Customer Experience Management

The given assignment is about customer experience management. It involves analyzing the importance of customer experience management in hotel chains, customer relationship management, and customer engagement strategies. The assignment references various books, journals, and online resources that discuss these topics. It provides a comprehensive overview of how to manage customer experiences and relationships effectively.

Managing customer
experience

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1. Explaining value and importance of understanding needs, wants and preferences of target
customer groups in Marriott........................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................2
P2. Factors driving and influencing customer engagement of different target customer groups
in Marriott...................................................................................................................................2
M1. Reviewing customer engagement factors determining on board strategies for different
target customer groups................................................................................................................3
D1. Evaluating broad range of different target customer groups needs and expectations in
terms of customer engagement....................................................................................................4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................4
P3. Creating customer experience map for service sector organisation......................................4
P4. Discussing customer touch points throughout customer experience creating business
opportunities................................................................................................................................5
M2 Creating detailed customer experience map that charts journey model...............................6
D2 Analysing Marriott can optimise each of the customer touch points in order to influence
behaviour, responses and actions................................................................................................7
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................7
P5. Examining digital technology employed in managing customer experience providing
examples of customer relationship management system............................................................7
M3 evaluating digital technologies employed in managing customer experience .....................7
D3 critically evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of CRM systems used....................8
LO 4.................................................................................................................................................8
P6. Illustrating customer service strategies.................................................................................8

P7. Demonstrating customer service strategies create and develop the customer experience
that meet needs of customer and required standards...................................................................9
M4 Reviewing application of customer service strategies in creating customer experience and
recommendations for improvement............................................................................................9
D4 Evaluating degree of customer service strategies and communication, recommendations
for improvement for quality customer experience....................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
Online........................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Managing customer experience means to optimise interactions between customer loyalty
to perceptions (Baker, 2016). Thus, to maintain this, company has to create strategies that
encompasses all interactions. Thus, in following report Marriott has been taken into
consideration. It is a leading hospitality industry of UK.
In the following report, importance of understanding needs and factors that influences the
engagement of them has been discussed. Further, customer experience has also been created in
this assignment and also touchpoints of customers has discussed.
TASK 1
P1. Explaining value and importance of understanding needs, wants and preferences of target
customer groups in Marriott.
To understand the need wants and preference of customers is very much important for
Marriott either for selling products or offering a service because they are the determiners about
the successfulness of a particular company (Greve and Schlüschen, 2018). It becomes important
for Marriott in order to understand for satisfying their requirements to an extent by delivering
beyond their expectations. This helps the customers to choose the brand accordingly. Thus, the
importance of understanding needs and wants helps Marriott by gaining confidence of customers
as the needs and wants of every customers differs accordingly. So it becomes significant for
Marriott to understand it and fulfil them to make customers happy (Soler-Labajos and Jiménez-
Zarco, 2016). This will further lead in raising the confidence of customers towards the brand.
Marriott will have to keep complete information about the goods and services are available at the
time customers actually need them. So this can increase the confidence and raise the volume of
customers loyalty towards Marriott.
They must understanding needs and preferences of customers also helps in building the
brand image national as well as internationally. Marriott has to record information about
customers before they purchase goods or services that will help in achieving information about
occupations and interest. This will help in increasing the business in future date.
Following are different types of customers and their different needs.
Business person Wi-Fi Poolside service Crayons and colouring
books
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Nappy changing
facilities
Mobile telephone
charging points
Meeting rooms
Couple on a first date Terrible customer
service
Bottle warmers
Candlelight
No garlic in the dishes
Soft music
Unpleasant smells
from the drains
Mothers with babies Over-priced poor
quality food
Nappy changing
facilities
Unpleasant smells
from the drains
Place to park
Terrible customer
service
Bottle warmers
Thus, Marriott is a leading hospitality industry so this is the targeted customers of
Marriott. They have to maintain all the facilities that has been discussed or highlighted above. As
businessman visit this type of industry mainly to conduct business meetings or many other
official works (Venkatesan, Petersen and Guissoni, 2018). As business travellers mainly use
mobile check-in entry so Marriott must expand keyless entry so that they can use mobile check
in more frequently.
