Implications of Customer Experience in Hotel Hilton

This essay examines the implications of customer experience in relation to Hotel Hilton. It defines customer experience as the perception of interaction with the organization, which affects customer behavior and loyalty. The essay explores the customer-centric strategy and the importance of delivering valuable customer experience. It also discusses the role of experiential marketing, the peak-end theory, and the impact of customer perception. The case study analysis focuses on Hilton Hotels and its personalized services to deliver a valuable experience to customers.

Customer Experience 0
Essay Title: An essay examining the implications of customer
experience in relation to Hotel Hilton
Student Name and Number: ---------
Submitted to: Dr. David Gration
Subject Assessment: Marketing Management (LB5202) –
TASK 1 – SP21 – 2019
Date Submitted:
Word Count: 1566 words

Customer Experience 1
This essay aims to review the marketing theory topic of customer experience and how
it relates to the Hilton Hotel. For the purpose of this essay, customer experience is defined as
a perception of their rational, physical, emotional, subconscious and psychological interaction
with any part of the organization. The perception affects the behavior of the customer and
drives customer loyalty. It is regarded as an important factor for increasing the economic
value of the organization. The customer-centric strategy of customer experience helps in
delivering valuable customer experience (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). This essay relies on the
use of secondary information from a variety of academic and non-academic sources
According to Verleye 2015, the creation of unique experience has become the
emerging need for the companies to sustain the competitive advantage. The companies are
focussing on converting into “the new experience economy”. The economy is shifting from
traditional marketing to the new approach of marketing i.e. experiential marketing.
The concept of experiential marketing focuses on engaging the customers and
delivering a real-life experience to its customers. Its main focus is to let the consumer
experience the brand. It provides a personal connection to the customers and touches the
emotional side of the consumer (Homburg, Jozic, & Kuehnl, 2017).
According to Gilliland 2018, the peak-end theory of marketing helps in achieving
maximum satisfaction of the customers. This theory focuses on providing the best finishing
for the customers. The author believes that strong finishing helps in outweighing the pains
suffered by the customers and delivers a long-lasting impact on the customers. For example,
the complimentary drink or the sweet dish provided by the hotel reduces the pain of bad
customer experience and turns the negative experience to a positive one. The theory focuses
on developing an emotional connection with the customers and providing personalized
services.

Customer Experience 2
According to MacDonald 2019, positive customer experience can be achieved by
developing a customer-centric strategy. This strategy focuses on delivering more than good
service. It focuses on enhancing the customer experience from the awareness stage, through
the purchasing process and through the post-purchase process. The core focus of this strategy
is a customer and puts the customer at first. It focuses on understanding the customer and
making continuous efforts in delivering valuable customer experience. It analyses the needs
and the wants of the customer and builds positive relations with the customer. It applies
formulated customer strategy and creates loyal customers for the company.
According to Hyken 2018, customer experience is considered as the new brand. The
increasing brands and globalization have expanded the competition to another level which in
turn creates the emerging need for the brands to stand out the competition. In order to sustain
the competitive advantage the company’s focus on delivering the memorable experience to its
customers and are considered as the key ingredient in determining the success of the
company. The customer experience is shaped by the way the company handles marketing and
research. Advertisement plays a major role in shaping the customer experience and increases
the chance of a brand crisis. Lastly, it includes the ecosystem in which it analyses how the
integrated ecosystem of software, product, and services opens the new opportunities for the
customers.
Creating a powerful and memorable experience has become the most complicated
task for the companies and the companies must focus on adopting the strategies that deliver a
valuable experience to its customers. The companies must focus on creating a consistent
process for providing the solution to the problems of the customers. The different
departments make the customer frustrated and turn the experience into a negative one. It must
provide consistency in after sale services and must develop a 24-hour customer support

Customer Experience 3
channel to provide assistance and deliver the best experience to the customers (Homburg,
Jozic, & Kuehnl, 2017).
According to Bordeaux 2018, the power of the seller has shifted towards the
consumer and the positive customer experience helps the company in sustaining its brand
loyalty and retains the customers. It is considered that the consumers are the main source for
creating brand awareness and positive customer experience helps in sustaining the business.
To create positive customer experience the company must draw customer journey map to
understand the needs of the customer and buyer personas to provide a positive experience and
must take the feedback to modify the services and deliver the best experience to the
customers.
According to Durden 2018, customer perception plays a major role in delivering a
valuable experience to the customers. It becomes crucial for the company to analyze the
perception of the customers towards the product and service delivered. The negative
perception creates negative customer experience and hampers the brand loyalty however the
company must focus on analyzing journey map of the customers; it must focus on the touch
points which include advertising, products, call centres and website of the company which
supports the journey of the customer.
The brand community plays a major role in determining the attachment of the
customer to the brand. The recent developments in marketing and customer behavior have
developed the emerging need to develop the connection between the brand, individual
identity and the culture. Therefore a strong brand community delivers brand loyalty and help
in the business in earning higher profits. The following paragraphs will highlight the case
study analysis of Hilton Hotels who deliver a valuable experience to the customers and
sustains the competitive advantage (Kandampully, Zhang & Jaakkola, 2018)

