Managing the Customer Experience

This report discusses the value and importance of understanding the needs, wants, and preferences of target customer groups in the service sector industry. It examines the factors that drive and influence customer engagement and presents a customer experience map. It also analyzes how customer touch-points throughout the customer experience create business opportunities. Additionally, it assesses how digital technology is employed in managing the customer experience and illustrates customer service strategies in a specific service sector context. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of customer service strategies in creating and developing a customer experience that meets the needs of the customer and required business standards.

Managing the
Customer Experience

Table of contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Task 1.....................................................................................................................................3
P1 Discuss value & importance of understanding the needs, wants/ preferences of target
customer groups for a service sector industry........................................................................3
P2 Examine factors that drive and influence customer engagement of different target
customer groups......................................................................................................................4
Task 2.....................................................................................................................................5
P3 Present a customer experinece map..................................................................................5
P4 Analyse how customer touch-points throughout customer experience create business
opportunitie.............................................................................................................................6
Task 3:....................................................................................................................................7
P5 Access how digital technology is employed in managing the customer experience........7
Task 4:....................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERNCES...................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The understanding of needs wants and preferences of target customers within a sector is
very important for any organization. The business environment is dynamic therefore by
analyzing it and giving the understanding of different factors that influence customer
engagement and are responsible for creating the need in influencing the decision-making process
of a customer is very important. There are five stages of customer decision making and
personalized marketing campaigns can be used to influence all of them. The report also sheds
light on use of digital technology in management of customer experience within service sector
along with example of customer relationship management approaches.
MAIN BODY
Task 1
P1 Discuss value & importance of understanding the needs, wants/ preferences of target
customer groups for a service sector industry
Business environment is dynamic and therefore in order to function an organisation need to
constantly analyse the key trends in the market forces that flows freely and therefore gaining the
understanding of needs of customers is essential in order to understand the quality and price
determination of final deliverables. Customer preferences can be influenced by many things, the
factors that influences the needs and preferences of customers varies from trends in the market to
social media influencing techniques. The behavioural aspect of customers when it comes to
decision making process is an accumulation of the knowledge that he have gained consciously or
subconsciously from the time that he discovered the need. If an organisation can analyse the data
and figure out the origin of their target customers need they can create a specific personalized
marketing strategies in order to generate those needs. This approach is taken by many brands all
over the globe where they analyse the target customers online shopping data and using their
algorithm figure out the roots of customer needs and use that information in order to establish
and outline for their further marketing advertising and promotional activities as well as
campaign. The organisation have to understand their customers need and wants in order to
remain successful in a market place with his competition.

Hospitality and tourism industries constantly require monitoring practices in order to get
information on their customers. Often this industries outsource their work of market research
function to the organisations which specialises in such things. The collection of this data along
with its interpretation should be done in a very reliable manner because all of the marketing and
operational strategies will be developed keeping this as the foundation of those campaigns.
Based on the data collected the study can be employed in various manners, marketers can use
marketing strategies in order to influence all the five stages of consumer decision making process
and hence getting an understanding of needs is essential in order to create that need. With the
help of social media marketing practices the marketing department of an organisation can create
the illusion of need in the mind of their target customers if they want to enhance their sales
capabilities. The understanding of needs also helps in the process of product development, where
modifications are made in the overall quality or packaging of the product in order to make it
more compatible in accordance to customers preferences. The idea behind this methodology is to
make product customer friendly in every manner possible.
P2 Examine factors that drive and influence customer engagement of different target customer
groups
Target market is a subset of whole market in which company mainly focuses on group of
people or stakeholders to sell their products and services. Target market looks at different angel
and different groups which helps in increasing the sale value and most common groups are Age
group, gender, social class, level if education, lifestyle and so on. Target market causes benefits
to both company and its clients. There are number of steps that involved in making target market
strategy, the very one is the problem that customer is facing in the market. Once the problem is
detected company needs to focus on people who face the problem, when both the things are
observed by company, company focuses on making such products that can help the needed
customers.
The key factors on the basis of which customer engagement can be enhanced are our
understanding the customer's expectations and need, this methodology revolves around the idea
of building a two-way communication between customer and the organization which will further
help the organization to build a relationship with their customers. The next way to enhance
customer engagement is to value to the customers, all the data and information collected on

