Customer Experience Management for Woolworths: A Competitor Analysis

This study analyzes the customer experience management of Woolworths, a leading retail corporation in Australia, through primary and secondary data collection. It includes customer personas, journey map, and competitor analysis to identify pain points and areas for improvement.

Running head: CEM

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Methodology...............................................................................................................................................3
Customer Personas......................................................................................................................................4
Journey map................................................................................................................................................5
Analysis of Competitor................................................................................................................................7
Results Summary.........................................................................................................................................8
References.................................................................................................................................................10
Appendices................................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Woolworth Company is one of leading Retail Corporation, which was developed in New South
Wales, Australia. This corporation was founded in the year of 1924. Woolworths has captured
about 80% retail area in the nation of Australia. After 1924, preference of customers is boosting
and the high amount of subsidiaries is initiated in the nation of Australia. Woolworths has
captured American supermarket giant Safeway in 1985. In the year of 2017, Woolworths has
applied the green apple logo (Woolworths group, 2017).
Methodology
With the intention of this investigation, both primary and secondary facts and figures were
gathered in the form of quantitative with qualitative facts and figures.
Primary data
For collecting the primary data, 5 customer interviews were conducted. For this interview, an
open questionnaire was used to obtain the depth facts and figures regarding the research issue.
These interviews were conducted with persons and were documented by recording. It aids to
ensure the reliable outcome. Each respondent remains as unidentified to keep the confidentiality
and outcome were recorded and assessed as per the need of persona (Schmitt, 2016).
The investigation was gathered by applying the questionnaire. It was intended to obtain both
quantitative and qualitative results with an integration of open and close-ended questions. The
survey was conducted on 55 participants who were selected as per their convenience and the
Google form technique is implemented for conducting this questionnaire. All respondents have
been documented as unidentified to make sure the confidentiality and outcome have been
documented and accessed via 2 customer personas (Homburg, Jozić, and Kuehnl, 2017).

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Secondary data: Secondary data was gathered to support the outcome of the investigation. It
involves desktop investigation such as journal articles, online sources, textbooks, competitor’s
websites and company websites (Peppers, and Rogers, 2016).
Customer Personas
Outcome via collection of data from survey through questionnaire
Persona Demographic Behaviors and
actions
Needs Pain Points
Millennial 16-35 years of
consumers who live
in Australia
Experience: 2-5 years
of experience to buy
the products of
Woolworths
 Frequently
purchase the
products
 Products can be
purchased via
online and
offline channels
 Prompt to change
 Sometimes,
products have
certain defects
and need to
change it
 Needs
organic
products
that provide
healthy life.
 Needs fresh
and quality
food
products
and
efficient
services
 Needs
member
rewards and
some extra
remuneratio
n for being
loyal
 Premium
price
 Delay
customer
services
Family customers 35-55 years of
consumers who live
in Australia
Experience: more
than 5 years of
experience to buy the
products of
Woolworths
 Provides a
discount to loyal
customers on
products and
services
 Product
information can
be accessed
through
company
websites
 Availability of
online and
offline sources to
 Needs
Attractive
packaging
such as
detail of
product’s
ingredient,
and price
 Need
availability
of mobile
App for
ordering
products
 when the
range of
product is
small
 When the
quality of
the product
is bad
 When delay
in customer
services

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purchase the
products and
services
 24*7 hours
services on
online channels
and services
Journey map
Customer
Journey
Awarenes
s
Resear
ch and
evaluat
ion
Purcha
se
Mem
ber
Rewa
rds
Offline
retail
store
Online
retail
services
Division
Accountable
Marketing Marketi
ng
Sales
and
Service
depart
ment
Mark
eting
and
Servi
ce
Services
departme
nt
Services
department
Touch
Points
• Email
 Advertis
ing
• Social
Websit
e
Searchi
ng
online
Compar
ison of
sites
Travel
agent
Online
purchas
ing via
website
s or
affiliate
sites
Prom
otion,
adver
tising
and
paym
ent
 In
offline
retail
stores,
numbe
r of
salespe
ople
 Securit
y
 Sales
annou
nceme
nt
 Range of
products
 Sales
Discount
 Quality of
products
and
services
Millennial Customer
Feelings
Good
BAD
Brand and Value
perception
Believ
es they
adverti
se low
rate
Researches
and
product’s
order is
based on
Online
purchas
e does
not like
paying
Mem
ber
rewar
ds do
not
Not
adequate
communi
cation
with a
Need to
enhance the
food quality
and prompt
services

