Holiday Inn: Customer Experience Audit and Recommendations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the customer experience at Holiday Inn, a prominent multinational hospitality brand. It begins with an introduction to the brand, its mission statement, and its target customer segments, including demographics and income levels. The report then delves into the attitudes of these customers, examining the factors that influence their perceptions of the brand and customer service, such as trust, personalization, empathy, real-time delivery, and engagement. The report identifies and assesses what Holiday Inn communicates about its customer service principles and organizational culture, including its ecosystem, delivery methods, customer touchpoints, and the customer journey. An audit of the brand's customer experience manifestations is conducted, utilizing a customer experience map to analyze the customer journey from search and planning to booking and post-stay engagement. These elements are critically evaluated against relevant customer experience models and theories. The report culminates in a set of substantiated recommendations aimed at improving various aspects of the customer experience for the Holiday Inn brand, offering actionable strategies for enhancement.

Customer experience
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
About the brand......................................................................................................................3
Attitudes of these customers to define their attitudes to the brand and overall customer
services in general..................................................................................................................4
Identify what the brand says about customer service and beliefs and organisational culture5
Demonstrate that an audit of all the manifestations of customer of the brand has been carried
out...........................................................................................................................................7
Critically assessment of these against models and theories set out in the module and teaching
material...................................................................................................................................7
Set out a substantiated set of recommendations to improve aspects of the customer experience
for this brand...........................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................12
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INTRODUCTION
Managing customer experience as a process where organisations have to design the overall
plan of interacting with the customers to meet their overall expectations. It has a direct impact on
the overall level of customer and accomplishment of set objectives of organisation. Present
report is based on holiday in that is one of the most famous multinational organisations parts of
hospitality sector (Peppersand Rogers, 2016). The report is based on understanding the key
customers and key demographics of Holiday Inn, identification of customer attitude for
understanding the customer engagement process. Further, there is understanding of what brand
actually says about their customer service and the believes on which overall culture of
organisation is based. All these are understood based on certain theories for developing a deep
understanding of customer experience in the hospitality sector.
About the brand
Holiday inn is a biggest chain across different parts of the world it was founded in the year
1952. The main Idea behind this brand was to provide reasonable rate of accommodation to
people across different parts of UK. Wilson's first Holiday Inn chain was opened in the district of
Memphis the chain of holiday in started growing dramatically since the year 1975 in the first
year it was a holiday in there were 50 branches across different parts of UK. Holiday inn chain
led to more market and high amount of financial pressure on already existing traditional hotels.
In the year 1972 there were approximately 1400 Holiday Inn hotels across different parts of the
world 1979 Wilson retired from his work for in holiday in.
Holiday inn mission statement: Overall mission statement of holiday in is based on creating a
difference in the life of individual touching every day. They are working together as a team for
delivering commitment superior hospitality product and personalized services (Razmochaeva,
Klionskiy, . and Chernokulsky, 2018). They are believing to uphold a strong moral system and
also increasing their active participation in the community.
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Culture management at Holiday inn:
Key customer segment of Holiday Inn:
The most essential steps in building up for attracting of customer is to target segment of market.
Holiday Inn has a aim to target:
1) Adults ranging between 25 to 35 years of age.
2) Families for holiday express are around 75000. These families usually belong to middle class
segment of society.
3) All the people of society who are of medium income levels are the target market of holiday
inn.
4) The overall style of target market focus is on offering of Limited services at reasonable prices
at practical amenities and High convenience that leads to catering all the essential
requirements of various Travellers across different parts of the world.
Attitudes of these customers to define their attitudes to the brand and overall customer services
in general
There are basically five factors that are related with managing customer experience which are
adopted by Holiday Inn. These principles are used for managing the overall positive experience
of their target segment of customers as discussed below:
1) Trust: It is the first aspect that is related with creating a strong foundation of data segment of
customers (Roos, 2019). There is a requirement of managing customer experience by building a
strong trust relationship with them that can help the customers in blind trust with the band and
they are willing to share their personal information experiences and data with the brand.
