Managing the Customer Experience

This document discusses the value and importance of knowing the needs and wants of customers in managing the customer experience. It explores customer engagement strategies and the use of digital technology in customer management. The case study focuses on Hilton Hotel and Resort.

Managing the Customer
Experience

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
LO1........................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Value and importance of knowing the needs as well as wants of the customers.........................3
P2 Influence the engagement of the customer at different targeted groups....................................3
LO2........................................................................................................................................................4
P3 Customer experience map............................................................................................................4
P4 customer touch point in creating business opportunity...............................................................7
LO3........................................................................................................................................................8
P5 Digital technology in managing customer experience..................................................................8
LO4........................................................................................................................................................9
P6 strategies for the customer service..............................................................................................9
P7 Customers services strategies in meeting needs of customer and meeting business standards.. 9
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................................10
REFERANCES........................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Customer experience management means managing the experience of the customer which
they had with the company (McColl-Kennedy and et.al., 2019). It involves taking feedback from
the customers and attempting prompt action against the feedback. There are lot of tools and
technologies involved in the management of the customer experience. For the current study Hilton
Hotel and Resort is taken which is a global brand and was founded in the year 1919. The hotel is
located around 586 locations all over the world. The parent company of Hilton Hotel and Resort is
the Hilton Worldwide. The founder of the hotel was Conrad Hilton. In the study the topics covered
know the importance of needs as well as wants of the customers. Influence of the customer
engagement and using the customer journey model. Customer touches points and usage of the
digital technology especially CRM are discussed in detail in the study. What are the customer service
strategies and how the same are helpful for the business as well as need and wants of the customers
are studied.
LO1
P1 Value and importance of knowing the needs as well as wants of the customers
It is very important to know the needs, wants and preferences of the customers which
are targeted. It will help in driving the product as the need of the customers and if the product
and service driven as per the preference then there will be higher chances of the conversion of
the lead (Goodman, 2019). For example if the customer is having interest in eating sweat
food and the interest of the customer is known via Google analytics considering the review of
the products, as most of the reviews were based on sweat products. Then catalogue of sweat
dishes can be shared with the customer and which will catch the interest of the customer and
there will be higher chances that the customer will visit Hilton Hotel and Resort. If customer
is driven services of there choice then the customer satisfaction level will increase and the
customer will integrate the audience of the similar preferences and this will ultimately drive
more walls and revenue. Hilton Hotel and Resort should focus on knowing the needs and
wants of the targeted audience and then drive the products as per the location and age group
or any other customisation (Bravo, Martinez. and Pina, 2019). If the age group of individual
is between 60 to 80, then they will be health conscience they will be required to eat healthy
so products such as vegetables, beverages, less salty and less spicy food will best suit the
interest and this will drive higher revenue for them. Hilton Hotel and Resort if want to
capture large market then it is also necessary to know why and what are the reasons the
customer wants the product. This will help Hilton Hotel and Resort to form strategies for the
selected and different targeted audience and how to do marketing in a customised way in
order to have maximum conversion will be possible. This will save a lot of cost for the
company as well because if the campaigning of the ad is done to the similar audience then it
will lead to running ads on the same topic and no template and additional budget is required
to be set.
P2 Influence the engagement of the customer at different targeted groups
Purchasing Power

Different groups have different purchasing power, some are comfortable with
expensive and quality products and are rate conciseness. Hilton Hotel and Resort should
focus on which product is best suited as per the purchasing power targeting the similar
audience, if premium quality products are targeted to higher income group then there will
higher conversion and similarly lower purchasing group.
Gender
Gender also plays a major role in engaging customers of different groups. Hilton
Hotel and Resort should categories and then increase the customer engagement (Iglesias,
Markovic. and Rialp, 2019). Male group will be more concerned about adventure and
rejuvenation whereas female group will be more concerned about fancy and beauty products
of Hilton Hotel and Resort, similarly engagement of the group can be enhanced by driving
the related products.
Age
Age plays a crucial role for customers of Hilton Hotel and Resort, the company
should focus adventure and sports activities towards the young audience whereas driving
tasty food products and better room services are more important for the older generation. This
will influence customer engagement and more customers will be interested in buying services
of Hilton Hotel and Resort.
Influence of the group
There are various groups such as social groups, business groups, government groups
etc, all these groups have there own demands in order to meet demands of the groups or in
order to influence customer engagement Hilton Hotel and Resort should met out the
standards required of the group (Dou. and et.al., 2019). Designing theme for the get together
which is similar to business meeting will engage more customers. Marketing campaign
running is also important as this will lead to setting budgeted for the campaign and running
ads which are display as well as text ads to the targeted audience, this will engage more and
more customers.
Customer engagement factors leads to on boarding strategies which are separte as per
the targeted audience. Increasing the customer engagement the on boarding strategies are met
by making Hilton Hotel and Resort organised and prepared in advance for the upcoming
situation which makes the company strong to deal with any situation. On boarding strategies
makes the company integrated and thoughtful towards the work.
LO2
P3 Customer experience map.
Customer experience map means a visual presentation of the customer which had experience
with the company. For Hilton Hotel and Resort the customer experience map is as follows:

Figure 1 Customer experience map
Customer experience map
Positive interactions Negative interactions
For Hilton Hotel and Resort it is found
that as per the analysis form the customer
experiences that the Hilton Hotel and
Resort is good at customer support and
there is also a good reviews of the
customer services is seen on the social
media sites which is a good symbol for
Hilton Hotel and Resort.
As per the customer experience it was found
that the customers of Hilton Hotel and Resort
have required to wait for around 3 hours
which is not at all a good sign for the Hilton
Hotel and Resort. The hotel must work upon
by timely cleaning of the room and easily
making available of the room to the
cusotmers.
While waiting of the customers they are
provided cocktails which are completely
free (Kim. and et.al., 2019). The free
cocktails are provided with the exquisite
view of the ocean. This is also a positive
customer experience of Hilton Hotel and
Resort, which makes the company special
and separate from the competition.
The room for the fitness in Hilton Hotel and
Resort is closed for around one month which
made the customers of fitness lover
disappointing (Mahr, Stead. and Odekerken-
Schröder, 2019). Due to this the hotel has
faced negative reviews about the service.
The staff of Hilton Hotel and Resort is
very friendly and they used to call the
customer by name which shows a sign of
importance to each customers to the
company. They used to call the customer
by respect which shows the
professionalism of the staff.
Hilton Hotel and Resort is having a poor
meal service in the room and the supplies
provided in the room are also not fresh. This
has given a negative impact to the hotel and
this can be improved by providing quality
food in the room and taking the reviews of
the customer seriously as the customer is the
king of the market and if they are not served
properly then they will shift to another

business and this will lead to loss to Hilton
Hotel and Resort.
The checkout facility and timings were
flexible and Hilton Hotel and Resort even
allows the customer to take 1 hour extra
for the backpacking and other other
activities. Due to this the customer can
pack their bags with ease without any
hustle bustle.
There were free parking facilities available
to the customers which allowed the
customer to park their vehicle till they are
in the Hilton Hotel and Resort. This saved
addition cost of the customers.
Analysis of Customer journey model on the basis of touch points of Hilton Hotel and Resort
Categories Awareness Discover Purchase Use of product
Blog Used for the
launch of new
product.
Website Used for the
payment
Pages Used for
discovering
innovative way
for conversion.
Email Used for the
survey and
sharing reviews
of the product
E book Used for the
purpose of
providing
information of
the services.
SEO Used for the
purpose of
ranking of the
site.
SMM Use for the
purpose of
increasing
purchase of the
product by
extensive
marketing.