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produc
t and
service
s as
well as
deliver
on the
promis
e
the value as
well as the
quality of
products
and
services
Believes
Woolworth
s is not
truthful in
terms of
their
pricing and
so make it
rigid to
compare
the
products
and
services
for
extras
such as
deliver
y
charges
and
product
’s range
comp
are to
other
comp
etitor
s such
as
Wesf
armer
s.
customer
about
delays
can lead
to
canceling
the
product’s
order (see
appendix
b).
Needs to
offer
affordable
price (see
appendix
A).
Family
customers
Customer
Feelings Good
BAD
Brand
and
Value
perce
ption
Believes they
advertise high-
quality products
and deliver on the
promise
Researches
and
evaluation
relies on
product’s
quality
reliability
and timing
It also
believes
Woolworth
s does not
offer
organic
product
and mobile
app
services
Purchas
e online
when
necessa
ry at
the last
momen
t
Online
service
can
benefici
al to
access
the
availabi
lity of
Order
ing
produ
cts
mem
ber
rewar
ds do
not
comp
are to
other
comp
anies
such
as
Wesf
armer
Need
Assuranc
e and do
not like
when
faced
with
delays
(see
appendix
A).
Need to
Enhance the
product’s
quality and
rapid
services (see
appendix
A).

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(see
appendix
B).
product
and its
price
s
Analysis of Competitor
Customer Experience
Concern 1
Price (what is involved in the
price and what is additional)
Customer Experience
Concern 2
Delays
Woolworths After products are chosen as
per the price, customers are
taken to collection of page that
demonstrates option for add-
ons. (Lemon, and Verhoef,
2016).
Business class involves carry
on and nothing else
(Marchesani, Piccoli, and Lui,
2017).
Retailers must pay $50 extra if
they wish to get services
before expected time or within
1 day.
Customer faces issue in terms
of refundable items and
applicable sales coupon
discount (Holland, and
Ramanathan, 2016).
When a product is canceled
and replaced by customers
then, Woolworths will SMS,
phone, and email with changes
and additional options without
taking any charge (Grønholdt,
Martensen, Jørgensen, and
Jensen, 2015).
In their retail stores, the
company should provide
space, water, and air
conditioner environment with
sound music and parking
facilities. Lack of these
services creates an issue for
the customer to purchase from
Woolworths (McColl-
Kennedy, Gustafsson,
Jaakkola, Klaus, Radnor,
Perks, and Friman, 2015).
Wesfarmers Wesfarmers provides the
business loyalty cards, e-deal
services, and reward points. E-
deal is the cheapest alternative
that is nearest to Woolworth’s
membership services
(Benzarti, and Mili, 2017).
Wesfarmers use the online
function in which customers
can check the product’s status
and availability of products to
make sure that they are aware
of the product’s specifications
(Seligman, 2019).

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Results Summary
Woolworths advertise and promote their brand as premium quality. According to the data
analysis, it is demonstrated that each customer persona follows through on the promise. Result
also shows that sometimes customer prefers to buy products from competitors of Woolworths
such as Wesfarmers due to ‘delay service’ and ‘value for money’. It can happen in the case of a
lack of understanding regarding the customer-centric approach at the workplace. According to
Kandampully (2014), a company can get the best chance to succeed and retain the customers by
delivering the added customer value and maintaining the outstanding liaison with customers.
When assessing the touch points of Woolworths in the customer journey map, the overall
customer is satisfied with online ordering and assessing the techniques provided by Woolworths
and related websites (see Appendix A). When consumers are researching and evaluating
Woolworths against their key market players, then they are facing certain pain points. On the
basis of the result, customers get frustrated that Woolworths do not pay an extra charge on the
overall display online price and that appears cheaper as compared to its key market players. As
per the view of Joshi (2014), it is very complex for the company to maintain the relationship with
customers as the ultimate need of successful customer liaison is trust.
According to Blázquez (2014), the main aspect of providing the effective customer experience is
to assure what they expect and provides exactly as assured. It is also known as DRIFT. As per
the result of customer experience, consumers find they get underwhelmed services in both online
and offline channels and faced issue regarding delay services.
Ren Qiu Wang and Lin (2016) illustrated that there are three main elements of brand experience
such as experiential communication, look and feel, and experience from product. After assessing
functional attributes of products and services that are offered by Woolworths, it is identified that

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offering products and service is a basic function but there is need to provide the quality,
attractive packaging and develops positive brand experience.
It is stated that in the current phenomenon, Although, Woolworths is not behind the competition,
and also not behind the technology but, it is behind their consumers. As per the view of Khan
Akram Shah and Khan (2018), Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) is when a consumer researches
regarding products and services of company and bases of making purchasing decision such as on
behalf of customer’s review of the products and services. It can be rating on the websites, from
video or media, and from friends on the social media. It is assessed that buying decision journey
has changed hence it is vital for the company to use the ZMOT model in the approaches of
marketing. ZMOT model can be practiced as a perception regarding satisfaction among
customers on a concurrent basis. Woolworths should practice this model to improve the
customer’s insight by interacting with the customers and makes an enhancement in their product
and service quality.
All of the above results depicts Woolworths should understand and assesses their need of
customers for providing the organic food products and other services such as hygienic
management of food and prompt customer services, member rewards, specification to change,
and price. It should also prepare the VOC program to enhance the value and loyalty of customers
to distinguish themselves from key market players in terms of offering the goods and services
(Wu, Yeh, and Woodside, 2014).

