Customer Experience Management in Woolworths and Coles Supermarket

This report discusses the customer experience in Woolworths and Coles Supermarket. It compares and contrasts the two companies, discusses touch points, and applies two different CEM concepts.

Running head: CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT
Customer Experience Management
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Positive Experience.........................................................................................................................4
Discussion of Touch Points.............................................................................................................4
Comparing and Contrasting.............................................................................................................5
Discussion of Thoughts and Actions...............................................................................................6
Application of at least two different CEM Concepts.......................................................................6
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The following report has been prepared to discuss my own customer experience in
Woolworths and in Coles Supermarket. It is not new to the readers about the type of the business
that these two companies expertise in. Both the companies that have been selected by me experts
itself in Supermarket retailing and has a number of different brands under its fold. I had both a
good and a worst experience in each of the above mentioned business organizations which made
me quite surprising on the fact that though both of the companies specializes in the same
business, yet their approach towards the customers is quite different in nature. I was a regular in
Woolworths for a long time and used to buy almost everything from the organization. However
my impression of the organization changed a few days back. I generally bought my monthly
household items from Woolworths. That day was as normal as the other starting days of the
month when I went to the store and started marketing the necessary items gradually. The incident
happened when I went to the payment counter of the store. The time when the helper in the store
was assessing my items he discovered that the barcode of two of the items missing. I was
standing normally when suddenly after consultation with the manager he accused me of
removing the barcode and trying to steal the items. I was totally shocked at such an acquisition
and stood there speechless. However, after regaining my consciousness I strongly protested to
such an acquisition and challenged them to prove the following. I described them about my
loyalty in Woolworths and showed them my premium gold card which can only be given to the
premium customers. However, when the footage of the area was checked my innocence was
proved and there was a sign of discontent among a section of the employees who trusted me and
demanded an apology from the employee who acquitted me. I refused such an apology as my
trust and loyalty towards the store was gone on that very day. The lack of proper training and

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discontent towards the customers reflected in such a behavior. I decided to never again shop
from the store.
I have now started shopping from Coles Supermarket where I find employee engagement
skills to be much better than that of Woolworths. The employees of the company have a friendly
attitude and help every customers in every single buy. The experience was facilitating and helped
me to have a proper idea of customer experience.
Positive Experience
In Coles, I largely had positive experiences. Although, the staffs did made some mistakes
in organization of items at times, the overall service was definitely good. A positive experience I
had during this time was that I wanted to buy a specific product. However, I was not able to
understand the brand values of the various products available concerning the item that I was
about to buy. I was somewhat nervous as I was afraid I can end up buying items of low quality. I
was surprised when one of the employees understood my issue without having to seek advice. He
came and made me understand about the product value and the quality of products that were
available. He not only made me understand the value but at the same time gave accurate
descriptions of the cost effectiveness of the various available products of the same category. I
ended up buying a product that had both long lasting utility and was cost effective at the same
time. I had more such similar experiences in Coles moving forward.
Discussion of Touch Points
The touch points in my case have been divided into three phases. They starts from the
stage of before purchase, during purchase and after purchase has been completed.

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Before purchase During purchase After purchase
 Social Media  Store of Woolworths
and Coles
 Billing Counter and
After sales Service
 Community
Involvement
 Staff or Sales Team  Online Help Center
The social media has been a great source where I have seen a number of complaints and
issues regarding the behavior and customer experience in Woolworths. I experienced the staff
behavior on my own during the purchase. The absence of any community development measures
have also made Woolworths vulnerable and separated from their customers. The management of
Coles on the other hand has improved them and trained all their employees on a good level of
customer engagement process. The after sales service and sales service of the supermarket is also
one of the best in Australia. Apart from this the presence of an effective IT department has
helped the organization to capture the market in a short time.
Comparing and Contrasting
The above said examples of Woolworths and Coles prove that the customer experience in
both the companies is poles apart. The examples provide a clear picture on how the customer
experience should be maintained in a large organization to ensure success and sustainability in
the coming days. It is important to present the customers with a friendly behavior and also
interact with them all the time. The idea of the customers demand and needs can also be attained
in the same way. The maintenance of such facilities will thus help the organization to attain
success in the market.

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Discussion of Thoughts and Actions
The thoughts which I took are as follows;
Before- The brand name and the service delivered to other customers
During- The presence of staffs and their behavior
After- The providence of an effective after sales service
Application of at least two different CEM Concepts
The two different types of Customer experience concepts are as follows;
a. Customer Lifecycle- One of the main concept in Customer Experience is the steps in
which the customer engages himself to make a particular purchasing decision. This
decision makes a person a loyal lifelong customer. As the lifecycle approach involves the
interaction with marketing, sales and service departments of the company, Coles has a
clear advantage on the following. The management of Coles presents its customers the
best possible interacting environment to satisfy the customers. On the other hand,
Woolworths fails to attain the following status just because of its mismanagement of the
different departments.
b. Customer Journey Mapping- The journey mapping refers to the documentation of each
and every stage and interactions of the customer journey. This helps the company to
continuously develop themselves and help brands isolate themselves into key areas of
competitive differentiation. The customer journey mapping is clearly observed in case of
Coles as they have a clear idea of the likes and dislikes of the consumers.

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Bibliography
Homburg, C., Jozić, D., &Kuehnl, C. (2017). Customer experience management: toward
implementing an evolving marketing concept. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 45(3), 377-401.
Lemon, K. N., &Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the
customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69-96.
LIM, C. S. L. (2017). Beyond firm-customer interactions to better customer experience.
McColl-Kennedy, J. R., Gustafsson, A., Jaakkola, E., Klaus, P., Radnor, Z. J., Perks, H.,
&Friman, M. (2015). Fresh perspectives on customer experience. Journal of Services
Marketing, 29(6/7), 430-435.
Peppers, D., & Rogers, M. (2016). Managing customer experience and relationships: A strategic
framework. John Wiley & Sons.
Verleye, K. (2015). The co-creation experience from the customer perspective: its measurement
and determinants. Journal of Service Management, 26(2), 321-342.