Customer Experience Management : Assignment

MANAGING THE
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
P5 In what ways digital technology is employed in customer experience management............3
Advantages and Disadvantages of CRM.....................................................................................5
P6 Customer service strategies....................................................................................................5
P7 Customer service strategies and customer experience...........................................................6
Effective customer experience management...............................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
It is important for organisations across the world to make use of appropriate technology
in order to achieve set growth and developing customer loyalty. The below report identifies
impacts of digital technology in customer relationship management. The chosen organisation is
Park Plaza Riverbank hotel. The services of the hotel are exceptional to its customers as per their
feedback including business travellers, couples, families etc. The report is going to identify in
what manner digital technology is employed in order to manage the customer experience. It
explains the customer service strategies used in the hotel and demonstrates in what way these
strategies are used to maintain the customer relationship and standards.
P5 In what ways digital technology is employed in customer experience management
Customer relationship software is an approach that is used by the Hotel Park Plaza
Riverbank in order to manage the interaction with its potential and current customers. It helps in
analysing, understanding and assisting customers in order to improve the relationship and take
customer satisfaction to the next level. It focuses on the retention of the customers and ultimately
drives the growth of the sales. Below mentioned are the different types of customer relationship
management systems: Operational: The hotel makes use of the information which is fed in the CRM system to
understand and evaluate what its customers’ requirements and needs are. The access to
this information helps to enhance their experience. It also provides Park Plaza Riverbank
support for sales, marketing, service cost and strategies. It helps the hotel with the
opportunity of improving and enhancing the customer satisfaction and maintain the
quality of service. Analytical: It provides the organisation with a customer data and information on
customers interactions in order to increase customer retention rate. All the information
related to the customers is stored in the Customer Relationship Management system and
the hotel can predict the trends and suggest products of interest to their customer data
base. The marketing department of the hotel can identify what are the current likes and
disliked of its consumers. These likes and dislikes includes food preferences, their
lifestyle preferences, their needs in accommodation and the activities which they like to
perform while staying in the hotel. This helps the hotels' marketing department to create

required promotion strategies accordingly and ensure growth and development. It also
helps the hotel in targeting the right consumer groups.
 Collaborative: This system is extremely important for the hotel internally. Helping the
different departments to communicate and access important information for their
customers. All this information is collected during any interaction employees or
management have with customers. This system helps a lot in improving the quality of
service and increasing customer satisfaction. By sharing this information, the hotel
ensures consistency, personalised service, recognition and shows care towards customers.
It also can work as being inspired by customers' recommendation on a product or service
they have experienced elsewhere. Examples of systems used in hotels are – Opera,
Micros, Fidelio, etc.
Park Plaza Riverbank needs to keep up with technology trends as nowadays things have
changed enormously. For example, the channels used to connect people are multiplying with fast
pace. The website of the hotel and the social media channels can be linked to back-end systems.
Those systems can analyse data and give new insights about customers and provide with an
effective way of managing the touch point with customers. CRM helps the hotel to maintain the
relationship and retain their customers. It also gives the ability to understand the information and
have access to whenever needed. Keep informed – the more the hotel knows, the better service
will be provided to the customers with positive experience that pays off. This is why it is very
important that every interaction is recorded, and the data is available across all departments.
Another very important part is by having access to the same data allows the employees to
provide the same high level of service. It is about contact management and keeping up to date
with clients and organisations.
Email marketing is a tool used to keep the customer data base informed instantly for
activities, promotions or new products and services.
Pay per click marketing – search engine helping the brand. Using special keywords
people are interested in will result in the offers of the hotel appearing first or the brand comes on
the first page of searching.
Social media marketing when used properly gives the ability to the hotel to connect with
different people. This way the passing of information for products and services becomes
available not only to existing customers but to potentially new as well.

