Report on Planning Customer Experience for Marriott Hotel, UK

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of customer experience planning for Marriott Hotel, focusing on key aspects such as understanding customer needs and wants, customer engagement strategies, and the creation of a customer experience map. It explores how touchpoints create opportunities throughout the customer journey and investigates the role of digital technology in enhancing customer relationship management. The report also delves into customer service strategies and their impact on the organization. Using Marriott Hotel in London as a case study, the report examines the hotel's services, reservation procedures, and customer feedback to identify areas for improvement and provide recommendations for enhancing customer satisfaction and achieving business growth. The customer experience map highlights touchpoints like hotel services and reservation processes, while the analysis of customer thinking and feelings offers insights into areas where Marriott can improve its offerings and gain a competitive advantage. The report concludes with actionable recommendations to boost customer engagement and profitability.

PLANNING FOR
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Learning Objective 1........................................................................................................................3
P1 Understanding customer needs and wants for the targeted customer groups...................3
P2 Customer engagement of different targeted groups..........................................................4
Learning Objective 2........................................................................................................................5
P3 Customer experience map.................................................................................................5
P4 In what manner touch-points create opportunities throughout the customer experience10
Learning Objectve 3.......................................................................................................................11
P5 Usage of digital technology in promoting customer experience.....................................11
Learning Objective 4......................................................................................................................12
P6 Customer service strategies.............................................................................................12
P7 In what ways customer service strategies help the organisation.....................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Today, customer experience plays a major role in identifying the important needs and
requirement of the organisation in order to achieve set growth and development. The report
identifies the expectations and needs of the market segments for the service industry. The chosen
organisation for the report is Marriott Hotel. The hotel is located in Kensington Square in
London, United Kingdom. It is having 200 rooms, 3 restaurants and one bar. The quality of the
service provided in Hotel is first class and unique as per the customer feedback. The report
analyses the expectations and needs of market segments for the service industry (Marriott and
Williams, 2018). It explores the customer experience map to create opportunities for the business
and investigate the impacts of digital technology in customer relationship management.
Learning Objective 1
P1 Understanding customer needs and wants for the targeted customer groups
It is important for Marriott hotel to understand the customer needs, wants and
preferences. It helps the organisation to achieve growth and success and maintain a better
advantage in provision of products and services to guests (Peppers and Rogers, 2016). Below
explained in what manner these customer needs and wants helps the Marriott hotel: Production of products and services accordingly: Identifying the customer needs helps
the organisation to understand what are the specific needs of their customers. These needs
helps the Marriott hotel to produce its products and services accordingly. For example,
Marriott hotel R&D department when understands the needs and requirement of targeted
customer groups such as family, it tends to understand what are the specific services that
the customer of family wants and requires in order to receive complete satisfaction. After
understanding these preferences and needs, the organisation tend to produces its products
and services accordingly and ensure customer satisfaction. Earning profitability: Evaluating the customer needs helps the organisation in achieving
required profitability. For example, targeted customer groups of Marriott hotels such as
couples which tends to arrive in the hotel in order to stay their for a period of time. The
hotel identifies their preferences, needs and wants (Bilgihan, Kandampully and Zhang,
2016). Fulfilling their needs satisfies these couples and makes the hotel to charge

required amount of money from them. This helps the hotel to earn required profitability
and gain a better advantage over its sold products and services. Marketing: It helps the Marriott hotel in its marketing practices. For example, the
targeted customers such as Business Travelers. The hotel understands their specific needs
and demands and creates advertisements and promotion strategies accordingly to attract
them. It helps to hotel to both attract the customers and prepare its marketing strategies
accordingly. This develops the hotel to gain a better consumer advantage as well as to
promote its products and services in such way that the targeted customers are attracted
towards the hotel.
 Provision of right food and beverages: Understanding the customer needs and demands
helps the Marriott hotel to provide right food and beverages to its guests. For example,
understanding the needs and demands of hotels target customers such as solo travelers
and backpackers help the organisation to understand what kind of foods and beverages
they are going to like (Weiss and Straub, 2018). Marriott hotel provides them with food
and beverages according the needs and ensure their satisfaction.
P2 Customer engagement of different targeted groups
It is important for Marriott hotel to have a good customer engagement in order to earn
good profits and ensure organizations growth and success. Below mentioned are the different
factors that drives and influences customer engagement in the hotel: Awareness: Creating the right awareness is one of the most essential factors that drives
and influences the customer engagement in Marriott hotels. It is important for the
organisation to have right awareness in order to achieve set growth and advantage and
earn required profitability. For example, the targeted customer groups such as families
living across the nation and the selected areas where hotel chooses to promote itself are
provided with the right awareness of the hotel and its provided services. It creates a good
engagement with the customers across the chosen areas of promotion and allows the hotel
to achieve set growth and advantage accordingly. Loyalty: Loyalty is another important aspect which helps the organisation to achieve set
growth and advantage and create a better customer engagement. It is important for the
hotel to earn a better loyalty from its customers in order to achieve set growth and
advantage (Gardiner, Neeley and Duerden, 2018). For example, targeted customer groups