customers are valuable for the organization, this information if analyzed efficiently can credit
future trends on the basis of statistical research and Analysis. The next step in maintaining
customer engagement is providing excellent customer service, this ideology revolves around
maintaining a satisfied customer. This is an accumulation of many things and with the overall
objective of reducing customer effort many organizations use different strategies to solve
customer queries and give them the best resolution to the problems of the doubts they have in
mind in the most efficient way. The next step in increasing customer engagement is establishing
communication channels between customer and the organization. Many brands all over the globe
use Omni-channel communication strategies that focuses on accumulation of different channels
of communication and using them to provide the information about the organization to the target
customers, this might include social media platforms, telemarketing and traditional approaches
of communication like newspapers, magazines, televisions, radios etc. Disturb also includes
avoiding any chances of miscommunication, the information that is put out for the customers
should be clear enough so that it cannot be misinterpreted, because situation like this can result
in frustration in mind of customers which heroines the interaction between customer and the
organization.
Task 2
P3 Present a customer experinece map
Customer experience map is the visualised version of the whole end-to-end experience
gained when a generic person makes the journey of realisation of basic physiological needs to
accomplishment of those needs with respect to the experience associated with it. The experience
map is important for an organisation in order to figure out what key factors lies in the journey of
a customer in order to figure out the units that the organisation need to work on in order to
enhance the overall customer experience when it comes to interaction with that particular
organisation. Customer experience can be of two type positive or negative. When a customer
gains positive experience the organisation have to to make sure that those activity continue in the
future and the customer experience in himself with every interaction with the organisation. And
if a customer have a bad experience while interacting with the organisation they have to make
sure and assure the customer that these things will not happen ever again in the future, in order to
the customer loyalty they have to make sure that this inconvenience do not happen in future.

The experience map is the accumulated study of customer behaviour and interaction with
the organisation across the omni-channel communication strategies that the organisation have
planned along with the touch points. Often this is related to analysis and interpretation of data
which includes both quantitative and qualitative aspects of customer experience. The
organisation have to figure out the key factors that influences the decision making process of a
customer and follow thoughts and actions. Customer experience mapping cannot be tied with a
specific product or service as it is the the combined result of the overall experience gained
throughout the interaction. It can be divided into 4 lanes that are phases, actions, thoughts and
mindsets. Customer experience journey offers a general human perspective and cannot be
determined on the basis of a particular user type or product or service specification.
The customer experience journey is predictable because the events that influences and
establishes the outline for customer experience occur in chronological order. This approach is
used in order to understand general human behaviour associated without customers react to
product and services provided by the organisation. This methodology can also be used in order to
create a baseline understanding of how modifying a particular product or service can result in
enhanced mint of better customer experience. It lays the foundation for product development.
P4 Analyse how customer touch-points throughout customer experience create business
opportunitie
Customer touch points are very important for a organisation in helping to figure out the
contextual value of customer journey for a target audience. These touchpoint lays the foundation
for an opportunity to build a strong relationship with the customers using different approaches
that synchronises together and establishes a two-way communication between the organisation
and the customer by understanding the basic needs of the customer, and how satisfactory are the
services in the products that the organisation is willing to provide it to the particular customer.
Customer touch points can we define as the crucial intersection where the services provided by
the organisation in the expectations of the customers meet. Customer’s journey of decision-
making process includes of five major stages that are, realisation of wants or needs, collecting
information knowingly or subconsciously, evaluation of the collected information, purchase
where the customer buys or disposes the goods and services that they want and post purchase
behaviour.

