Customer Experience Strategy for Wesfarmers

This report discusses the customer experience strategy for Wesfarmers, an Australian conglomerate dealing in fertilizers, coal mining products, chemicals, and other products. It includes identification and differentiation of customer segments, formation of strategy, connection with business value proposition, and more.

Running Head: CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STRATEGY FOR WESFARMERS
Customer Experience Strategy for Wesfarmers
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Identification and differentiation of the two customer segments............................................2
Formation of Customer Experience Strategy..........................................................................4
Connection of customer experience with business value proposition.....................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Reference.........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The term ‘customer experience ‘defines the perception of the customers towards a brand.
It is also focused on the customer relationship with a particular firm that is received by the
interactions with the customers. It is mainly done during the customer life cycle. Hence, a well-
designed customer experience management is highly needed in order to achieve the competitive
advantage (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2015). The customer interactions are also necessary in order
to exceed the customer expectations and increase the level of customer satisfaction, advocacy as
well as loyalty. The current report will proceed with identifying the differentiating the two
customer segments of Wesfarmers which is the chosen company.
It is basically an Australian Conglomerate that deals in fertilizers, coal mining products
chemicals and other products. Founded in the year 1914, the company has expanded itself a lot
and at the same time has earned revenues of more than 23.94 billion as surveyed in the year
2017. In this report a customer experience management strategy will also be implemented to the
company based on the survey findings of assessment 2, so that it continues to attain success in
future (Wesfarmers .com 2018). Necessary diagrams and customer experience maps will also be
attached. The report will conclude by outlining how the CEM strategy would better the company
operations and also highlight the important points.
Discussion
Identification and differentiation of the two customer segments
Customer segmentation is the strategy and process of separating the customers into
groups on the basis of their common characteristics. It helps a company to read the features of

3CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STRATEGY FOR WESFARMERS
each group and understanding their different tastes treat them accordingly. There are a total of
four different kinds of customer segmentation mainly geographic, demographic followed by
behavioral and psychographic.
According to the research undertaken for assessment 2, the Wesfarmers company has
been found to follow two distinct customer segments. These are the demographic segmentation
and the psychographic segmentation. A total of 10 people have been selected who are deeply
associated to these segments. There are three types of methods which helped to gather
information in the survey that includes face to face or telephone interviews. Direct/online
surveys and focus groups have also been useful methods for the surveys. The demographic
segmentation is one of the best segmentations based on age, religion, gender, family size,
ethnicity, education and also income. On the other hand, psychographic segmentation is the
division of the market based on the customer personality traits, attitudes, lifestyles and also
interests.
The research of assessment 2 had several survey questions in order to segment the
customers demographically which includes:
 Which category includes your age?
 Which part of the world particularly do you belong to? (American, African, Asian,
Alaskan or others)
 What is your gender? (male or female or other)
 What is your marital status? (married, unmarried, divorced)
 What is the educational qualification you hold? (less than high school, bachelors, masters
or other)

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 What is your employment status? (employed, semi-employed, not employed, retired or
disabled)
 What is your annual income status?
The research of assessment 2 had several survey questions in order to know their interests
and opinion for psychographic segmentation which includes:
 What are our hobbies? (it will include a wide variety of answers)
 What do you do when you feel bored? (go for shopping or sleep at home)
 What do you say about sticking to personal faith in the workplace?
 What do you think we should do about child education and environmental protection?
 Which product in the Wesfarmers do you like the most?
According to the answers received during the surveys, it has been found that people between
the age of above 30 are the most fascinated by the Wesfarmers products. Most of the customers
of Wesfarmers start from above 27 because the below are mostly students and do not have much
to do with household products. Almost 80% of the respondents were Australian and the number
of female customers were more. 50% of them belonged to well-to do families with minimum of
bachelor degree. It has also been found that they 65% of the respondents were satisfied with the
Wesfarmers products but there were also some who wanted few modifications in some aspects.
80% of them supported environmental protection and child education giving the company a good
reason to develop their CSR activities.
Formation of Customer Experience Strategy
After taking into account the customer feedbacks through the survey questions, it is
suggested that the Wesfarmers company must develop a customer experience strategy in order to