Thus, they must also listen to the wants and requirements and give special welcoming to
the couples visiting for a date in Marriott. This will help them in increasing their brand loyalty.
They must also provide mothers with small babies with feeding facilities so that they can
comfortably take care of their babies.
TASK 2
P2. Factors driving and influencing customer engagement of different target customer groups in
Marriott.
Customer engagement is a connection of business communication between consumer and
company through various channels of correspondence (Homburg, Jozić and Kuehnl, 2017). This
can be accomplished with help of marketing campaigns, new contents and social media. This
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connection includes reaction, interaction, effect or overall experience of customers which takes
place online or offline. Thus factors that influence customer engagement are as follows-
 Accessibility- Marriott must need to ensure that products and services offered by them
are easily accessible to customers without any trouble or barrier on channel that has been
preferred by them (Zhang, Guo, Hu and Liu, 2017). In addition to this, they must also
ensure that the targeted customers can easily reach to the company and obtain valuable
services as and when need arises. They should also ensure that they get assistance for
purchasing decision easily whenever needed.
 Personalised- shoppers or customers wants personalised experience in which personal
interactions can by anonymous. Thus, Marriott can make interactions faster and easier
with customers with help of personalised experience regarding sharing right products and
services at perfect time with correct people.
 Moment of truth- this defines about making and breaking relations in the journey of
customers that influences about the customer engagement towards the brand. Thus, if
things go crooked during these journey, consumer may quit the interaction and may get
engaged elsewhere
.
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M1. Reviewing customer engagement factors determining on board strategies for different target
customer groups.
Customer engagement strategy fosters growth of brand and loyalty in a particular
industry. Thus, strategies of customer engagement has been discussed as per below context-
Create and monitor content- they have to engage with conversation going in brand and industry.
The owners of business can get in game by establishing domain authority in subject matter
through valuable content and create an online marketing strategy by building an awareness for
lead the generation.
Have a mobile strategy- if someone finds the content online, then the cited company must make
it easy in order to consume it. They must also ensure that marketing plan considers volume of
potential customers using mobile internet to access.
Think locally- there are many opportunities opened for location based targeting. They must think
locally and also update branches in all areas. So that customers feels easy to enjoy services that
are being offered by Marriott.
Strategies
Thus, the strategies that has been used in influencing business person includes following
 Building trust- influence is often and easily carried with help of trust. The cited company
must build trust by making them available with facilities they actually require. This will
help them in enhancing their loyalty towards the brand.
 Cultivating reliability- the cited company must cultivate reliability through consistency
that will help them in increasing their reputation.
Strategy to influence mother with babies-
 Being personal- they must be personal with the mother having babies as they must have
various types of facilities available to them. Thus, being little bit personal goes long way
especially when Marriot tries to bring influence in workplace. They must provide them
with nappy changing facilities along with feeding facilities.
Strategy to influence couple on first date-
 Bridal Boot Camp- the cited company must provide couple with boot camp that will
mainly influence the couples to visit the cited brand.
 Listen to them- they must also listen to them about their requirements regarding table or
room decorations which leads in attracting large customers towards them.
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D1. Evaluating broad range of different target customer groups needs and expectations in terms
of customer engagement.
Customer engagement plays important role in increasing the brand image and
profitability of business (What is Customer Engagement?. 2018). So Marriott has to identify the
needs and wants of the potential customers in order to increase the loyalty of customers towards
the brand. Further, Marriott must measure the success so that they can plan their future business
accordingly in order to achieve high customers and profits. They also have to understand
customers completely that means every single information has to be known by them. This will
help in knowing the customers very well. This information will later help in crafting the on
boarding experience and goals of targeted customers.
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TASK 3
P3. Creating customer experience map for service sector organisation.
