Customer Experience Management: A Case Study of Thomas Cook

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Planning for Customer Experience Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
LO1: Needs and Expectations of market segments in service industry (P1 & P2).........................3
LO2: Customer experience map to develop business opportunities to optimise touch points (P3 &
P4)....................................................................................................................................................5
LO3: Impact of digital technology in Customer Relation Management (CRM) (P5).....................8
LO4: Effective customer experience management within service sector to maximize customer
engagement (P6 & P7)...................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
From the case scenario, it is been asked by the management on the role of Customer Experience
Manager to manage customer experience from pre-purchase expectations to the post-purchase
satisfaction. It also needs to understand specific market segments, which organisation serves the
opportunities for business development, expectations, and customer relations with engagement
drawn from digital technology. Besides, the expectations of market segments will work with the
preferences and needs of the target customer groups. Thus, customer engagement will decide the
on-boarding strategies for Thomas Cook, which is the chosen company that would work with
diverse expectations and needs (Thomascook.com, 2019). Further, a Customer experience Map
would be created to analyse the business opportunities, such that the impact of digital technology
in CRM can be effectively analysed.
LO1: Needs and Expectations of market segments in service industry (P1 & P2)
Target Market
According to Fidel et al. (2015), a target market is regarded as a group of organisations or
customers who are likely to purchase company’s services or products. As the buyers probably
need an offering for the company, it can make sense for company to focus the key marketing
efforts in reaching them.
Benefits of understanding needs and preferences of customer groups
As the tourism industry chosen is Thomas Cook in UK, it is important to analyse the product or
service offering to recognize the group of people. This group could include from potential to the
current clients. For instance, if Thomas Cook would be involved in booking of ticket facilities,
then the target would be mainly tourists of any age group, mainly the youths and adults. It is also
imperative to understand customer preferences, as most tourist organisations tend to side with
employees, and not on customers (Rafiq et al. 2013). Thus, it is quite true that employees are
known as a valuable asset to the company but customers can work out, as a major attribute.
According to Wirtz et al. (2013), Market Research is also regarded as a valuable tool, like
customers. This is where organisations have CRM system. The database consist data and

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statistics, which will help to understand preferences of key customers. In case, if data is not
enough, the use of quantitative and qualitative analysis could figure out. Likewise, Leung et al.
(2013) have asserted that a customer satisfaction survey is required for Thomas Cook to
formulate the questionnaires to analyse the responses from clients. Moreover, the importance of
customer preferences will be effective to develop relative market strategies. As such, the option
of media in marketing matters, since it decides whether customers can find the messages or not.
Since the brand is what client resonates, it is important that Thomas Cook have to re-brand their
service/product, so that customer gets attracted to it (Hollebeek, 2013). Further, promoting
loyalty will also value the new customers, rather retaining existing ones. In Thomas Cook, one
could stay loyal, while understanding the key expectations.
Customer Engagement
As opined by Wei et al. (2013), Customer engagement is considered as the emotional association
between a brand and the customer, which tends to provide high-quality customer experience.
Factors drive customer engagement for diverse target customer groups
With the rise of social and mobile technologies, customers nowadays are connected everywhere.
As the diverse target customers of Thomas Cook could be between age group of 12 to 60 mainly,
the firm takes up diverse strategies to engage them from flight tickets to hotel bookings. The
target customers will first analyse about Thomas Cook services, offers, and their reliability Bryce
et al. (2015). To analyse the long-term engagement of customers in age group 18-30, and 31-45,
they would be boosted by Interaction, Involvement and Influence. By making regular
interactions in services will make customers involved with Thomas Cook. As it specialises in
package holidays, cruise lines, hotels, and scheduled passenger airlines, customer engagement
has lot of options to select. Even, Thomas Cook also provides discount facilities, depending on
the package the customer selects. In UK, Thomas Cook is a reputed company, which has a large
customer base than others. According to Sørensen and Jensen (2015), it is vital to integrate
varied communication channels, which will maximise gains of each contact with customer.
Along this, the number of visits on Thomas Cook website could serve as a good experience to
the customer, to know the exact offerings of the tourism plan for different age groups.
Customer engagement factors decide customer on-boarding strategies for diverse target groups

