Enhancing Customer Engagement and Onboarding in Mercury Holidays

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Planning for Customer Experience Management

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Executive Summary
The assignment studies the various aspects of the travel and tourism industry with a special emphasis on
the organization of Mercury Holidays, a tourism organization based out of the UK. It analyzes the
importance of catering to customer needs and preferences and present a customer experience map to
depict the efficiency within their system of handling customers. It also presents a comprehensive overview
of the various digital technologies and strategies used by the organization in order to facilitate a strong
sense of customer relationship management along with a set of recommendations.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................................4
LO1..................................................................................................................................................................4
Definition of target market and the importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences of target
customer groups..............................................................................................................................................4
Define customer engagement and explore the different factors that drive and influence customer
engagement of different target customer groups within Mercury Holidays......................................................5
Review how customer engagement factors determine customer on-boarding strategies for different target
customer groups within Mercury Holidays and evaluate a broad range of different target customer groups’
needs and expectations in terms of customer engagement............................................................................6
LO2..................................................................................................................................................................7
Create a customer experience map and chart the customer journey to explain customer experience in
Mercury Holidays.............................................................................................................................................7
Customer touch points create business opportunities. Discuss how the touch points create such
opportunities throughout the customer experience in Mercury Holidays.........................................................8
Analyse how Mercury Holidays can optimize each of the customer touch points to influence the behavior,
responses and actions of its customers to enhance the customer experience...............................................8
LO3................................................................................................................................................................10
Using specific examples of customer relationship management (CRM) systems, examine how digital
technology is employed in Mercury Holidays to manage customer experience............................................10
Evaluate how digital technologies employed in managing the customer experience within the travel and
tourism sector are changing CRM systems to effectively acquire and retain customers...............................10
Critically evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of CRM systems used in service sector businesses
for acquisition and retaining customers.........................................................................................................11
LO4................................................................................................................................................................12
Explain and demonstrate using examples drawn from Mercury Holidays how customer service strategies
create and develop the customer experience in a way that meet the needs of the customer and the required
business standards........................................................................................................................................12
Recommendations.........................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................................13

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References.....................................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
The travel and tourism industry is one of the fastest growing sectors across the world and this is all the
more pronounced in economies that are highly developed like the UK. Despite the conventional and
dynamic nature of the industry, organizations that cater to customers within it are highly adaptive and
emphasize heavily on accommodating the various needs and preferences of the customers in order to
ensure an overall positive experience. The report in question focuses on Mercury Holidays, a travel
organization based out of the UK that has achieved a large degree of repute owing to their continued focus
on enhancing the customer experience and facilitating a robust system of marketing utilizing modern
technologies and strategies.
LO1
Definition of target market and the importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences
of target customer groups
The target market is possibly the most important aspect with regards to the functionalities within the travel
and tourism and industry, and organizations that cater to the sector must focus on the same in a targeted
manner to ensure overall efficiency and optimization of the various processes involved (Bilgihan et al.,
2016). The target market of a company or an enterprise can be simply defined as a base of consumers who
are most likely to engage in a monetary transaction with the company in exchange for their products or
services. The prospect enables companies and enterprises to target their marketing strategies towards this
base of potential consumers, as it would be highly likely that a major portion of these potential consumers
could be converted into paying customers.
The importance of accommodating the ever changing preferences and demands of the consumers within
the travel industry is extremely important, as the entire sector is fundamentally customer-centric and
organizations that fail to understand the consumer needs typically find it difficult to grow their operations
and scale the enterprise in a sustainable manner (Xianget al., 2015). Understanding the needs and
preferences offers a host of benefits to travel organizations, some of which have been discussed below and
are as follows.
 The primary benefit that a thorough understanding of specific consumer needs and preferences would
entail is the fact that organizations would find it a lot easier to accommodate those needs and modify
their products and services accordingly with the objective of generating the highest possible figures of
sales. This subsequently would improve their overall profitability index and positively influence the
revenue margins (Agag and El-Masry, 2016).