Customer experience mapping helps company in knowing customer experience from the
contact in starting till the engagement of customers and long term relationship (Khodakarami and
Chan, 2014). It also provides Marriott a sense of customer’s greater motivation. Thus, it takes
many forms but appears in type of infographic. It teaches the organisation to know more about
customers. Further, it is a strategic process that involves capturing and communicating
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interactions of complex customers. This activity builds knowledge and consensus across
particular organisation. Thus, customer experience map is discussed as per below context-
Website- In this growing age of e-commerce no one can survive without an online
presence. Every single element in website is crucial to the experience of customers that has a
huge impact on brands ability in order to retain customers and attract the new ones. Marriott
must take the photograph of the food with professional camera and post it on website that will
help in attracting large customers towards the brand.
Review sites- this are that websites where reviews of customers or visitors are posted. As
consumers try to invest their income where they feel it worthy and want reassurance because
they do not want to trust fake news and mis selling scandals of the company. So this review sites
provides push factors in purchasing decision of customers.
Text messages- People in today's generation are attached to their smartphones fairly. So
text message is a great way in order to reach huge volume of customers. This helps in connecting
with people instantly and can wait for instant action from customers side. This will further help
Marriott in growing their business by engaging large number of customers towards the brand.
They must try wto connect with people through messages and ask feedbacks from them.
Emails- This will help in reinforcing relationship by offering special offers or bonus
content. So the cited company must advertise about their offers through emails. This will help
Marriott in keeping their products and services in mind of the customers at top.
Paper-mail- This type of mail not only engage the customers but also convert them to
buyers of products and services offered by Marriott. This makes delivery direct in the hands of
the potential customers.
Telephone- this is the best way to engage customer in order to increase odds getting a
sale and securing loyal customers. This makes the customer fell free that they can contact as and
when need of a particular changes. Customers can further refer Marriott to their friends and
families if they are connected well with phone. Marriott must sell their products and give their
information to potential customers by calling them.
Restaurant environment- This also plays a vital role in attracting large number of
customers towards the brand. The environment of Marriott must be positive and attractive. The
attraction and engagement of customers not only depends on food provided but also the
environment that makes the visitors feel happy visiting Marriott.
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Restaurant staff- Staffs of Marriott must be skilled and talented. They must know what
and how the customers actually want their needs to be fulfilled accordingly provide services to
them. This will help in building positive customer experience that will later be transferred to
their family and friends.
Restaurant management- Management of Marriott plays critical role in pulling large
number of customers. The services and goods provided by them must be managed in well
mannered. The management should be so well that they meet the needs of people or visitors
quickly without any trouble.
P4. Discussing customer touch points throughout customer experience creating business
opportunities.
Script between Customers and waiter in Marriott.
Waiter: Welcome sir/ mam. Please have a seat.
Customer: Thank you
Waiter: what will you have tonight?
Customer: Can I get to known what famous dishes is served by this respected hotel.?
Waiter: Roasted spicy chicken is the best dish we serve.
Customer: Get that to me. And how much time it will take?
Waiter: 20-25 mins.
Customer: Meanwhile can I get magazine
Waiter: Yeah sure sir.
Thus, the main Customer touchpoints are places where they interact with the brand easily
that includes websites, ratings, reviews and department of customer service (Kumar and
Reinartz, 2018). Thus, consumers never buy product without any idea of the brand. There are
multiple touchpoints that leads them in making the ultimate purchase. Therefore, it becomes
important for brand to engage customers at these touchpoints. The touchpoints that are included
in order to create business opportunities are as follows-
Products- here, website is classified or termed as a product. It has been featured about
websites quoting competitive prices. They also have positive benefits for business. Marriot must
make consumers aware of the particular brand with help of this website.
Interactions- this includes two-way interaction that can be in person wither on phone or
virtual. Marriott should provide personal and emotional connections with customers by
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interacting with them positively, as it is the best way to connect with customers and pull them
towards the brand.
Messages- This category falls in focusing into establishing brand voice and explaining
complex product to first time users. It is also a one-way communication that includes brand,
collateral, manuals, advertising, packaging that later leads in achieving high term profitability.
Settings- This includes presentation of a particular product or services offered by
Marriott to visitors. Customers mainly influences by innovative and creative presentation. Thus,
Marriott must offer services to visitors in unique way.
M2 Creating detailed customer experience map that charts journey model.
 Nail down buyer persona- this indicates to understand the customers. Marriot must
develop personas and analyse their behaviour.
