Report on Managing Customer Experience in Hospitality Industry

This report delves into Customer Experience Management (CEM), focusing on its application within the hospitality industry, specifically using Riverbank Park Plaza as a case study. It explores the expectations of target customer groups and the factors influencing customer engagement. The report defines digital technologies used in CEM, evaluates their application in the service sector, and critically assesses the advantages and disadvantages of CRM systems. Furthermore, it details customer service strategies, including experience mapping and touchpoint analysis, to enhance customer engagement and satisfaction. Recommendations for improvement in customer service strategies are provided, emphasizing the importance of customer-centric approaches, employee training, and rapid response to feedback. The report concludes with a discussion on developing consumer experiences within the hospitality industry, highlighting the importance of customer engagement and strategies to achieve it.

Managing the
Customer Experience

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 1 & LO 2....................................................................................................................................3
Covered in PPT...........................................................................................................................3
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................3
P5 Defining the digital technology which is used in managing customers experience. ............3
M3 Evaluate how digital technologies applied in managing the customers experience within
the service sector.........................................................................................................................4
D3 Critically evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of CRM systems in service sector....5
LO 4.................................................................................................................................................5
P6 Customer service strategies in specific service sector...........................................................5
P7 Create & develop consumer experience in hospitality industry............................................7
M4 Recommendations for improvement in customer service strategies....................................9
D4 Apply the effective customer experience management.........................................................9
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Customer Experience Management is the practice of designing strategies and reacting to
customer interactions to meet their expectations which leads to greater customer satisfaction,
loyalty and advocacy (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016). This also helps in maintaining long-term
relations with the customers. For the purpose of understanding this report better, Riverbank Park
Plaza which is a hotel located on South Bank of the River Thames, Central London, UK is taken.
Renowned for creating memorable moments for both leisure and business travellers with stylish
guest rooms and versatile meeting facilities complemented by restaurants and bars. This report
cover topics such as expectations and requirements of target customer groups and factors that
drive and influence customer engagement. This report also covers a customer experience map to
create business opportunities and ways in which customer touch points can be optimized. A
detailed analysis of how digital technology can be employed in managing customer experience is
done. Also service strategies are discussed to develop better customer experience.
LO 1 & LO 2
Covered in PPT
LO 3
P5 Defining the digital technology which is used in managing customers experience.
Digital means the electronic technology that can be act, viewed and distributed on the
digital electronics devices. It is beneficial for improving the profitability, speed, loyalty,
consumer experience as well as the digital security. Digital media includes the software, digital
videos, pictures, websites, video games, social media, web pages etc. This is most effective
marketing tool as compared to the traditional methods or strategies as it helps in covering the
wide range of market. Although, the digital instruments assists in ensuring their loyal customers
for long time duration (Cetin and Walls, 2016).
Within the context of Riverbank Park plaza, the company welcomes travellers to central
London with an idea location on the south bank of River Thames. This company use digital
media for performing their operations and activities such as: details about the rooms, services
and overall informations as well as all issues are handled and solved at online platform or
virtually. This will helps company for creating the awareness about their services, driving the
conversation of all persons including consumers and keeping their present customers happy and

satisfied. To maintain customers loyalty a company grants attractive offerings like discounts and
coupons this benefited to the company in encouraging their users to continuously utilize their
services and execute all the business operations in an effective way. Also, the digital
technologies assists in analysing the source where the traffic emerges in the company as well as
helps in increasing the business sales and profitability (Lanier and Hampton, 2016).
Moreover, there is various tools and techniques are available for digital media which was
adopted by the service sector company such as Riverbank Park plaza. Customer relationship
management means to prepare the effective strategies for the customers and competitors as well
as adopts the changes on the behalf of customers need. The company uses some software for
collecting the feedbacks of users and solving their problems on time in order to achieve the
desired outcomes. That software are described below:
Cherwell Software: It is a global leader in managing service sectors of hospitality
industry which emphasis on improving the service delivery and organizations outcomes. It offers
deep-dive programming on Cherwell software tools and solutions. This software has announced
the clear connect London conferences. The Riverbank Park Plaza, use of ITMS software and
increase its capabilities to drive growth, they are looking to proficient and skilful who can share
their acquisitions and best learning practices (Sharma and Rather, 2015).
Electronic customer relationship management software in hospitality: This software is
designed for the purpose of maintaining all data's of their customers effectively and efficiently.
This will helps in maintaining long term relationship with their existing and future customers by
fulfilling the consumers requirements. For this purpose a company needs digital surface to retain
their loyal customers and manage long term relationships with them and attract new customers
also (Martin, Mortimer and Andrews, 2015).
M3 Evaluate how digital technologies applied in managing the customers experience within the
service sector.
In the fast changing environment of businesses as well as market that have very quickly
warmed up and embraced the technological advancement of IT systems, artificial intelligence or
machine learning etc. For incorporating the digital transformation into customer experience
strategy has become inherent for the businesses to expand and grow (Bharwani and Jauhari,
2017). During the coming technologies which is controlled by remote and automation
techniques would shuffle businesses more and more extreme from the customers. Digital

