HNC/HND Unit 02: Customer Experience Management Report

This report delves into the multifaceted realm of customer experience within the hospitality sector. It begins by emphasizing the critical importance of understanding customer needs and preferences, and then proceeds to identify the key factors that drive and influence customer engagement, ...Read More

MANAGING CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Importance of understanding the needs and wants of target customer group..............................1
Factors driving and influencing customer engagement...............................................................2
Customer Experience Map influencing behaviour, responses and actions of customers............4
Digital technology in managing the customer experience...........................................................6
Advantages and Disadvantages of Customer Relationship management Software.....................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Customer experience could be defined a perception of the customer at both conscious and
sub conscious level depending on the relations build by the interactions wit brand during its
entire customer cycle. Practice to design and react over customer interactions for meeting and
exceeding the customer expectations thereby increasing customer satisfaction, advocacy and
loyalty. Customer management is very broad term it is not limited to just selling of products or
services. Companies are required to know from where there customers are buying and what they
are buying. For giving them the best experience companies have to know what are their tastes
and preferences. Customer management is becoming a very trendy and important concept for
organisation of every industry (Buonincontri and et.al., 2017). Companies arr required to serve
the needs of each customer for building its brand image. Way of communication and responding
to their feedbacks are all counted in customer experience. This report will give an understanding
about needs and preferences of customer and its importance, factor that drive the customer
experience. It will cover the how digital technology can be used in managing the customer
experience.
Importance of understanding the needs and wants of target customer group.
It is important for companies to know their customers as only that can help company to
get a better lead in the business. Every company wants to give their customer best experience
and for that its is necessary to understand the customers and their tastes and preferences. This
will help in building strong customer relation ships. Before understanding the customer
businesses are required to decide what customer group the are going to target. Than they can
focus on customers on the basis of products they are planning to serve.
Organisation are required to know why the product of their company would be purchased
by the customers. How often customers are going to use that product or service. Purpose behind
purchasing the product and the place from where the product could reach customer easily. All
these questions are important to know the customer so that their needs and preferences could be
satisfied at the best (Chan, Barnes and Fukukawa, 2016).
Counter Culture should assess the needs and demands of their customers and also what
are their tastes and preferences. These should be identified considering the target customer group
and the regions they are serving. Being a restaurant this will help in knowing which is the best
preferred food and dishes of the region or the people are much more towards different tastes. By
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knowing it will be able to provide the servings that are most demanded or by creating own
serving mix. It the restaurant is focusing over families it have to design and mange its internal
operations according or if they are planning for youngsters. Knowing the customers will help
them in delivering the right product and services at time, and it would not be required to
spending over experiments to know their interests. This will be saving both time and money of
the restaurant. London- centric will be able to customize its operations for creating loyalty and
bringing repetitive business. Customer interactions will enable restaurants to create better
opportunities for providing positive experiences (Connolly, 2019). This does not ends to
knowing the customers about their tastes and preferences, it is also essential to know the
suggestions for adding to their experiences. They should take after service feedback from
customers and their likes and dislikes in the restaurant.
Factors driving and influencing customer engagement
Only the products or service could not drive customers. There are number of factor that
drive the customer experiences. Businesses are required to consider these factors for proper
performance so that they can drive customers towards the restaurant by managing these driving
factors. These are some of the factors influencing customer experience.
Accessibility
This factor does not sound strong but have important standing. Customers are most likely
to visit places that are accessible to them. Customer must be able to visit the restaurant without
any barriers or frictions. Restaurant should be accessible over mapping and they should create
awareness in people about its existences. This is an influencing factors customers move towards
places which are their in minds and are aware.
Physical Environment
Studies have shown that location of the restaurants, sensory stimulations, visual
representations are the factors that also influence the customers. Customer behaviour is
influenced and modified by the designs and ambience provided by them. Environment of the
restaurant are to be designed according to the customer groups they are planning to serve. It is
essential for restaurant to ensure that they provide the best ambience and environment to its
customers so that they are not moving towards other restaurants (De Keyser and et.al., 2015).