such as solo travelers and backpacker tend to visit the hotel more often when they visit
London. Marriott hotel provides them with good satisfaction and ensures better safety
and security of them. It helps the organisation to achieve better loyalty from the
customers and these customer visits the hotel again and again because of the loyalty and
better provision of services (_Lyn Pont, On hospitality, Sipe, 2018). This helps the hotel
to create a good customer engagement and achieve set growth and advantage.
 Services: Marriott hotel when provides its customers with better services tends to gain
better engagement with its customers and increases the value of the organisation. For
example, its targeted customers such as Business Travelers, when provided with better
services, feels happy and satisfied. It helps the hotel to achieve better engagement when
these customer are happy and satisfied. These customers tend to increase the word of
mouth of the hotel and allows the organisation to increase its awareness along with
engagement within the new customer base.
Learning Objective 2
P3 Customer experience map
A customer experience map is prepared in order to document the experiences and
viewpoints of the customers. These maps are based on the research of the customers and
showcases their present usage of products and services of Marriott Hotel (Kandampully, Zhang
and Jaakkola, 2018). It allows the organisation to achieve required growth and success and
understand what the customer of the hotel think and feel about the sold products and services.
Below prepared is the customer experience map of the Marriott Hotel:
Exploring
Itineraries
Booking a
Stay
Pre-Stay During the Stay Post-Stay
Customer Experience
Before During After
Touch-points  Details
of the
Accom
modatio
n
 Bo
oki
ng
pag
e
 Pag
e
for
the
det
 Provided
Services
by the
hotel
such as
 Food
and
Beverag
es

 Support
channel
of Pre-
sales
 Bookin
g page
for the
stay
for
the
stay
 We
b
app
lica
tion
of
the
hot
el
ails
of
res
erv
atio
n
 Pag
e
for
the
det
ails
of
Ac
co
m
mo
dati
on
Spa, Gym
, Yoga
center
etc.
Thinking and
Feeling
 Lacking
of the
sophisti
cated
hotel
enterpri
se for
their
stay
 Brochur
e is
non-
 The
rese
rvat
ion
pro
ces
s is
too
co
mpl
icat
 Th
ere
is
no
dir
ect
wa
y to
pri
nt
the
bill
 Customer
s are not
happy
because
of the less
products
and
service
provision
 The
customers
are not
 The
custome
rs are
delighte
d when
provided
with
new
products
and
services

printabl
e
 Lacking
real
time
support
and
channel
 There is
no way
to
compar
e the
services
of other
hotels.
ed
 It is
not
pos
sibl
e to
boo
k
the
hot
el
wit
h
the
hel
p of
sma
rt
dev
ices
s of
res
erv
atio
ns
 Th
ere
is
ver
y
less
rec
om
me
nda
tio
n
whi
ch
hel
ps
in
und
erst
and
ing
of
the
ser
vic
es
able to
communi
cate to
the local
people
and
communit
y

 Ver
y
less
inf
or
mat
ion
on
tra
veli
ng
and
und
erst
and
ing
the
hot
el
env
iro
nm
ent.
Recommendations
Ideas for
Improvement
 The
hotel
can
support
advance
searchi
 Sim
plif
yin
g
the
pag
 Su
ppo
rtin
g
dir
ect
 Employee
training
for better
communi
cation
 Ensuring
 Sharing
of
products
and
services
of the

ng
options
 It can
support
whats-
app
 It can
support
a
printer
friendly
brochur
e
 Support
ing
more
sharing
options
for
accom
modatio
n
 Make it
possible
to
compar
e hotels
and
their
services
e
flo
w
of
boo
kin
g
 Ad
d
fiel
ds
of
hint
s
 Sup
port
via
app
s of
boo
kin
g
pri
nt
fun
ctio
n
for
Bill
s
 Pro
vid
ing
a
che
ckli
st
for
pla
nni
ng
 Sh
ow
s
ho
w
to
tra
vel
for
the
air
por
that the
employee
s are
aware of
the
language
which is
required
to
communi
cate with
the local
people.
organiza
tion to
the
custome
rs
 Better
food and
beverag
e service
provisio
n.