 Understanding goals- this is the next step which indicates to understand the hopes to
achieve as they go through the journey.
 Map out touchpoints- Marriott must come into contact with the touchpoints as some may
have more impact than others.
 Identifying pain points of customers- all the data that is collected should be brought
together in order to analyse the pain points of customers. According to this Marriott can
figure out right and wrong things done by them.
 Prioritise and fix roadblocks- Marriott must identify the blocks that affects the sign-up
process of customers and make them easier as soon as possible.
 Update and improve- Marriott must later update this process and improve it accordingly
so that customers feels easy to choose the brand.
D2 Analysing Marriott can optimise each of the customer touch points in order to influence
behaviour, responses and actions
Marriott can make better use of this touchpoints that has been analysed (Pansari and
Kumar, 2017). They can make their websites more unique and creative and easy to use by
customers. This touchpoint will help them in ensuring about the actual needs and wants of
customers and respond to it in a positive way by providing goods and services of high quality.
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P5. Examining digital technology employed in managing customer experience providing
examples of customer relationship management system.
Customer relationship management system is a business practice that maintains
relationships with customers through various technologies (digital CRM, 2018). This automates
the process of information gathering and also accumulates the data of customers. CRM helps in
managing the interaction between company and customers and past customers as well. It is the
strategy that is designed in order to help Marriott to increase productivity and improve
satisfaction of customers and retention. It does many more for other departments within
organisation. Thus, it helps in following ways-
 CRM helps marketing by learning about leads and clients which has been used to build
personas, developing meaningful and relevant content and develop strategies and engage
and convert. This system gives marketer ability to become data driven and also enable
them with better customer journeys.
 CRM helps in delivering great experience of customers means they are able to deliever
and satisfy the needs and wants of customers. Customer service plays significant role in
relationship with customers.
 CRM also helps in making stronger teams of customer service.
M3 evaluating digital technologies employed in managing customer experience
The top three CRM providers are as follows-
Zoho CRM- this is best known for its adaptability. The productivity of this provider can be easily
expanded and integrates seamlessly with other products of Zoho.
Salesforce CRM- this holds the largest share on this market and offers a customer relationship
management solution. Salesforce is the most powerful software for enterprises that intends to
close a gap and boost the productivity using different strategies.
Oracle CRM- this is also one of the system that drives the strategies of CRM and also guarantees
the success that will be achieved. It is easily recommended because of low cost and large
community of experienced users.
D3 critically evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of CRM systems used.
Advantages of Zoho CRM
 It helps in managing customer data in one particular place and allow the worker to
become productive.
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 It helps in managing and growing database and the speed of process of growth is
increased.
 It helps in centralising data.
Disadvantages Zoho CRM
 The major obstacle is to transit from manual to automatic process.
 Once brought in a tool, the process is slowed down little.
P6. Illustrating customer service strategies.
The customer service strategies define standards and set of requirements that is offered to
customers in order to meet the standards (Peppers and Rogers, 2016). The strategies have been
discussed below-
Giving employees excellent knowledge regarding product- When everyone in Marriott
acts as support, customers get questions answered in prompt manner. Thus, saving customers a
call in order to help desk goes long way in order to make them happy.
Build infrastructure supporting customer service- customers prefer to get answers
easily without calling customer care. Thus, Marriott must offer these options to them in order to
increase their satisfaction.
Deliver on promises made- customers feel happy and part of the cited company if they
will offer the products and services exactly in a manner they required. Marriott must deliever
things that are promised by them to visitors.
Resolve the issues of customers- Marriott must ensure that the issues of customers are
easily resolved by the person who handles it initially and takes the responsibility. They can also
offer live chat support to customers. This will help in attracting large volume towards Marriott.
P7. Demonstrating customer service strategies create and develop the customer experience that
meet needs of customer and required standards.
Customer service strategies are termed as strategies that defines standards of care and
service that is offered by company to customers that meet needs (Santouridis and Veraki, 2017).
These strategies will help in enhancing the customers' loyalty base by delivering goods and
services as required by them. This also helps in resolving the issues of the customers that they
have regarding Marriott. This strategy will also help in supporting the service of customers. This
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increases the customers' engagement towards product that later helps in increasing productivity
and profitability.