Physical environment is the important aspect of restaurant therefore they are required to research
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on the needs and requirements of customers and what there competitor are providing to the
customers.
Social aspect
Social aspect refers to the way of interaction with the customers. This is an essential
factors regarding the business as they are influenced by various issues like the interaction of the
staff with their customers. Consumer visit back to places where they are treated with respect and
given special preference. This creates emotional attachment with the place and they tend to visit
such places again. Other factors include the social group of the consumers, if one member got the
better it is likely to suggest the place to other members of the group. Therefore, it is important for
the restaurant to ensure they provide the best experience to very customer that visit the place. At
the same time a negative experience will influences whole group and people whoever interacts
with that group.
Other amenities and facilities
Providing something extra to the consumers will also always attract them to such places.
Providing customers extra facilities in the same charges drags the customer towards the
restaurant. Restaurants provide facilities like free wi-fi, complementary dishes on birthdays and
special occasions. Providing business professionals spaces to work or carry out business meeting
is an other factor that influences customers (Godfrey, 2019). There are various restaurants that
provide extra services to its customers and selected category of customer.
Economic Aspect
It covers the monetary aspects influencing the customer behaviour. Purchasing power of
the customer also influence the decision about choosing as particular place. Restaurants that have
high facilities and service charge high prices for their services. Customers are driven towards
places that are economical as well as provide better services at same costings. Costs are the
important factor driving behaviour of customer towards a particular product or service.
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Customer Experience Map influencing behaviour, responses and actions of customers
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Website It is one of the most important touch point for consumer. In this Counter
Culture restaurant London can provide information about the services
which they are providing on their websites. Consumers can explore
website and get know about the variety of food which is being served by
the restaurant. They can also look open the offer provided by café on
website
Review sites Counter culture restaurant can also prepare their review sites so that
consumers can give their feedback over there. This will help restaurant
in analyzing the quality of services provided by them. This will also let
them solve the problems which are being faced by consumers. Also
consumers can view other people review before exploring the
restaurant.
Text messages This can also be used by Counter culture restaurant to make consumers
aware about the new offers which are being provided them. In this they
can make customer aware about the discount offered by them. They can
also involve in greeting consumers via text messages (Peretti and
Sawhney, 2016). This can attract more customers towards them
E-mails Counter Culture restaurant can also send emails to their premium
consumers. In these emails they can provide their premium consumer
extra benefits like for example they can offer them deal of buy one food
item and get one free. So these kind of email will support restaurant in
retaining the consumers.
Paper mail This can be send by Counter culture restaurant to consumers at their
home. This paper mail can be made really attractive by giving it
appropriate design so that while giving it customers, they get attracted
towards the restaurant. In this restaurant can provide their personal
information like contact number so consumer can contact them and have
knowledge about products offer by them.
Telephone Counter culture restaurant can also make use of telephone to contact
their consumers. By this they can make customer know about the new
innovations that restaurant is going to bring. Customers can also make
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restaurant know about the quality of services provided by them.
Consumers can also order food with the help of telephone.
Restaurant
environment
Counter culture restaurant must make sure that environment of
restaurant is peaceful, so that they can easily able to retain consumers.
As there are many consumers who come to café solely for the purpose
of having peace. Better environment can also increase the goodwill of
the restaurant
Restaurant staff Counter culture restaurant also needs to make sure that the restaurant
staff is being properly trained. They provide the proper garnish food to
the consumers, so that they can satisfy and increase the consumer
experience. This can also help restaurant in increasing the consumer
loyalty.
Restaurant
management
Counter culture restaurant must also be engage in making proper
management, as this will support them in focusing on one aspect.
Making proper management will also help them in improving the
quality of their services. This will attract more consumers and will also
support restaurant in growing. It will also help them in increasing the
goodwill (Sit, Hoang and Inversini, 2018).
Digital technology in managing the customer experience.