Display advertising is a way of passing brand message to the public and a very good way
of targeting new customers. It is one of the finest methods to achieve growth in the organisation.
In what manner digital content and speed and consistency impacts of business
 Digital content is a huge revenue opportunity for the organisation. It can provide effective
opportunities for the organisation in which it observes what kind of requirements of its
customers have. As per these requirements, the organisation promotes its products and
services on the chosen internet platforms and achieves set growth.
 The digital content generate leads for the organisation to grow and develop itself in new
consumer markets and achieve required growth and development.
 Effective digital content helps the organisation to boost it sales. It is one of the effective
strategy to achieve set growth and development for the organisation
 A good word of mouth is achieved by a digital content. It allows the organisation to
achieve reach new markets and gain new development.
Importance of digital Technology
 CRM software can help the Park Plaza Hotel to record the customer products and
services. These products and services sold by the hotel to its customers if recorded tends
to create opportunities for the hotel to make their sold products and services better as per
their requirements. It provides opportunities for the organisation to gain new market
growth and achieve success.
 The Customer Relationship Software helps the organisation to provide a detail picture of
the needs of the customers, their tastes and their particular buying habits. This can allow
the organisation to reach further in provision of better products and services and achieve
set growth.
 From the help the Customer Relationship Software the hotel can filter which are its
profitable customers and the prospects which are better to the property's business. It helps
the organisation to retain its profitable customers and achieve set growth.
 Also, Customer relationship software help in marketing practices to the organisation in
which it becomes easy for the organisation to market its products and services on large
scale.
Advantages and Disadvantages of CRM
Below mentioned are the advantages and disadvantages of CRM for Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel:

Advantages
 Helps in managing all the customer data
 Helps in managing the growing database and speeds up the growth process
 Builds long lasting relationship with the customers of the hotel Determines where and how the improvements need to be made in the hotel
Disadvantages
 Transition from manual to automatic process is one of the major obstacles of CRM
 It requires training of the employees to make effective use of the system
 The hotel must pay a huge price for the licences of customer relationship management
software
P6 Customer service strategies
It is important for the hotel to provide its customer with better service. In order to ensure
this, the management of the hotel makes use of effective strategies. These strategies allow the
organisation to better its customer services and enhance its experience to gain better growth and
advantage over its customers. Below mentioned are the important customer strategies used by the
hotel Park Plaza Riverbank to enhance its customer service: Communication: The hotel makes use of effective communication with its guests in
order to provide them with better service. It helps the employees when communicate with
customers to understand what their needs and requirements are. Employees are key when
comes to customer satisfaction and loyalty. A good communication makes the customer
feel special, once they feel this emotion, they become loyal and the chance of returning
higher. Assessing the marketing needs from Team development: Team development is very
important for the success of the hotel. To deliver and maintain high standards and ensure
customer satisfaction the teams need to be skilled, have knowledge and be consistent. In
order to do so the attitude of the team members is very important. Having the can-do
attitude and being able to work together as a team will make a huge difference in their
performance. The management then has the responsibility to give the proper information
and tools and provide proper trainings. As well as follow up on the process, the
management needs to ensure that any sort of feedback or information is passed on dealt
with accordingly.

 Experience mapping from Involvement: The employee involvement can help the hotel
in achieving its mission and result in meeting more objectives. Giving the teams the
opportunity to share and apply their ideas, solve problems or take part in decision making
is an active participation and makes them feel valued and appreciated. And more
important increases the productivity.
 Touch point analysis from Recognition and Reward: Employee recognition and reward
helps Park Plaza Riverbank to reach more of the employee’s potential. This strategy is
designed to create more motivation in the teams. Keeping the team motivated and giving
them competitions or incentives increases the productivity and loyalty. This loyalty then
is transformed in to consistent high-quality service, better customer's engagement and
satisfaction.
P7 Customer service strategies and customer experience
Fulfilment of customers- Customer service strategies play a major role in provision and
development of customer experience. Hotel Park Plaza Riverbank builds its customer service
strategies as per the needs and requirements of its customers and its own business standards as
well. It is important for the organisation to build its strategies such as its own needs along with
the needs of customers are being fulfilled as well.
Understanding customer needs and requirements- The hotel while developing its
strategies in such manner that its customer needs and required business standards are met along
tends to put together its own and the customer needs first. It makes is easy for the organisation to
find the similarities between its own standards and set consumer needs. The hotel then develops
its service strategies accordingly in order to ensure required growth and development.
Increasing Satisfaction: Provision of better customer service provides customer
satisfaction and for a hotel, it is one of the most important aspect to ensure customer satisfaction.
Not having appropriate customer satisfaction tends to create difficulties for the organisation to
meet is set goals and achieve business standards. Good strategies tend to provide the hotel
customers with good satisfaction and it helps the hotel to achieve first and foremost business
standard which is to satisfy its customers.
Setting performance Benchmarks: Park Plaza Riverbank hotel is having some set
performance benchmarks in which its employees are trained with required skills and provided
with effective knowledge. These benchmarks allow the employees to perform on the set