M4 Reviewing application of customer service strategies in creating customer experience and
recommendations for improvement.
Name of hospitality business visited: Hayatt
Date and time of visit: 12th November 2017
Ambience and First Impressions The welcoming process
Things that I observed that
Were positive, or good?
Things that I observed that
Were negative, or bad?
What would I change if this
was my business
The environment Loud music while welcoming Welcoming style
Signage, Tariff Boards, Labelling, Etc.
Things that I observed that
Were positive, or good?
Things that I observed that
Were negative, or bad?
What would I change if this
was my business
presentation Promotion of limited services I would have adopted unique
way of presenting brand in all
areas where it can easily attract
customers.
Prices
Things that I observed that
Were positive, or good?
Things that I observed that
Were negative, or bad?
What would I change if this
was my business
Reasonable prices for the Limited products available I would have offered high
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products and services offered quality products with low
services
D4 Evaluating degree of customer service strategies and communication, recommendations for
improvement for quality customer experience
Customer service strategy and good communication helps in increasing and fostering
customer experience (So, King, Sparks and Wang, 2016). Marriott can adopt various other
measure in order to maintain the loyalty of customers and their engagement towards the brand.
Marriott can guide the employees services and make them reach the customers demand so that
they get satisfied early and enjoy the product with enthusiasm. They can also introduce new
technology that can easily reach customers by satisfying right customers in terms of delivering
perfect and demanded product in limited time.
CONCLUSION
Thus, from above report, it has been concluded that, managing customer experience is
very much important in order to increase the productivity and profitability of organisation.
Marriott used various strategies that helps in achieving long term sustainability and attracting
huge consumers. Further, it has analysed that it is important for Marriott to understand needs of
customers in order to satisfy them.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Baker, M.A., 2016. Managing customer experiences in hotel chains. The Routledge handbook of
hotel chain management, pp.240-250.
Greve, G. and Schlüschen, A., 2018. From Customer Relationship Management to Influencer
Relationship Management. In Diverse Methods in Customer Relationship Marketing and
Management (pp. 80-91). IGI Global.
Homburg, C., Jozić, D. and Kuehnl, C., 2017. Customer experience management: toward
implementing an evolving marketing concept. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science. 45(3). pp.377-401.
Khodakarami, F. and Chan, Y.E., 2014. Exploring the role of customer relationship management
(CRM) systems in customer knowledge creation. Information & Management. 51(1).
pp.27-42.
Kumar, V. and Reinartz, W., 2018. Customer relationship management: Concept, strategy, and
tools. Springer.
Pansari, A. and Kumar, V., 2017. Customer engagement: the construct, antecedents, and
consequences. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 45(3). pp.294-311.
Peppers, D. and Rogers, M., 2016. Managing customer experience and relationships: A strategic
framework. John Wiley & Sons.
Santouridis, I. and Veraki, A., 2017. Customer relationship management and customer
satisfaction: the mediating role of relationship quality. Total Quality Management &
Business Excellence. 28(9-10). pp.1122-1133.
So, K.K.F. and et.al., 2016. The role of customer engagement in building consumer loyalty to
tourism brands. Journal of Travel Research. 55(1). pp.64-78.
Soler-Labajos, N. and Jiménez-Zarco, A.I., 2016. Social CRM: The Role of Social Media in
Managing Customer Relations. In Managing Public Relations and Brand Image through
Social Media (pp. 134-159). IGI Global.
Venkatesan, R., Petersen, J.A. and Guissoni, L., 2018. Measuring and Managing Customer
Engagement Value Through the Customer Journey. In Customer Engagement
Marketing (pp. 53-74). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
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Zhang, M. and et.al., 2017. Influence of customer engagement with company social networks on
stickiness: Mediating effect of customer value creation. International Journal of
Information Management. 37(3). pp.229-240.
Online
digital CRM. 2018. [Online] Available through: <https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digital-
CRM>
What is Customer Engagement?. 2018. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.clarabridge.com/customer-engagement/>
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