In the current times no company can ignore the importance of digital technology in their
business. Technological advancement has helped the business to grow in the market at very rapid
speed therefore it is essential for company to ensure that digital technology is used in the
businesses for enhancing their experience. Digital technology helps in connecting the customer
to the business.
Customer experience can be used enhancing the customer experiences by providing them
quick services and digitally creating connections with customers
Customer Relationship Management System refers to managing the customers
digitally. Businesses are now well connected with their customers with the use of digital
technology. Businesses through their websites are able to expand their business globally. People
across the globe can connect to the restaurant from anywhere and make bookings for their visits.
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Restaurant are able to create their presence and recognition in the society with use of digital
technology. There are different technologies like mobiles, websites and social media which is
promoting the business highly in society (Srivastava and Kaul, 2016).
Emails
Emails are used for giving informations to the customers. Restaurants provide
information about all the upcoming events and new food they are bringing in the restaurants.
This helps in keeping the customers connected with the restaurant. Also they can be used for
resolving the problems faced by the customers during their visit.
Social media
Today every person is using social media in their everyday life. These platforms have
helped the businesses in gaining new heights. They are used as an important means for reaching
the customers in the present times. Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and twitter are the
most commonly used networking sites and used by large number of businesses for promotions.
Businesses are promoting their very product over these platforms like new fashion trend, new
outlet openings, new restaurants and many more. This is creating brand awareness among the
people over a large scale, friends and people share their experiences over these platforms by
reviewing the products and services. All the latest new and updates about every event spreads
like forest fore over these platforms therefore every business organisation is remaining active
over these networking sites.
Online distribution channels
Digitalisation is helping businesses in almost all the sectors. Digital technology has
helped in making the distribution easy and fast. The online delivery sites have helped the
restaurant to deliver its products direct to the customers at their doorstep. Customer are directly
able to place their orders from their home of their choice this is saving both time and energy of
the customers. After the online delivery systems restaurant have doubled it revenues, by
providing the service at their convenience. Customers are not required to physically visit the
restaurant for placing their orders. This digital technology is helping the restaurant to maintain
relationship with their customers (Sundaresan and et.al., 2019).
Customer Relationship management Software
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CRM is helping the business is to keep the data and other informations of the customers.
Restaurants can now connect to their customers with the previous records of information.
Restaurants sends text messages related to information about the events and traditions that is
going to happen in the restaurant. Restaurant is able to take feedback from the customers
regarding the services of its customers. This has helped the restaurant to improvise their services
for providing better customer experience. Whenever restaurant is having special offers and
occasions CRM helps them to inform the customers using different technologies. There are some
steps that will help in increasing the customer experience using CRM
Keeping in Touch
Customer experience is not complete without meaningful and ongoing insights.
Communication with the customers decide whether they will be visiting the place. When the
customers are having positive response they return back over the places. CRM containing wide
range of information has helped the organisation to deal with the customers accordingly based on
their past experiences and interactions. Restaurant can segment the audiences with right
messages rather than same types of information.
Listening to customer needs
Sharing information and opinions about the products and services they are serving
through different channels of communication like social media. Social listening provides the
restaurant with new insights that will help the organisations. Restaurants can receive reviews
about their product and their services from customers through emails and other text services.
This will help in knowing how much happy are the customers with their products and the
services.
Creating personal relationships
A unique way of creating relationships with the customer is personalizing the
communications. Customers are able to contact London-centric through variety of channels like
phones, mails and websites. CRM captures all the information regarding the customer and their
conversations give access to the entire information related to the business. This information
could be used for giving unique customer experience addressing them by their names and
responding to their issues straightforward without asking them to recall .
Providing attentive Customer support.
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Unique customer experience also include providing support and help when needed. The
software helps in ensuring that enquiry of any customer is not lost. Every request logged on the
central system could be accessed online by the restaurant. They can inform the customer on
receiving their request. Emails could include tracking informations, received information about
the suggestions that could be given to the restaurants. Customer receives attention that will help
them to build customer relationship.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Customer Relationship management Software.