Customer Experience 4
Hilton hotel believes in giving loyalty back to its customers. It mainly focuses on
delivering personalized services to its customers. It recognizes that customer value means
different things to different people. Some consumers prefer high-touch experience like
ordering meals in the rooms while some prefer high-tech experience like picking of the exact
room through Hilton Honors app or unlocking of the room through the use of phones. Hilton
hotel believes that value to the customer can arise at any stage from dreaming to booking
phases (Verhoef & Lemon, 2013)
It uses emails and delivers timely relevant messages to the customers updating about
the latest prices and information based upon the behavior of the customer. It also provides the
mobile and virtual reality and provides the support to select the best by providing the
comparison of two rooms and the prices directly on the phone (McColl-Kennedy et al, 2015).
It provides 360-degree virtual tour video to the customer and showcases the facilities
provided to influence their buying preferences. To deliver the personalized services the
company analyses the preferences understands the behavior of the customer at the time of
enrolment at the front desk. It gathers the information using the software and the touch points
to have a deep understanding and deliver greater personalized services (Saunders, 2017).
It has developed digital product innovation which uses mobile to provide the remote
control for the stay of the customer. It has designed the app to allow the customer to check-in
in one go and pick a room. It is also used as a room key to unlock the room. The company
analyzed that all the people use smartphones and designed appropriate reasonable strategy to
manage their lives through the use of the smartphone (Ahuja, Hilton, & Perrey, 2017).

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(Saunders, 2017)
It has developed a Google map facility to site the location of the room and pick the
room that facilitates the customer. The company analyzed that guests do not like to wait for
the additional requirements so it has developed a live chat option to speedily fulfil the
requirements of the customers and deliver a valuable experience. It has also improved the
welcoming if the guest by not only displaying the names on the screen but also displaying
their preferred entertainment channels (Lu, Ting & Hsu, 2017).
(Saunders, 2017)
The app designed by Hilton tracks the order from the oven to the room to speedily
fulfill the requirements of the guest and deliver value to the customers. Delivering
extraordinary services helps in maintaining brand loyalty. Hilton focuses on providing white
glove treatment and provides various facilities in the Hilton Honour loyalty program. It
includes over 60 million members and the hotel has partnered with Uber to recommend the

Customer Experience 6
guest as a place for food and stay. It has collaborated with Spotify and live nation to deliver a
valuable experience to its customers. It provides discounts on live concerts and musical
walking tours (Verleye, 2015).
Given the above research findings on customer experience, it can be seen that the
power of the customers have increased in folds and each company focuses on delivering
valuable customer experience to sustain the competitive advantage. The chosen case study
chosen on Hilton Hotel relates to customer experience in the following manner. It focuses on
providing loyalty back to the customers by providing high-touch and high tech experience to
its customers. It focused on delivering the best online and offline services by analyzing the
journey map of the customers.
From the above analysis, it is realized that customer is the king, however, it is recommended
that the companies must develop an Omni channel to interact with the customers and must
develop a customer experience management program to track all the interactions and
designing of the services that meet their expectations.
The company must leverage customer experience analytics to measure the behavioral,
demographic and customer experience metrics to get the deep insight of the customers and
understand their expectations and achieve higher profits.

Customer Experience 7
References
Ahuja, K., Hilton Segel, L., & Perrey, J. (2017). The roots of organic growth. There are many
paths to growth, and high performers take more than one–supported by reinforcing
capabilities such as advanced analytics and digital customer-experience
management. McKinsey Quarterly (2017/3), 8-11
Gilliland, N. (2018). What is the customer experience? How can it be measured? And who
should own it? Retrieved from: https://econsultancy.com/what-is-customer-
experience-how-can-it-be-measured-and-who-should-own-it/
Homburg, C., Jozic, D., & Kuehnl, C. (2017). Customer experience management: toward
implementing an evolving marketing concept. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 45(3), 377-401.
Hyken, H. Customer Experience Is the New Brand. Retrieved from:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2018/07/15/customer-experience-is-the-new-
brand/#3c409f57f528
Kandampully, J., Zhang, T., & Jaakkola, E. (2018). Customer experience management in
hospitality: A literature synthesis, new understanding, and research
agenda. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30(1), 21-
56
Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the
customer journey. Journal of marketing, 80(6), 69-96
Lu, C. C., Ting, Y. S., & Hsu, Y. L. (2017). The impact of mobile hotel booking by customer
reviews and experience. International Journal of Organizational Innovation, 9(4)

Customer Experience 8
MacDonald, S. (2019). How to create a customer-centric strategy for your business.
Retrieved from: https://www.superoffice.com/blog/how-to-create-a-customer-centric-
strategy/
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
Saunders, L. (2017). How Hilton is iterating its excellent app to improve customer
experience. Retrieved from: https://econsultancy.com/how-hilton-is-iterating-its-
excellent-app-to-improve-customer-experience/
Verhoef, P. C., & Lemon, K. N. (2013). Successful customer value management: Key lessons
and emerging trends. European Management Journal, 31(1), 1-15
Verleye, K. (2015). The co-creation experience from the customer perspective: its
measurement and determinants. Journal of Service Management, 26(2), 321-342