technologies employed in managing the customer experience are changing customer relationship
management system for the purpose of effectively acquire and retain customers. Process of
analogue media enables company to recognise and acknowledge its consumer preferences also
analysing and managing the drawbacks in its existing operations. This will helps in changing the
CRM system to manage their customers in an effective and efficient way.
D3 Critically evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of CRM systems in service sector.
Customer relationship management systems plays both role for acquiring and retaining
the customers for KP snacks (Khan, Garg, and Rahman, 2015). It allows for the consolidation of
customers informations and deep insights by reducing the time and cost along with increasing in
the productivity of workforce. Also, enhancement in providing better services to its users and
effective selling of performances as well as helps in acquiring and retaining the customers for a
long time. In addition, lack of control over the data because some applicants use remote internet
connection to save customers records. Also, company needs to frame training schedule for their
employees, it takes time for better productivity. As well as it is not suitable for all kind of
organization and results in less attraction by customers.
LO 4
P6 Customer service strategies in specific service sector
For any organisation customers are the most important factors of its success. Their
satisfaction with the products and services help the business to grow and have competitive
advantage over other rivalry firms. In the context of Riverbank Park Plaza, it is important to
formulate such strategies that can help it in capturing the target customers towards its business
and increase its revenue (Calder, Isaac and Malthouse, 2016). Following steps are to be followed
to formulate customer service strategies : Assessing the market needs : This includes determining the needs and wants of the
customers from hospitality industry. The urgency of service which means how quickly
the service will be availed by the customers. For e.g. during the peak season when many
tourists come to London, the need of customers for comfortable accommodation increase
that can give a relaxed and comfortable hospitality experience. Market size also influence
customer service strategies like to capture international markets, online presence of the
company needs to be increased and made prominent, the websites needs to be structured

so that they are easily accessible for customers. Cost of acquisition of customers also
influence the customer service strategies. It can be calculated by dividing all the costs
spent spent on acquiring more customers by the number of customers acquired in the
period when money is spent. This helps in estimating the expenses that need to be done
on advertising and improving its facilities. The uniqueness of the product and service
gives the business a competitive advantage over other rivalries and also helps in
acquiring more customers. Speed of the market is another factor which helps in
formulating customer service strategies. It is the amount of time taken by a business to
launch a product or service and make it available to the customers (Melero, Sese and
Verhoef, 2016). Experience mapping : Mapping the experience from a customer perspective helps
organisations identify strategic opportunities, customer pain-points and generate
innovative changes in its products and services. For this a business should understand
their target market groups so that Riverbank Park Plaza can cater to the needs and wants
of their customers and improve relations by providing customer satisfaction. In order to
conduct an experience mapping, the staff of the hotel can interview their best customer
groups to know about their feelings and thinking related to the services, facilities and
ambience provided at the hotel. Customers considerations needs to be captured and
improvements must be made as quickly as possible so that least trouble is caused and
hassle-free stay of the customer can be ensured. Every touch-point where customers
interact with the business must be analysed in detail so that their effect can be analysed
and improvements be made accordingly (Jiang, Ramkissoon and Mavondo, 2016).
 Touch-point analysis : It is the sum of all customer's interactions with a company over
time which builds or destroys the brand image the company. It helps in analysing
customer insights about their experience and opportunities to improve that experience.
Pre purchase means before buying a particular product or service. Customers book their
hotels by first evaluating and comparing reviews and ratings. During the stay, facilities
provided by the hotel according to customer specifications are the touch-point of
customers. After stay, thanksgiving gifts to the customers, easy billing system etc. are the
touch-point (Wali and Wright, 2016).