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earn the customer satisfaction to the fullest and retain their loyalty and relationship with the
brand. In order to serve the purpose, the company can take help of the IDIC (identify,
differentiate, interact and customize) model created by Peppers and Rogers. As per the rules of
the model, first of all they have to identify their customers (Benzarti & Mili, 2017). The next step
is to differentiate them and individually know their personal interests and preferences. The third
step is to interact with them for better insight and lastly should customize their products and
services accordingly. The company can also implement another strategy named as DIRFT (Do it
Right the First Time). Both the strategies suggest the same process either directly or indirectly.
The company must ensure that it is delivering what it is supposed to deliver. A cultural
connection with the customers and consistency will help to solve the issues and know the
customer expectations. The survey has shown a major issue that the staffs of Wesfarmers are not
capable enough to handle the customer needs. In order to solve this issue, the company needs to
arrange for a customer experience program among the staffs so that they understand the values
and improve accordingly.
Image 1: IDIC MODEL

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Source: Researchgate.net (2018)
Connection of customer experience with business value proposition
The Wesfarmers company have to conduct the customer experience mapping for the two
customer segments mentioned above in order to know what kind of experience the customers
have with the company. It is a visual representation that shows how the customer has been with
the company services through the past year to evaluate how they would be in the coming years
(Pepper & Rogers,2016). In order to serve the purpose in the best possible way, it can be
suggested that the Wesfarmers company must engage in a regular basis interaction with the
customers via so many ways such as emails, feedback messages on the company blog and social
media. The communication has to be transparent so that it can focus on its drawbacks based on
their positive /negative remarks.

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Image 2: Wesfarmers Value Proposition
Source: Wesfarmers.com (2018)
Image 3: Customer experience map
Source: Sinur, J. (2018)

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The value proposition of Wesfarmers company suggests why a customer should buy a
product of their company. The customer experience mapping will; help to improve the product
and services of the company and increase their customers because after the modification based
on the survey answers, every aspect would be tailored according to their needs. Since the
company is aimed at becoming one of the top conglomerates, the CEM strategies would be
extremely helpful to attain their aims Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). The CEM strategies if
implemented properly within the organizational context would reduce the customer complaints
and heighten their company profile.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be said that the research in the previous
assessment has been highly useful for the Wesfarmers company. The outcomes of the surveys
revealed a range of aspects the company should keep in view and improve through the help of
various models like the IDIC model, DIRFT model that suggests to work on gathering customer
feedbacks and improve them to sustain in the industry and smoothly as ever.

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Reference
Benzarti, I., & Mili, H. (2017, November). A Development Framework for Customer Experience
Management Applications: Principles and Case Study. In e-Business Engineering (ICEBE), 2017
IEEE 14th International Conference on (pp. 118-125). IEEE. Retrieved from -
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Imen_Benzarti2/publication/321260271_A_Development_
Framework_for_Customer_Experience_Management_Applications_Principles_and_Case_Study/
links/5a1c3590a6fdcced952b479b/A-Development-Framework-for-Customer-Experience-
Management-Applications-Principles-and-Case-Study.pdf
Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the customer
journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69-96. DOI: 10.1509/jm.15.0420
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.Retrieved from - https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/bitstream/2134/19348/3/McColl-
Kennedy.pdf
Peppers, D., & Rogers, M. (2016). Managing customer experience and relationships: A strategic
framework. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN-978-1-119-23982-6
Researchgate.net (2018). ResearchGate | Share and discover research. [online] ResearchGate. Available
at: https://www.researchgate.net/ [Accessed 23 Nov. 2018].

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Sinur, J. (2018). Journey/Experience Mapping Isn't Just for Customers : Commentary : Business Rules
Community / Business Rules Journal. Retrieved from
http://www.brcommunity.com/articles.php?id=b878
Wesfarmers.com (2018). The Wesfarmers Way. Retrieved from https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/who-
we-are/the-wesfarmers-way