2) Personalisation: Across different channels the purpose of engagement of customers that can
be digital or physical there has to be a perfectly crafted channel of customers are interaction with
them indirect manner customer feels they are important for the organisation (SEZGİN, . and
TELİNGÜN,., 2016).
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3) Empathy: Related to human connection is caring and Powerful action is able to create with
their customer. Consist of both pre and post feedback approach that is used by organisations such
as holiday in so that they are able to create a personal level of connection with each and every
customer ( Shukla. and Pattnaik, 2019). For this there is to understand the Expectations of a
particular customer while they are visiting the hospitality organisation.
4) Delivery in moment: The overall advancements that have taken place in technology have led
to creation of customer value in the real time. This means that there is a connection that can be
easily built with the customer as soon as they are approaching a particular brand and also
sometimes organisation can themselves approach customer and take initiative to build up a
valuable relationship with them (Ng, Sweeneyand Plewa, 2019.). Holiday Inn as an organisation
makes with the help of different digital media platforms like social media applications Facebook.
There are certain dimensions of overall customer experiences and are helpful in increasing the
satisfaction level of a particular customer. Some of the dimensions instagram to create a
customer value approach where they try to identify the target customers who are willing to avail
their services and then according to that they form various strategies to approach such
prospective customer.
5) Engagement: Employee engagement is a very important tool for every organisation but
customer engagement has also lead to creation of various social media and offline campaigns
that help in increasing involvement of customers (UllahRanjha, and Rehan, 2018). Also, it helps
organisations in connecting their customers so that they can expect high contribution of
customers.
Identify what the brand says about customer service and beliefs and organisational culture
Essential principal of managing customer experience:
About discuss some of the essential principles that are embedded in culture on which overall
process of managing customer experience built up in case of Holiday Inn (Malek, ., Sarin, and
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Jaworski, 2018). Apart from this there are several other dimensions that are adopted by the
organization for managing the overall customer experience. The dimensions that are used by
organization such as are discussed below:
1) Ecosystem: It is the one of most important elements that is the system and culture that is
provided to all the stakeholders that are associated with the organization. It is very important to
be considered in holiday in that without right people and right system in place cannot be created
sustained or delivered (Ieva, 2019)
2) Delivery: Age related with overall communication that takes place across various functional
departments in an organisation. In case of holiday in there is a proper communication channel
that has to be set up between the operational department and the front office department, front
office department is responsible for taking timely Orders and operational department has to
ensure that everything is right in place when a customer is checking in (Venkatesan, 2017).
There has to be proper all the function areas so that value is delivered to a particular customer.
3) Empathy: It is a place where the experience of a customer is present. It is related with
addressing the Expectations of customer in such a manner that there is highest level of the
satisfaction that is reached by a particular organization (VenkatesanPetersen. and Guissoni,
2018). It is very important to consider the human element of a customer experience as if this is
not considered then overall experience for a customer becomes meaning.
4) Customer touch points: Customer touch points are actually the point of interaction place
finally between organization and a customer. In Holiday Inn, the customer touch point will be
when the organization is successfully able to meet the expectations that have been set up by a
particular customer. Such as it consists of different types of services apart from regular hotel is
offered to a customer, all these services are helpful in increasing the overall customer experience.
5) Pathway: These are related with the overall journey of a customer that they go through while
availing the services of an organization (Homburg, Schäfer, and Schneider, 2012). In case of
holiday in pathway will help in delivering the anxiety of their customers and helping them in
solving their entire problem so that they are able to retain customer for longer duration of time
and increase the customer loyalty.
Above discussed are some of the key factors that are necessary for management of overall
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customer experience increasing the amount of relationship that can be build up by organization
with their customers.
Demonstrate that an audit of all the manifestations of customer of the brand has been carried out
Audit of the customer experience can be conducted with the help of customer experience map
that can be sued by holiday inn for the purpose of establishing the interaction between a
organisation and customers. Holiday inn is using the customer experience map for understanding
the experience level of customers as discussed below:
Critically assessment of these against models and theories set out in the module and teaching
material
Search and plan: It is the first stage snap that is related with overall planning and searching.
Customers are always willing to make a research while they are taking a particular decision so
Holiday Inn has use different online available medium such as digital media applications for the
purpose of accessing and having a in Direct Access to customer reviews and feedback. It is a
medium that can help in accessing both prospective customers and the customers who have
already visited holiday in.
