just under 30 minutes, of which people spend 5 minutes actively engaging
with the different points of interest the cathedral offers. However, because of the nature of
the business model of the cathedral, opting for a donation system or lowering the price is
not an option; therefore, the focus should be on increasing the quality of the customer
experience.

After analysing the traditional service evaluation and having understood the customer
experience of the visitors that participated in the study, the opportunities for improvement
and recommendations could be divided into the following actions:

Work on those areas with ample space for improvement; these are all intangible aspects.
Firstly responsiveness and assurance, followed by empathy and reliability. To be able to
improve all of the elements mentioned before, it is critical to offer training to employees,
significantly reinforcing how to treat customers and gain their trust; this way, expectations
can be met.

After doing this training, it is essential to constantly measure and reward staff
performance, particularly in terms of responsiveness, such as their willingness to help or
answer questions visitors might have.
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Although the weather is not a controllable condition, rainy days can be an opportunity to
attract new visitors. Therefore, someone should be greeting people outside these days,
and the Cathedral with the cafeteria should make offers to incentive the entrance of new
visitors, i.e., Cathedral entrance plus a cup of tea or coffee for £8.50 to increase the
percentage of “incidental tourist” in the customer segment. Another alternative is to offer
free explanations of the aesthetics of the building outside of the cathedral to people that
are contemplating and considering to go inside, this way it could be an incentive to
encourage potential new visitors.

Offer discounted prices the days' visits are particularly low, for example: Admission
Wednesdays  £5.00, this way. Although the price might decrease, there is an incentive to
increase the number of visitors, which will help increase income.

Another action which can be taken is to check the cost structure. For example, instead of
still printing materials, especially leaflets, the Cathedral should invest in QR codes in the
different points of interest; this way, the cost of printing could be reduced, but at the same
time, it would make the visitor’s experience much more interactive with the history, and it
can also help increase the average time they stay engaged during the visit. It also means
that if people by any chance miss the guided tour, they can still have a sense of it and feel
as if they were exploring the building with a guide rather than independently.

An additional recommendation should be to enable the degree of automation of the

webpage of the Cathedral and work on the possibility of allowing visitors to book their visits
online; this way, the Cathedral could be organised in, for instance, having a tour guide at
the time of the visit to make the experience more enjoyable and help to meet people’s
expectations of the experience in the building.

To increase people’s engaging time and improve the costumer experience, the Cathedral
should work in granting visitors accessibility to facilities that are currently hidden to the
general public, or organize special events to access to the Cathedral’s hidden treasures.

All of the recommendations listed above should make the experience of the visits a high-
quality service; this means that there will be a higher perception of the customer, and
therefore the experience will be able to achieve and accomplish their expectations, this will
lead to higher customer satisfaction, which means higher customer loyalty, in the groups
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studied, for instance, a higher customer satisfaction, will help to those to bring friends or
family to consider coming again, this will help to gain more visitors and therefore higher
profitability (Hallowel R, 1996)
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References:

Exeter Cathedral, (2018) Planning your visit to Exeter Cathedral, A guide for groups

Hallowel R, (1996) The relationships of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and

profitability: an empirical study

Jacob, R.J. and K.S. Karn. (2003). Eye tracking in human-computer interaction and

usability research: Ready to deliver the promises. Mind 2(3)

Khachatryan H. & Rihn A. (2017). Eye-Tracking Methodology And Applications In

Consumer Research

Scott, N. & Zhang R & Le D & Moyle B. (2019). A Review of Eye-tracking Research in

Tourism

Wedel M. & Pieters R. (2008) A Review of Eye-Tracking Research in Marketing