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According to Bharwani and Butt (2012), a positive onboarding experience will confirm, if the
customers is defined on a right choice. Two underlying factors for customer churn could be they
do not attain value from it, or they do not understand the product. Obviously, the best way to
attract customer age groups of 18-30 and 31-45 could be to fulfil promises with the marketing
efforts drawn by Thomas Cook. The company also wants to create a seamless customer
experience, from touch points to post-purchase stage. While it is prioritised that on boarding can
increase customer lifestyle value, and this could turn the new users into the ravings fans. Bowden
et al. (2015) have stated that customer retention also helps to lower the acquisition costs and
enhance revenue. For Thomas Cook, it is decisive that to set clear expectations will work well.
Before buying the service of Thomas cook, the customer has to know, what they anticipates. The
sales process has to lay out qualifying factors to use the product. Before the new customer is
excited regarding the service offered by Thomas Cook, it is imperative to reemphasize value
being provided for that (Ashley and Tuten, 2015). Lastly, by staying in communication will be
effective to continue using email with onboarding process.
Broad range of target customer group’s expectations and needs
In case of customer engagement for Thomas Cook, their main product is to offer service to the
tourists with empathy, fairness, control, and transparency. As many customers know their wants,
it could be because they are not skilled to express thoughts, with the terminology of services and
products in Thomas Cook. Likewise, for the youth customer age group of 18-30, they should be
identified with patterns and assumption, so that they have likelihood to approach to the actual
conversations made (Neuhofer et al. 2015). The customer feedback of Thomas Cook could be
worked out by feedback surveys, comment boxes, or emails.
LO2: Customer experience map to develop business opportunities to optimise touch points
(P3 & P4)
Create Customer Experience Map, and chart customer journey to explain the customer service
Customer journey mapping is regarded as customer focus method to develop innovative service
concept, and optimising customer processes. In Thomas Cook, it shows where it could improve
customer contact to attain optimal customer experience across varied channels. The journey may

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also begin at an orientation and ends when guests come to home (Zhang et al. 2015). Hotels in
Thomas Cook could recognise data, by analysing the role in each step and reach with a correct
way.
Figure 1: Customer Experience Map
(Source: Bharwani and Jauhari, 2013)
A customer journey map actually focuses on individual travellers, and that is where a hotel can
identify expectations and desires of guests. They actually provide travellers services, which they
require at each step of the journey. The above Customer experience map shows service offered
by Thomas Cook, visualising how the guest might perceive hotel Check-in process (So et al.
2016). However, the guests in the hotel of Thomas Cook have to be satisfied, as 91% may not
return back, if they find terrible experience. For creating a Customer Journey Map, some of the
key steps need to be followed from the below table.
Steps Measures
Develop a clear vision for
the company
It has to be clear for Thomas Cook what the organisation needs, or what
the company could do. If there is a clear vision, it will lead to success.
The character of Thomas Cook may decide, how it will responds to
customer needs.
Make personas Thomas Cook’s hotel needs to make the personas, as they need to know
the kind of customer, and value that brings to hotel. The touch-points in
the journey depend on persona, as every persona anticipates something
from hotel experience. For having a good overview, the hotel should