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 Focusing on consumers and delivering a positive experience would significantly help a company to
build their brand and enjoy a relatively large degree of brand presence and awareness. The larger
outreach that they gain from the increase in the brand presence would further generate a larger volume
of sales thereby allowing the company to grow steadily and in a sustainable manner.
 It is an established fact that acquiring new customers is a lot more difficult as compared to retaining
existing customers. Focusing on the needs and wants of the customers, companies can efficiently
retain their customer bases and ensure that they prefer the company over its competitors and engage
in recurring transactions.
 The globalized nature of the travel and tourism industry often comprises of large ticket sizes, and
organizations that focus on appealing to consumers based on their specific preferences and demands
can pull in a major portion of these high ticket sales and substantially increase their margin of profit
(Musante and Bojanic, 2018).
Define customer engagement and explore the different factors that drive and influence customer
engagement of different target customer groups within Mercury Holidays.
Customer engagement is essentially a system of correspondence between an organization and a customer
that utilizes a plethora of different mediums and channels to effectively place the products and services of
the organisation to the customer (Marzo-Navarroet al., 2019). Customer engagement is largely a two way
process, whereby a response on the part of the customer is extremely beneficial and fundamentally
completes the overall engagement process. The concept is extremely important within the travel and
tourism industry as it creates a bond between the customer and the organization that essentially translates
into sales and revenue. However, this is largely driven by the quality of the product or the service assisted
by efficient marketing measures, and it is not different in the case of Mercury Holidays. The various factors
that drive the degree of customer engagement within Mercury Holidays have been discussed below and
are as follows.
 Mercury Holidays focuses heavily on making their packages and services accessible to the wider
consumer base in order to generate a larger volume of sales through targeted marketing strategies.
Accessibility is one of the key factors when it comes to customer engagement, and has significantly
improved the ticket sizes of customers for Mercury Holidays.
 Personalisation is another important aspect with regards to driving customer engagement, and Mercury
Holidays relies on their in house marketing team along with third party agencies to regularly
communicate with existing as well as prospective customers in a highly personalized manner.
 Mercury Holidays further tries to inculcate a sense of simplicity in every aspect of their business
operations, be it the components of their various packages, the user friendliness of their online
platforms, descriptions of locations and so on. This is another important element to ensure a high

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degree of customer engagement, as prospective customers would prefer convenience over
complexities within any sector including that of travel and tourism.
 Delivering a positive customer experience in accordance to the marketing policies is a key component
within customer engagement, and Mercury Holidays has emphasized on strictly ensuring that the
services that their customers receive hold true to the promotions and advertisements.
Review how customer engagement factors determine customer on-boarding strategies for different
target customer groups within Mercury Holidays and evaluate a broad range of different target
customer groups’ needs and expectations in terms of customer engagement.
The various aforementioned factors have been strategically integrated by Mercury Holidays within their
business operations, and this can be further witnessed in the company being declared as the best all
inclusive holiday company by the British Travel Awards in 2018. As mentioned by Christou (2015), the ease
of accessibility and the simplicity in their operational functionalities enables new customers to comprehend
information in a speedy manner, and this substantially increases the conversion rate for potential
consumers to purchasing customers. Their personalized marketing strategies involving a host of mediums
like social media, emails, letters and so on, have further progressed their objective of retaining customers in
a targeted manner.
In the context of needs and expectations of consumers within the travel and tourism industry, safety and
security is one of the key elements along with a professional delivery of services (Coutureet al., 2015).
Sustainability and environmental awareness is another important aspect that consumers tend to focus on in
the modern times, and this too has been well accommodated by Mercury Holidays in their quest to grow the
scale of their operations. The presence of the brand is relatively high and this has largely been possible
through an efficient system of delivering services. Positive reviews and feedback from other customers are
an important aspect within the travel and tourism industry, and Mercury Holidays focuses on addressing the
queries and grievances of customers in a timely manner as potential customers are very likely to ascertain
the quality of an organization based on peer reviews.

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LO2
Create a customer experience map and chart the customer journey to explain customer experience
in Mercury Holidays.
Figure 1: Customer experience map for Mercury Holidays
Activites,locations,mealsCustomerexperienceFeedbackandreviewsWordofmouth

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(Source: Created by the learner)
Customer touch points create business opportunities. Discuss how the touch points create such
opportunities throughout the customer experience in Mercury Holidays.
Customer touch points are essentially the key contact points that an organization has with existing as well
as potential customers with the objective of making their product of service accessible and generating a
sale through rightful depiction of the selling points. Touch points can be fundamentally categorized into
three segments based on the timing of their occurrence, and this usually includes points before a purchase,
during a purchase and after the completion of the purchase (Kavoura and Kefallonitis, 2019).
The points that take place before the purchase typically relate to marketing strategies and an awareness of
the brand through word of mouth, testimonials and reviews. The marketing strategies for Mercury Holidays
include both conventional forms like print, media, radio, television and so on along with modern measures
such as online marketing, influencer plug in, digital media and so on (Coursariset al., 2017).
The points that take place during the purchase are the most integral part with regards to an overall positive
customer experience, and this includes both online as well as offline measures. The online measures would
include the various websites, booking platforms, catalogs and so on, while the offline measures would be
the direct marketing associates, sales teams at the physical outlets, telephonic conversations and so on.
The points that take place after the purchase are crucial to the long term growth of the company, and
include a thorough system of post-sales services, help centers, customer care teams, addressing of
grievances and queries and so on (Roberts, 2018).
The presence of an effective system combing the three aforementioned types of touch points are an
integral part within the travel and tourism industry, as the sector is relatively conventional and depends
heavily on peer reviews and prior experiences. Ensuring that all the components are facilitated in an
efficient and optimized manner would create opportunities for Mercury Holidays to substantially grow their
consumer base and in turn positively influence their scale of operations.
Analyse how Mercury Holidays can optimize each of the customer touch points to influence the
behavior, responses and actions of its customers to enhance the customer experience.
The touch points that occur before the purchase can be optimized through an intensive focus on market
research and subsequently improving their market strategies based on the analyses of the data collected
(Burmanet al., 2016). Moreover, an effective delivery of services in accordance to the promotions and
advertisements would further benefit these touch points, as customers would be more likely to purchase
from the organization based on their reviews and testimonials. Targeted marketing strategies would also
enable Mercury Holidays to funnel in customers and ensure that they prefer the organisation over its
competitors owing to the quality of services. The touch points during purchase can be optimized through an