For the purpose of doing analysis of the customer journey in Hilton Hotel and Resort
the points taken are Awareness, Discover, Purchase and Use of the product. The respective
points are taken for the purpose of determining how the audiences were gathered and
converted them into customers (Ieva, 2019). Firstly it started with the website building and
then it goes to social media marketing by running campaign and then SEO. After all these
activities gathering of information of the client was done and then email marketing was done
to them. Last but not the least purchase of the product and services was done in Hilton Hotel
and Resort and then reviews of the customers were shared on the website in order to present
the actual picture of Hilton Hotel and Resort. These all are the activities and action taken
against the activities.
P4 customer touch point in creating business opportunity.
In order to increase the business opportunities Hilton Hotel and Resort must identify
and understand what the touch points of the audience are. Customer journey, which involves
realisation, awareness, evaluation and lastly purchase, play a key role in customer touch point
gathering (Mapping your journey for customer. 2019,). Touch point of the customer include
blog, website, pages, email and e-book. These touch points can be used to do customer
analysis and analysis of the market trends. Hilton Hotel and Resort must optimize the touch
points by using SEO, SEM and SMM in order to grow the business. Visitors of the web links
can be converted into permanent customers and driving of products and service can be done
mentioning the of Hilton Hotel and Resort using off page tool.
Touch point will create interest and will also help in knowing interest among the
customers so that relevant products can be advertised to them. For example for the business
person the touch point will be email marketing and Hilton Hotel and Resort should pinch
them using email marketing. For students and family touch point will be SMM and they
should be pinched using SMM (King. and et.al., 2019). In order to increase the business
touch points can used to make direct decisions in the business by doing research over
marketing in order to make sure that Hilton Hotel and Resort known better than the
customers know themselves. Using Google analytics Hilton Hotel and Resort will know the
competitors and what the things which are making them better perform and this will lead to
implementing the strategies used by them into their own business. This will lead to taking
over their customers do growing the bus

Figure 2: Customer touch points
LO3
P5 Digital technology in managing customer experience.
Digital technology is more cost effective and more result oriented, the technology can
be used for managing the customers in order to increase the level of satisfaction of the
customers. Customer relationship management software or CRM is a software which can be
used by Hilton Hotel and Resort in order to increase the sales of the company (Bueno. and
et.al., 2019). The software can derived results of the customer about which customer is an
elite customer and needs more focus and which customer can be given less priority. Hilton
Hotel and Resort can do analysis of the customer and then can take appropriate measures to
pinch the customer as per the amount of business given by the customer to the company.
Using the software the company can have less client attrition due to increasing in the
satisfaction level of the customers and more retention level of the customers.
Better client relationship can be maintained by offering special discounts to the elite
customers this will increase cross selling and due to which the revenue as well as profitability
of Hilton Hotel and Resort will increase drastically (Saini. and Singh, 2019). This will also
increase the brand value of the company great satisfaction level of the staff as the staff will be
meeting their targets due to using CRM software. Better dealing with the client will be
possible due to CRM in which the history and previous chat with the client will be recorded
in the software and the same information can be used to meet the future requirements of the
client. This will lead to better serving the client and complete satisfaction of the client. In

order to manage the customer experience CRM will do better coordination with the sales
team by generating leads for them which can be easily converted as the lead generation is
done by the software knowing the complete profile of the customer which includes interest
and activities of the customers.
Advantages of CRM
There are various advantages of CRM such as it save cost, attract more and customer.
CRM helps in retaining the customers and also helps in pinching the right customer in order
to grow the business.
Disadvantages of CRM
There are also various disadvantages of CRM as it eliminates the human element and
if wrong data is feeded or collected then this software can be the most dangerous software.
The software involves a lot of training cost and sometimes a single error can cause a lot of
loss to the company.
LO4
P6 strategies for the customer service.
There are various strategies which can be adopted by Hilton Hotel and Resort for the purpose
of increasing sales and customer satisfaction level and the same are as follows:
Optimization of training of the agent
In order to improve customer service it is very important to train the agent well
because giving agent proper training will lead meeting of customers needs more effectively
and efficiently (Ng, Sweeney. and Plewa, 2019). This will lead to knowing the customers
well when they are available for the support of the customers. If the agent will known the
customer well then they will be able to understand the customer well and this will lead to
better serving the customer Keating the expectation of the customers.
Improving customer service support
This strategy will lead to increase in the satisfaction level of the customers, as per teh
strategy there are three key points in the customer service support and are call resolution,
average time taken in the queue and rate of average abundant (Shukla. and Pattnaik, 2019). It
is important to have effective call resolution in which the time taken for transferring call from
one department to other must be minimal because this will increase the hearing efficiency of
the customers. Hilton Hotel and Resort should take minimum time in resolving the query as
more the time taken by customer support the more the chances of diversion of customer.
Average rate of abundance should be minimum because the less the time taken by the
customer support in resolving issue the faster the query of customer will be resolved. Thai
will lead no hanging up of phones call by the customers and less frustrated customers will be
there for the company.
P7 Customers services strategies in meeting needs of customer and meeting business
standards.
Meeting needs of customer