Booking: It is another area that is focused by different business organization such as Holiday
Inn. Have to be allowed to choose between different packages that are available for a
organization help the customers to access different offers and packages that are available for
them with the help of these digital media sources.
Check out the future process of customer engagement: After the customer have finally
availed a particular plan and they have visited the, place has to check the satisfaction by
understanding what are different views both positive and negative that have been provided by
starting customers and if there is any desk satisfaction level that is present for some customers
then efforts must be made to make sure that problems of such customers are understandable at
the same time to improve the overall level of satisfaction for these and satisfied customers.
Above discussed is the customer experience map that is very helpful audit manifestation that
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holiday Inn has carried out in recent years in order to understand the satisfaction level of their
customers and how overall experience can be mapped (Homburg, Jozićand Kuehnl, 2017). There
are certain customer touch points that have been created for announcement of customer
experience my holiday in such customer touch points are mentioned below.
There are some customer touch points that have to be taken care by organization and used by is
mobile application find that is used by holiday in as a opportunity for development of some
application that can help their customers in providing after service or before service feedbacks
that can be positive and negative at same time.
With the help of such social media or different types of mobile application it becomes very easy
to track the customer viewpoints related to what has been overall experience after a visit of
customer.
Website of the organization: Whenever a individual is planning their trip they are willing to
find solution for some of the issues that they have been facing at past or maybe probability of
occurrence in future. So they may require some clarifications and have some doubts that have to
be sorted by the members of customer service department of Holiday Inn (Cummins, Peltierand
Dixon, 2016). There is a requirement to take care that whenever a particular customer is any
doubt that has to be clarified as early as possible so that a quick response which can be provided
to a particular customer.
In hotel premises: It is one of the most important touch points that can be created by
organization where they actually interact with the customer in form of physical interaction
customer is actually availing all the promise services that have been to them by the organization
before their visit (Baker, 2016). It is very necessary to make sure that when they visit physically
there are able to get proper attention and high customization of services that can actually lead to
attainment of high competitive advantage by Holiday Inn.
About discussed, some of the essential touch points that have to be considered by holiday in
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while they are planning their and can help in monitoring and evaluation of the overall
performance that have been able to achieve by the organization their overall workforce.
Set out a substantiated set of recommendations to improve aspects of the customer experience for
this brand
After analysing the above report, there are some recommendations apart from the use of
customer touch points and customer mapping journey that must be adopted by Holiday Inn and
are listed below-
 The first recommendation is that as a host Holiday Inn should offer customers
complementary services with specialised service so that they feel special.
 Another one is that to enhance customer experience they should offer quality of
services to every customers.
 It is also recommended that they should use protective technology for safety as
well as security of their own customers.
 Moreover, skilled staff is to be acquired so that they handle & manages end users
properly.
 Further, rewards or discounts points should be provided to old end users so that
they do not switch to any other alternatives.
 Services are to be given in continuous process because it is important to make
them feel special.
 Multi-tasking front desk staff should be present 24 hours so that any guest if have
query can ask to them at any time.
 Then, proper use of communication is to be done because sometimes conflicts and
errors arise if proper message is not being communicated between both the
parties.
 They should have proper and broad knowledge of their product as well as services
so that they answerable to customers properly.
 One of the most crucial recommendations is that they should analyse as well as
examine feedback of every customer because it helps them to improve their weak
spot.
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 Also, they should deliver right services according to the needs and requirements
of every guest.
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CONCLUSION
From the above discussed points it can be said that is essential requirement to maintain
overall experience of customer especially for organisations that are part of hospitality industry.
There has been a total shift in the overall approaches that are used by organisation for the
purpose of losing their customers now there is use of customer centric and customisation
approaches where and each decision is made according to the demands and Expectations of a
particular segment of customers. There are different to such as customer mapping path and
customer touch points that can be used by industries for the process of the satisfaction level
achieved by a particular customer. According to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction level of
customers efforts must be made in order to, maximize the positive response of a customer for the
services that are being provided by organisation.
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REFERENCE
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