Following are some customer service management strategy that can be used by
Riverbank Park Plaza to improve customer engagement : Create a customer service vision : The vision and mission of the company must be to
provide customer centric services so that maximum satisfaction can be ensured and better
relations can be maintained so that more customers can be retained. Assess the customer needs : The customer needs must be the priority of the company and
it should make best possible efforts in order to fulfil their needs so that sales can be
increased(Busalim,2016). Hire the right employees : By hiring the right employees in an organisation can help in
better dealing with customers by effective interpersonal skills, problem solving tactics
through knowledge and experience, dealing with multilingual customers so that they can
feel connected etc. Set goals for customer service : By setting goals about providing best possible service to
the customers and capturing them so that better relations can be maintained and they can
be retained (Cetin and Walls, 2016). Train on service skills : The staff must be trained so that their skills of customer handling
can be improved. Training and development programmes can help in achieving these
objectives.
 Attend to negative reviews ASAP : Any negative feedback must be taken care of ASAP
and necessary improvements must be made so that no problems are faced by the
customers (Stein and Ramaseshan, 2016).
P7 Create & develop consumer experience in hospitality industry
Organisations develop various strategies which aids them in retaining customers and
ensuring maximum customer satisfaction. These strategies help in engaging customers with the
business which means emotional connection between a customer and a brand. Highly engaged
customers buy more, promote more and demonstrate more loyalty. This can be done by
providing high-quality customer experience so that they are highly impressed by the services and
products and are ready to purchase from the same brand again (Homburg, Jozić and Kuehnl,
2017). This gives them the value for their money and worthiness of the brand increase. Customer
service strategies can help in meeting the needs of the customers and business standards which is
demonstrated as follows :

 Create a customer service vision : By having a vision and mission which must focus on
providing services to customers with highest level of quality by performing consistently
to deliver value-added services to them. This helps in achieving goals of Riverbank Park
Plaza of providing renowned services to both leisure and business travellers with stylist
guest rooms and versatile meeting facilities. This helps in building its brand image among
customers (Manhas and Tukamushaba, 2015). Assess the customer needs : By properly assessing the customer needs, Riverbank Park
Plaza can cater to the needs, wants and preferences of the customers in a better way that
helps in acquiring more customers and retaining them. It can also help in providing
competitive advantage over other rivalries and increase customer satisfaction. By touch-
point analysis the needs of customers can be assessed and necessary improvements can
be made in strategies (Halvorsrud, Kvale and personality Marbach, 2016). Hire the right employees : Hiring the right employees can help in maintaining a pool of
highly skilled and talented employees with great interpersonal skills to cater to the needs
of customers. This helps in fast addressing to customer problems and reducing cost of
mistakes. The employees must be hospitable in their dealing with customers which builds
trust among customers and helps in bringing goodwill to the company. Set goals for customer service : By setting goals in Riverbank Park Plaza that are
customer specific i.e. related to achieving customer satisfaction and their retention. This
helps in improving sales and gain more customers. It also helps in solving customer
problems and controlling business costs. This decreases business costs and achieve
business standards ( Lages and Nunan, 2016). Train on service skills : By providing appropriate training and development skills to the
staff members, better services can be given to the customers that not only increases
customer satisfaction but also helps in retaining employees. This decreases the cost of
acquisition of customers as the existing customers can help in bringing more customers
by word of mouth advertising about the services provided by Riverbank Park Plaza.
 Attend to negative reviews ASAP : By addressing to negative reviews if any given by
customers, the problems at root levels can be solved immediately. This helps in meeting
goals and objectives of Riverbank Park Plaza and also improve performance so that more
customers can be attracted and sales can be increased thereby increasing its profits.

M4 Recommendations for improvement in customer service strategies
Riverbank Park Plaza must provide 24/7 services to customers to address any query or
handle grievances of customers effectively. This helps in customer satisfaction and retention of
customers. Technology can be updated and artificial intelligence can also be administered so that
customers can be informed about any updates in the services or discounts or offers that are
available (Tseng, 2016). The feedbacks from customers must be given attention proactively so
that the issues can be solved ASAP and no trouble is caused to them while their stay.
D4 Apply the effective customer experience management.
Customers plays a very vital role in the market as well as in businesses they are regularly
interacts with multiple brands as well as expecting more and new things at all time. Customer
experience management is the practices of designing and reacting on the customers requirements
to meet their expectations. This will helps in increasing the users awareness, satisfaction and
loyalty. Competitions and technological advancement reducing the barriers to enter new firms
which helps in motivating firms to implement the several strategies for building a deep and
strong attachments with its customers. This kind of strategy termed as a customer engagement
and helps in maximises them.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that customers are the main driving force that
influence the strategies of hospitality industry. Hospitality is all about creating a positive
relationship between host and guest. A vibrant and welcoming environment helps in ensuring
customer satisfaction by fulfilling their needs and requirements so that customers can be made
loyal. Hotels need to devise strategies to enhance the experience of customers at each touch-
point that helps in building long-term relations with the customers.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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