Touchpoint can occur at any of the four stages from realisation of needs to purchase or
disposal of goods or services. Post purchase behaviour is associated with the customer
experience. Customer touch point is based on how the target customers reacts or interacts with
the specific piece of product or services that they are consuming, and therefore the organisation
can work in order to modify the goods and services in accordance to the overall design wants of
the customer. Information regarding the touch points can be achieved by active monitoring and
research methodologies in order to collect data about how customer reacts to their interactions
with the firm.
Task 3:
P5 Access how digital technology is employed in managing the customer experience
Social Media Marketing includes several social media platforms like Facebook,
LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. on which company can promote their goods and services in order to
reach maximum number of people. The organization promotes their consulting services to
maximum number of people by having its account on different social media platforms including
Facebook, indeed, LinkedIn, and so on. Company has specific employees who handle these
social media account in order to increase the promotion of the company in the market.
Digital platforms include several technological platforms that helps the organization in
promoting their services, digital methods are the most common methods that organizations use
these days in order to reach maximum number of customers. Social media platforms, websites,
applications, TV ads, and so on that can be used as digital methods for the promotion of their
services. The organization can also use these digital platforms in order to promote their services.
And the website of the organization should be so easy to use that everyone can access several
features related to education, business, health and care, and so on.
Task 4:
P6 Illustrate customer service strategies in a specific service sector context
The customer service strategies for tourism and hospitality sector is an accumulation of
optimization of agent training, choosing the right tools and making data driven decisions. The
courses of action associated with tourism sector is totally based on morals and ethics and

therefore it is essential for customer service strategies to be established in accordance to the same
considerations. Agents working in the industry should be well trained, which means they should
have knowledge about principles of prioritizing customer needs, reducing customer efforts and
keeping themselves in customer’s shoes using empathy to understand and evaluate the situation
in order to come up with the best possible solution. Trained staff will help the industry in
acquiring more customers. It is essential for customer service agents to have access to right tools
associated with their jobs. In order to provide best possible solutions to the associated clients it is
important that agents are equipped with proper tools with proper user interface with easier
signup/login processes. In addition to that, all the decisions associated with this factor should be
based on data driven approach, which means that all the organizations falling under tourism and
hospitality situation should collect data about their target customers and use that data to make
changes. For example, if customers are particularly concerned with the any operational course of
action undertaken by customer care agents, it is their responsibility to make modifications in
accordance to customer feedbacks.
P7 Demonstrate how customer service strategies create and develop the customer experience in a
way that meets the needs of the customer and required business standards.
An accumulation of aforementioned customer service strategies can be sued to develop and
enhance the overall customer experince associated with tourism and hospitality industry. If the
associates are trained properly then they will be able to provide best possible resolution to
customer problems. They will be able to connect with the customers better and hencte will be
able to putb themselves in customer shoes and willl be able to solve customer quries better. In
addition to that, experince of staff also is a considerable dynamic which helps in developing an
understanding associated with how to deal with the customers. In addition to that, having the
right customer tools agents will be able to assist customers efficiently. Main problems that are
being faced by customers are due to proper operating sytems, inefficient user interface, complex
design of softwares and insufficient understanding of tools. In addition to that, if customer
service courses of actions are established and modified in accordance to the data that the
company have collected over time in form of cutsomer feedbacks, they will be able to statisfy the
customers and enhance the overall quality of their services even more.

CONCLUSION
The report concludes that in order to work efficiently and achieve organizational goals, an
organization have to gain understanding of customer needs and wants. The business environment
is dynamic therefore by analyzing it and giving the understanding of different factors that
influence customer engagement and are responsible for creating the need in influencing the
decision-making process of a customer is very important. There are five stages of customer
decision making and personalized marketing campaigns can be used to influence all of them. The
report also sheds light on use of digital technology in management of customer experience within
service sector along with example of customer relationship management approaches.

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