t
The above explored Customer experience Map explores the important touch point of the
organisation. The touch-points allows the organisation to understand at what places the
organisation can create a environment in which its customers are engaged more and more in
order to achieve set growth and success (Tung and Au, 2018). The map explains that the
important touch-points of the Marriott hotels which helps the organisation to achieve a better
customer engagement. These touch-points includes hotels services, its reservation procedures
etc.
In the next part the thinking and feeling of the customers are explored. These thinking
and feelings helps the Marriott hotel to understand what the customers feel about the hotel and
what changes the hotel needs to make in order to satisfy these customer wants and needs.
At last, important recommendations are made in order to provide the hotel with the
necessary improvements in order to achieve set growth and advantage as per the customer
experience and their thinking and feelings. The recommendations will provide the hotel with a
indication as in what manner its can improve its products and services to gain a better consumer
advantage and gain required profitability.
P4 In what manner touch-points create opportunities throughout the customer experience
Customer touch-points help the organisation in achieving required growth and
developments and ensure better customer service provision. It is important for the organisation to
achieve set growth and development by increasing the customer engagement and earn
profitability within the set business environment. Below mentioned as how touch-points create
opportunities throughout the customer experience in Marriott Hotel: By increasing awareness: Customer touch points helps the organisation in creating
awareness about the sold products and services. For example, Marriott hotel while
making use of touch-points such as emails and letters tend to mention about the services
and offers provided by the hotel. It helps the organisation to increase its awareness of the
sold products and services (Ivanova, 2016). Also, it creates opportunities for the
organisation to sell its products and services. Consumers when become aware of the
products and services sold by the organisation tend to make use of them while they visit
the hotel. These services include selling of food and beverages, accommodation etc.

 By gaining reputation: Customer touch-points helps the organisation in gaining
reputation. These touch-points often create opportunities for the organisation to develop a
reputation which promotes its efficiency and maintain new success. For example, when
the employees working in the organisation tends to maintain a good communication with
its customers. The customers feel good and its creates opportunities for the organisation
to develop a good word of mouth. A good word of mouth allows the organisation to
achieve set growth and development and maintain a better consumer and competitor
advantage. In this manner, the touch-points help the organisation to achieve growth and
success.
 By gaining profitability: Customer touch-points helps the organisation in achieving
better profits. For example, when customers in Marriott hotel are provided with right
services its helps them to have a good satisfaction and the hotel develops a good sense of
profitability and growth. The touch-points of service provision allows the hotel to gain
better profitability. When customers receives good service they to make use of the
services of the hotel again and again and its helps the hotel to gain good profits. This
helps the hotel to develop new opportunities to provide better service and ensure new
growth options.
Learning Objectve 3
P5 Usage of digital technology in promoting customer experience
Today, digital technology helps the hospitality organizations across the globe to achieve
set growth and development and ensure a better customer experience. In context of Marriott
hotel, the organisation makes use of Customer Relationship Management software in order to
retain its customers and provide them with effective services (Sharma, 2016). The Customer
relationship management software used by the hotel is an approach that manages the interaction
of the company with potential and current customers. The makes use of the company customer
history data analysis in order to improve relationship with the customers. The CRM mainly
focuses on customer retention and drives growth of the sales.
Marriott hotel understand the needs and requirements of its consumers from the help of
Customer relationship management software. It helps the organisation to enhance its customer
experience. It is important for the organisation to achieve better growth and advantage by
providing better services to it customers. In order to ensure this the hotel tends to understand

customer needs and requirement first. After evaluating these needs and requirements the
organisation inputs all of the information in CRM software. It helps the organisation to gain
better advantage in developing is products and services as per the set needs to the customers and
enhances their stay in the hotel.
The other important importance of adopted digital technology in form of CRM software
is that it provides a systematic collection of the relevant customer information. This information
includes their financial, conversational and historical information. It is important for the
organisation to achieve better growth and advantage by making use of this appropriate
information (Peppers and Rogers, 2016). Marriott organisation makes use of this information in
order to retain its customers by providing them with effective services by using their personal
information. In this manner the adopted digital technology helps the organisation to gain growth
and increases the customer experience as well.
Learning Objective 4
P6 Customer service strategies
Customer service is an important aspect in order to ensure that the Marriott hotel is
moving towards set goals and earning required profitability. In order to ensure this, the
organisation tends to develop important strategies which can enhance their overall service and
experience. Below mentioned are such core strategies used by the organisation: Team development and communication: Better communication is important in the
organizational environment in order to ensure better customer service. Marriott hotel in
order to achieve better customer service can make use of developing such teams which
can help the organisation to understand at what places it is lacking in provision of better
service. Making such teams will help the organisation in understanding the requirement
developments and to ensure growth and development as well (Bilgihan, Kandampully
and Zhang, 2016). Along with it, the organisation can teach its employees to maintain a
better communication with its guests. Effective communication can help the organisation
to retain its employees because this is one of the most important need and requirement of
the customers. They expect good communication from the hotel and the people they are
engaging with during their stay. It can help the organisation in achieving better growth
and improving its customer service.