standards and maintain organisational reputation. Customer service strategies allows these
employees to work on these set standards and provide better and effective service to the
customers. It helps the organisation to fulfil its customer needs and work on the set benchmarks
along. These benchmarks are one of the most important aspects in which the organisation
decides its level of development and growth.
Providing better services to targeted customers: Customer service strategies create
advantage for the hotel to reach its full potential and gain market reputation. Customers when
provided with good service they tend to tell about the hotel and its services to their friends,
family, and colleagues (Bilgihan, Kandampully and Zhang, 2016). This increase the hotels value
within the market. It is one of the most important aspect for an organisation to have such value in
which it attracts more customers. Formation of appropriate strategies helps the organisation to
reach the standard of value.
Increasing Value: The strategies which are developed by the hotel to meet is business
standards of creating value includes taking feedbacks from its customers to understand at what
places the organisation is lacking, understanding the needs and requirements of the customers by
managing effective communication, providing them with personal touches such as birthday
celebration, anniversary gifts etc. These strategies help the organisation to both meet its
customers’ needs and create effective value of its business.
Effective customer experience management
Below prepared is the application of effective customer experience management to
maximize customer engagement:

Figure 1 - Customer Experience Management
(Source: Customer Experience Management, 2018)
Customer experience management tends to simplify the customer journey at every touch
point and its fulfils both customers and business needs of the Park Plaza River Hotel:
Mobile Application: Development of mobile application can help the business to grow
and achieve new advantage in customer engagement. Today, most of the people across the world
are using mobile to book their stays. Hotel Park Plaza River can develop its own mobile
application where guests can easily book their reservations. Along with it, the organisation can
provide its useful information such as food menu, restaurant and bar timings, gym, spa timings
on the application from which the customers can easily have the access to and the hotel can
generate new growth and development along.
Customer Feedback: Customer feedbacks are one of the most important aspect which the
organisation can make use of during their customer experience management to gain customer
engagement. Feedbacks allow the business to understand its effectiveness and efficiency in
service provision (Pepper and Rogers, 2016). Along with it, it can be used as to gain customer
engagement as well. Customers feel satisfied when they are asked for the feedback. It allows

them to think that the organisation is effective in taking care of the needs and requirements of
their customers. Along with it, the customers tend to visit the hotel again when they feel their
opinion is valued in the organisation. It helps the organisation increase its engagement and value
within the customer base and create an environment where its customers are brought with new
growth and development options. It also helps the organisation to achieve new business
standards and achieve set growth.
CONCLUSION
The above report explores the management of customer experience. It explains the important
strategies required by a hotel to maximize its customer experience and provide them with
effective service. The report further analyses the importance of Customer Relationship
Management software to achieve set growth and advantage. In explores in what ways
engagement can be enhanced to help the organisation meet its set business standards and achieve
required growth and development. Along with it, important advantages and disadvantages of
Customer relationship management software is explained in order to achieve set growth and
development. Along with it, the report highlight the ways in which Park Plaza Hotel River can
enhance its customer experiences to maximize its customer retention and add value to the
organisation.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Bilgihan, A., Kandampully, J. and Zhang, T., 2016. Towards a unified customer experience in
online shopping environments: Antecedents and outcomes. International Journal of
Quality and Service Sciences. 8(1). pp.102-119.
Peppers, D. and Rogers, M., 2016. Managing customer experience and relationships: A strategic
framework. John Wiley & Sons
Lecture slides and learning materials – Carmen Susma
Online
Customer Experience Management. 2018. [Online]. Available through: <
http://www.payout.ba/telco/customer-experience-management//>
https://www.washington.edu/admin/hr/pod/leaders/orgdev/alliance/articles/
EmployeeInvolvement-ScontrinoPowell.pdf