Making decisions which are data driven, as per this strategy Hilton Hotel and Resort
should make decisions on the basis of facts and figures and do not make decisions wildly.
This will lead to making appropriate decision which will bring more optimum results for the
firm (Glaa, Kristensson. and Witell, 2019). If decisions are made on the basis of facts and
figures then it will bring right information and such information can be used for value selling.
The strategies will meet the needs of the customer as the strategies will be made based on the
needs and wants of the customers which serves them better. If the customers are served better
than it will lead to satisfaction of customers and which ultimately is a good sign for Hilton
Hotel and Resort.
Meeting requirements of business standard
Optimisation of assurance of quality, as per this strategy Hilton Hotel and Resort must
focus on providing quality services, because providing quality services will bring long term
results. Such results can be used to built goodwill and on the basis of goodwill more
customers will be attracted and due to which more sales will be possible. Assuring quality
will bring meeting the standard of the business which is very necessary for Hilton Hotel and
Resort in order to have better quality performance for the company.
CONCLUSION
As per the study it is concluded that knowing the needs as well as wants of the customers is
very important in order to drive the product of their taste. There are various factors which can
influence the customer in the more engagement and such factors must be implemented timely in
oreder to bring optimal results. Touch points can be used for creating business opportunities and
must be optimised and timely used in order to bring maximum results. There are various strategies
in order to serve the customers and if the strategies are used and implemented succefully then it can
result in a lot of cost saving of the company in advertisement and it will also lead to satisfaction of
the customers and customer will feel confident in investing in the company. Strategies must be
designed as per the need and wants of the customer and also the standards of the business must be
met.

REFERANCES
Books and Journals
Goodman, J., 2019. Strategic customer service: Managing the customer experience to
increase positive word of mouth, build loyalty, and maximize profits.
Amacom.
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Journal of Service Research. 22(1). pp.8-26.
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responses to a hotel chain. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management. 31(1). pp.389-405.
Iglesias, O., Markovic, S. and Rialp, J., 2019. How does sensory brand experience influence
brand equity? Considering the roles of customer satisfaction, customer
affective commitment, and employee empathy. Journal of Business Research.
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Dou, X. and et.al., 2019. Outcomes of entrepreneurship education in China: A customer
experience management perspective. Journal of Business Research.
Kim, S. and et.al., 2019. Experience, brand prestige, perceived value (functional, hedonic,
social, and financial), and loyalty among GROCERANT customers.
International Journal of Hospitality Management. 77. pp.169-177.
Mahr, D., Stead, S. and Odekerken-Schröder, G., 2019. Making sense of customer service
experiences: a text mining review. Journal of Services Marketing. 33(1).
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Ieva, M., 2019. MANAGING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TO FOSTER CUSTOMER
LOYALTY. Loyalty Management: From Loyalty Programs to Omnichannel
Customer Experiences.
King, C. and et.al., 2019. Towards a shared understanding of the service experience–a
hospitality stakeholder approach. Journal of Service Management.
Bueno, E.V. and et.al., 2019. Measuring customer experience in service: A systematic
review. The Service Industries Journal, pp.1-20.
Saini, S. and Singh, J., 2019. Cultivating Emotional Branding Through Customer Experience
Management: From the Holistic Experience Perspective. In Brand Culture and
Identity: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1346-1361).
IGI Global.
Ng, S.C., Sweeney, J.C. and Plewa, C., 2019. Managing Customer Resource Endowments
and Deficiencies for Value Cocreation: Complex Relational Services. Journal
of Service Research. 22(2). pp.156-172.
Shukla, M.K. and Pattnaik, P.N., 2019. Managing Customer Relations in a Modern Business
Environment: Towards an Ecosystem-Based Sustainable CRM Model. Journal
of Relationship Marketing. 18(1). pp.17-33.
Glaa, B., Kristensson, P. and Witell, L., 2019. Service Teams and Understanding of Customer
Value Creation. Service Innovation For Sustainable Business: Stimulating,
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Online

Mapping your journey for customer, 2019, Available through:
<https://www.mycustomer.com/experience/engagement/mapping-your-customer-journeys-across-
touchpoints-examples-and-techniques>