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emphasis on orientation programs and training measures for the staff members and the associates, as they
would essentially be the first point of physical contact between the organization and the customer. The
online touch points could be further improved with regards to easy accessibility of information and payment
gateways along with accurate descriptions of locations and itineraries. Collaborations with other websites
and booking platforms could also help Mercury Holidays in garnering a larger outreach and subsequently
generate a larger volume of sales. Post purchase touch points would again have to be optimized in an
internalized manner, and this would primarily involve the presence of an efficient customer care team that
addresses the queries and the grievances of the consumers in a timely and appropriate manner. Training
workshops could also be facilitated in order to increase the efficiency of the customer support executives
and ensure that the customers are provided with an overall positive experience (Horner and Swarbrooke,
2016).

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LO3
Using specific examples of customer relationship management (CRM) systems, examine how digital
technology is employed in Mercury Holidays to manage customer experience.
Customer relationship management is a crucial aspect with regards to retaining customers and growing the
organizational scale in the long run. In the context of Mercury Holidays, the organization relies on a host of
digital measures in order to attract customers, convert them into sales and effectively retain them over a
prolonged period to initiate a recurring system of transactions. Social networking is one of key components
within the overall system of managing customer relationships, and Mercury Holidays focuses on the same
in a highly strategic manner through their in house marketing teams and external third party agencies. This
allows the sales associates to close sales in an efficient manner thereby increasing the profitability of the
company (Tungate, 2017).
Another example is the presence of effective point of sale applications within their websites and online
platforms, which accounted for almost 22% of their sales in the year of 2018. As more and more consumers
prefer to facilitate logistical issues online within the comfort of their homes, maintaining a website that is
easily accessible and comprises of all the necessities related to travel like booking hotels, flights and
itineraries has become increasingly important. This has been significantly comprehended by Mercury
Holidays as can be seen in their strong digital presence that has also been awarded at several travel and
tourism ranking awards.
Business analytics and consumer preferences can also be studied in a more effective manner through the
implementation of digital measures, and Mercury Holidays utilizes the same heavily to narrow down their
target consumers to create a more effective funnel. This allows them to ensure a relatively high conversion
rate with regards to customers that look for information and customers that actually end up engaging in a
monetary transaction (Soet al., 2016).
Evaluate how digital technologies employed in managing the customer experience within the travel
and tourism sector are changing CRM systems to effectively acquire and retain customers.
Digital technologies within the field of customer experience and customer relationship management have
dynamically changed over the years, and in today’s times, it includes a distinctly targeted emphasis on
researching the market and the preferences of the consumers in a broader context (Rahimiet al., 2017).
The effective analysis of consumer data and buying behaviors allows organizations to place their
advertisements and promotions to consumers that are most likely to engage in a transaction and exactly at
the times they are most likely. This allows a massive conversion rate that is largely automated and organic,
and the same has been a key component with regards to the large number of organisations within the
travel and tourism industry growing at exponential rates. The increasing effectiveness of modern
technologies in enabling organizations to pull in more customers has been acknowledged and integrated by

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industries and sectors irrespective of their nature. Moreover, the proven working methods have further
attracted large organizations as well as smaller establishments to adopt a digitized measure of their
operations. This is also due to the massive surge in the internet penetration numbers across the world,
which is only projected to grow in the coming years.
Critically evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of CRM systems used in service sector
businesses for acquisition and retaining customers
The customer relationship management systems employed by organizations have rapidly increased the
overall scale of industries when considering the wider business environment. However, the concept has
witnessed a host of negative impacts along with the plethora of advantages it offers. The advantages
primarily relate to a structured accumulation of consumer data and buying patterns, which allows
organizations to efficiently develop accurate market insights and subsequently engage in strategic
marketing measures. As mentioned by Litvin et al., (2018), the process of conversion with regards to sales
has also improved significantly while simultaneously increase the productivity levels of organizations and
the associates involved. Territorial barriers have largely been mitigated owing to the global nature of the
concept, and customer experience has also been substantially improved owing to the ample scope for
personalized marketing and resolving queries and grievances.
However, as argued by Diffley et al., (2018), customer relationship management systems do have their fair
share of limitations, and the primary limiting factor that has been witnessed is a sense of over dependence
on automated networks. Unauthorized breaches and security issues are another constant threat, along with
the financial drain that the initial implementation measure imposes on an organization. Moreover, the
concept of digitized customer relationship management systems is relatively contingent and the degree of
success largely varies from business to business. As the system is largely process driven, it requires a
good grasp of technical competencies and could increase the operational expenses for smaller
establishments significantly.