Advantages
Allows effective marketing and sales
Huge amount of customer data about the customer interactions helps the organisations in
building clear image of customers. It helps in analysing and finding things that are going wrong
in the restaurant so that they can properly manage its operations. CRM helps in identifying the
most beneficial customers so that restaurant could target over those customer segment.
Speeds up Sales Conversion process
CRM systems that are integrated with marketing campaigns allow the insight into
prospective customer experience. This helps in enhancing the service experience and to focus on
high revenue generating services (Yi and Ahn, 2017).
Increases Productivity of staff reducing cost and boosting sales
Paperwork could be eliminated with the use of CRM software and it will help in reducing
its costs. Reducing the wasted time will increase the efficiency of customer and their experience.
They are required to delegate resources over the services that are costing less but are yielding
high productivity. This is helping the organisations to grow in the market by providing best
services.
Increases customer loyalty with exceptional experiences
Excellent customer experience are able to quickly and intelligently address problems and
queries of customers. This could by efficiently accessing customer data & transactional history
which allows the restaurant to familiarize with the needs and wants of customers. Investing in
CRM helps in increasing the customer loyalty and returns over the customer lifetime and value.
Disadvantages
Diminishing Customer Loyalty
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Their customer soft-wares are essential for reducing flexibility in dealing with
experiences of the customers. They at various times becomes helpless in answering the questions
of clients that requires lateral thinking to solve the problems. This may have obvious implication
for customer experience and clients get frustrated.
Security concerns associated with centralised data
Restaurant have to keep high security of the data and information about the customer.
Data is to be protected with security software. Restaurant might have to pay heavy penalty
regarding the security breaches and in CRM software employees hardly take care of security
concerns(Zink and Smith, 2015).
CONCLUSION
From the above research it could be conclude that managing customer experience is very
essential for the businesses. Customer are the ones to whom product and services will be
delivered therefore knowing needs, tastes and preferences of customers is important. Identifying
the needs and demands will help the restaurant to directly serve their requirements. Digital
technology has helped the business in enhancing the customer experience and revenues for it. It
has helped the organisation to keep its customer engaged to the business by sending them
regular updates about the business. Hence every business should use effectively manage its
customer experience.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Buonincontri, P. and et.al., 2017. Managing the experience co-creation process in tourism
destinations: Empirical findings from Naples. Tourism Management.62.pp.264-277.
Chan, S.F., Barnes, B.R. and Fukukawa, K., 2016. Consumer control, dependency and
satisfaction with online service. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and
Logistics.28(4).pp.594-615.
Connolly, M., 2019. Factors Influencing Consumer Wine Choice: The Case of Wine Tourism.
In Management and Marketing of Wine Tourism Business (pp. 43-61). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
De Keyser, A. and et.al., 2015. A framework for understanding and managing the customer
experience. Marketing Science Institute working paper series.15(121).pp.1-48.
Godfrey, D.M., 2019. Building Servicescape Culture: Examining Social Order, Spatial Change,
and Consumer Experience.
Peretti, P. and Sawhney, M., 2016. The Relative Importance of the Different Relationship
Platforms (Physical and Virtual) in the Consumer Experience of Luxury Brands: How
Has It Changed from the Company Perspective?. In Global Marketing Strategies for the
Promotion of Luxury Goods (pp. 133-154). IGI Global.
Sit, J.K., Hoang, A. and Inversini, A., 2018. Showrooming and retail opportunities: A qualitative
investigation via a consumer-experience lens. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services.40. pp.163-174.
Srivastava, M. and Kaul, D., 2016. Exploring the link between customer experience–loyalty–
consumer spend. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services.31. pp.277-286.
Sundaresan, N. and et.al., 2019. Virtual world system supporting a consumer experience. U.S.
Patent 10,242,032.
Yi, S. and Ahn, J.H., 2017. Managing initial expectations when word-of-mouth matters: Effects
of product value and consumer heterogeneity. European Journal of Marketing. 51(1).
pp.123-156.
Zink, M. and Smith, M.D., 2015. Managing HDR content production and display device
capabilities.
Online
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