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References
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.
Blázquez, M. (2014). Fashion shopping in multichannel retail: The role of technology in
enhancing the customer experience. International Journal of Electronic Commerce,
18(4), 97-116.
Grønholdt, L., Martensen, A., Jørgensen, S., & Jensen, P. (2015). Customer experience
management and business performance. International journal of quality and service
sciences, 7(1), 90-106.
Holland, H., & Ramanathan, N. (2016). Customer Experience Management. In Dialogmarketing
Perspektiven 2015/2016 (pp. 83-101). USA: Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Homburg, C., Jozić, D., & Kuehnl, C. (2017). Customer experience management: toward
implementing an evolving marketing concept. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 45(3), 377-401.
Joshi, S. (2014). Customer experience management: An exploratory study on the parameters
affecting customer experience for cellular mobile services of a telecom company.
Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 133, 392-399.
Kandampully, J. (2014). Customer experience management: Enhancing experience and value
through service management. UK: Kendall Hunt.
Khan, N., Akram, M. U., Shah, A., & Khan, S. A. (2018, May). Calculating customer experience
management index for telecommunication service using a genetic algorithm based on

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weighted attributes. In Innovative Research and Development (ICIRD), 2018 IEEE
International Conference on (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the
customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69-96.
Marchesani, D., Piccoli, G., & Lui, T. W. (2017). The Impact of IT-Enabled Customer
Experience Management on Service Perceptions and Performance. In Information and
Communication Technologies in Tourism 2017 (pp. 377-386). USA: Springer, Cham.
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.
Peppers, D., & Rogers, M. (2016). Managing customer experience and relationships: A strategic
framework. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Ren, L., Qiu, H., Wang, P., & Lin, P. M. (2016). Exploring customer experience with budget
hotels: Dimensionality and satisfaction. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 52, 13-23.
Schmitt, B. (2016). Customer experience management. Handbuch Sozialtechniken der
Kommunikation: Grundlagen–Innovative Ansätze–Praktische Umsetzungen, 1-13.
Seligman, J. (2019). Customer Experience Management: Service Design and Delivery. UK:
Routledge.
Woolworths group (2017). About us. Retrieved from:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us
Wu, P. L., Yeh, S. S., & Woodside, A. G. (2014). Applying complexity theory to deepen service-
dominant logic: Configural analysis of customer experience-and-outcome assessments of

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professional services for personal transformations. Journal of Business Research, 67(8),
1647-1670.

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Appendices
A. Questionnaire results:
The questionnaire is obtained on 55 participants by using the Google forms. The following
results are categorized into the average answer of each participant and also categorized the
customer personas. This information was used to generate the customer personas and to map out
the customer journey. Furthermore, the interview results, as well as secondary data, were
gathered.
Persona 1 (Millennial) 2 (Family customers)
Reason for buying The range of products convenience
Age 16-35 years 35-55 years
Gender Female Male
Experience 2-5 years of experience more than 5 years of
experience
How frequently do you buy? twice a month monthly
What do you value the most? Price and discount Member Rewards and loyalty
plan
Where do you order your
product?
Online offline
Which describes Woolworth’s
products and service?
Value for Money Delay services due to lack of
availability of salesperson
How would you rate overall
exp (5 being highest)
4 3
What needs improvement? Organic products, fresh and
quality food products and
efficient services, member
rewards and some extra
remuneration for being loyal
Attractive packaging such as
detail of product’s ingredient,
and price
Availability of mobile App for
ordering products and services
B. Interview Results:
Key findings Participan
t A
Participant
B
Participant
C
Participant
D
Participant
E
Why did you buy a
product from
Woolworths?
Price and
quality
packaging
and price
Availability
of both
local and
internationa
l brands
Customer
services
Brand loyalty

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Reasonfor the last
buying?
Healthy
lifestyle
Healthy
lifestyle
Healthy
lifestyle
Healthy
lifestyle
Healthy
lifestyle
Tell me about your
overall experience
Overall
great
experience
for the
price I
paid, and
range of
products
But,
experience
e in
product
quality is
less than
fantastic to
get organic
products
Not good as
it takes more
time in
refunding so
I bought
products
from
Wesfarmers
as there is an
easy process
of
replacement
and refund.
Good.
Deliver
before the
expected
time
It was ok
but the return
process was
very
complex so I
had switched
with this
company’s
products
It was good
and great
customer
service on the
store and
comfortable
environment.
Which retail store is
your preferred store
and why?
Wesfarmer
s due to
easy
refund and
return
process
Woolworths
due to a
range of
products
Woolworths
due to the
availability
of both
local and
internationa
l brands
Wesfarmers
due to an
affordable
price
Woolworths
due to
customer
services
Do youthink there
could be any
improvements and
if so what
improvements
would you like
to see them
make?
Communic
ation with
customers.
A
comprehen
sive
message
both in
advertising
and in
products
packaging
would
benefit all
customers
Good, no
need to make
improvement
Changes in
pricing
policy could
attract more
customers
Sales
discount
Provides the
organic
products.