Managing the Customer Experience (Unit 2)

Managing the Customer
Experience (Unit 2)
D/616/1789

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................3
P5: Employment of digital technology for customer experience management...........................3
LO 4.................................................................................................................................................8
P6: Customer service strategies in London Marriott County Hall hotel.....................................8
P7: Application of customer service strategies..........................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Managing customer experience refers to the practice of designing and reacting to the
interactions for meeting and exceeding the expectations that customers have from a specific
service or product, which in turn increases the customer satisfaction, advocacy and loyalty. This
report will focus on the management of customer experience for the benefit of the hotel, the
London Marriott County Hall hotel which is situated in Westminster, London and has around
206 rooms, which also offer views of the Big Ben. This report will highlight the effects of digital
technology in customer relationship management and application of appropriate customer
experience management in the hospitality industry business for maximizing customer
engagement.
LO 3
P5: Employment of digital technology for customer experience management
Customer experience management or CEM can be described as the collection of
processes that an organisation utilises in the hospitality industry tracking, organising and
overseeing all sorts of interactions that occur between customers and the hotel in the entire
lifecycle of the customers. The customer management strategy places the customers at the centre
of the sales, marketing and customer service (Kandampully, Zhang and Jaakkola, 2018).
Customer relationship management can be categorised into:
 Operational: It offers a comprehensive view of every customer’s communication record
with the London Marriott County Hall and manages interactions with visitors while
streamlining different business processes through automation. Hospitality industry is
highly competitive due to the increasing numbers of hotels that have started targeting the
customer’s experience for gaining huge market shares. For example, service automation
in the hotel which deals in customer interaction like direct sales, web sites, blogs, direct
mail etc (Al-Homery Asharai and Ahmad, 2019).
 Collaborative: It allows to establish communication among different entities and
streamlines workflow across London Marriott County Hall. Customer experience has
thus become critical for attraction of new customers and retaining the existing ones. The
rise in technology has brought extraordinary changes in the way businesses can operate,
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especially in the hospitality sector. Most hotels and hospitality organisations have
embraced new technologies for provision of high-quality customer experience.
 Analytical: This segment deals directly with datasets and data management by
integrating invoice software to get detail reports of cash flow and focusses on customer
retention and data extraction. The organisations are becoming more innovative and
utilising mobility, data, connectivity which drive digital disruption as the visitors crave
personalised and high-quality experience (Parise, Guinan and Kafka, 2016). Guest
experience drives all technology related decisions that includes creation of engaged
environment, personalisation.
CRM System and its importance: Customer relationship management system refers to
the software solutions which assist the hotels in management of generating leads, conducting
marketing and sales, keeping the details of the customers up-to-date, tacking every integration
with business, management of accounts etc. are various trends and the digital technology,
specifically CRM, that have been employed in the hospitality industries which are significant in
improving the customer relationship, these include:
 Customer relationship management (CRM) help in recording the customer’s products
likes and dislikes, their spending pattern and the business location. They help in
identifying the customer needs. They are designed for helping the hotels in improving the
customer relationships and increasing the customer lifetime value. CRM systems goes far
beyond and allow hotels to focus on the business relationships in all areas like colleagues,
vendors and suppliers and users of services (Girchenko, Ovsiannikova and Girchenko,
2017).
 CRM enables London Marriott County Hall in developing a detailed picture of customer
needs, tastes and buying habits. Customer response and satisfaction is why hotels need
CRM is because hotel industry works on the aspects related to occupancy, and a
reduction in occupancy would lead to lower profitability. An effective CRM system helps
in retargeting the existing customers and helps in manging the lead sources. The major
aspect of feedback and follow-up is facilitated by the software. In case of sales, the hotel
has to send various quotations and revise them and the software helps in assisting error
free work.
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