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make personas like leisure, family, special needs and business (Rather and
Sharma, 2016).
Identify touch-points After personas, it is important to recognise touch-points in hotel journey
from diverse personas perspective. In doing this, the touch-points will
reveal effective experience for customers. The type of interaction for the
guest could be a key aspect for the touch-point (Romero, 2017).
Points of improvement and
look for solutions
In this case, it is important to look towards improvement, and find
possible solutions for Thomas Cook. From this session, it is important to
find options, if they are feasible for long-term and short-term objectives.
Table 1: Measures from the Customer Journey Map
(Source: Learner)
From the map, examine actions and activities taken at each customer touch point to create
business opportunities
Touch Points Activities Actions
Research Hotels The customer will research a list of
hotels from the list of options from the
website, by looking at the durability,
price and popularity.
The Action will be done by Google
Search, for keywords or clicking on
email.
Make Reservation Book the selected hotel for the
individual, by looking at the facilities
provided
Reservation will be done by putting
credentials of the individual in the
form of online payment/cash.
Arrive in Hotel The individual will arrive in hotel, after
a long flight.
Individual would look on the current
state of the hotel
Check In He would check-in to the room and keep
the luggage.
Register by giving all the necessary
details, including Passport or address
proof.
Use Guest Room He would then go to the guest room Guest room would be used

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where he has booked, and relax to plan
his vacation or business meeting.
personally to stay.
Use Amenities Amenities will be used by the hotel that
offers services, from meals to tourist
guides
Amenities will be provided by the
staffs, and there are other tourist
guides for reference help
Pay and Check Out Pay the extra bill and checkout finally
after the holiday trip.
The action will be performed by
form of cash or card, and checking
out from the hotel.
Depart Leave the hotel, and take good customer
experience moments from the vacation
provided by Thomas Cook.
Depart to nearby airport after the
successful trip.
Table 2: Activities and Actions from the Touch-points
(Source: Learner)
Customer touch points influence actions, responses, and behaviour of customers
From the touch-points, it is clear that it would set clear objectives and define the goals with the
set personas. The action is imperative, as it helps to identify when customers are anticipated to
attain their goals. Besides, the emotional driver of customer’s action is caused by a problem or
the pain point (Kandampully et al. 2015). However, it is important to know the desired state of
customer journey map, as they visualises emotions and actions from current experience while
interacting to Thomas Cook.
LO3: Impact of digital technology in Customer Relation Management (CRM) (P5)
With examples of CRM, examine how digital technology is being employed
According to Chathoth et al. (2016), digital technology has a significant role to play in Thomas
Cook from the high-speed internet, where travellers book their own flight tickets and choose
hotels online. With the Omni-Channel experience, Thomas Cook needs to ascertain that their
customers could be served in a seamless way. For travel brands, it is meant to get smarter, with

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the adaptation of the rise of customer expectations. The scalability shows that Thomas Cook
utilises CRM Programs, which will help to consolidate the guest data, aid in account managing,
automate payment, reporting, etc (Rafiq et al. 2013). It certainly means that business can rise to
produce higher revenue and ratings. As luxurious hotels are associated with Thomas Cook, as a
travel partner, CRM technology permits premium hotel chains to justify price tags with high
level of guest knowledge, in translating into a far better personalised service. For example, CRM
in Hyatt Regency creates a thorough profile for single guest. Utilising this, Hyatt is capable for
communicating to each guest across the travel lifecycle. They can learn more about the CRM
through the company interactions, and staffs (Wirtz et al. 2013). The service level is quite
personalised, drives high guest retention rate, and develops loyal brand advocates. The best part
of the CRM is that it generates new metrics to form a core area of future marketing spending. At
an average, it could serve around 25,000 clients in 100 countries approx. With CRM being
imposed, the utilisation of digital technology can find steady level of service, with effective guest
satisfaction (Hollebeek, 2013). It helps to supply marketing team with deeper understanding of
patrons, which drives better marketing strategy.
Digital technologies employed to manage customer experience
Prior to the digital technology, CRM has a major role to play to manage customer experiences.
As opined by Sørensen and Jensen (2015), employees in Thomas Cook equipped with Smart
devices and tablets easily can capture the customer demographics, or contact information with
marketing efforts. With the use of CRM, it helps Thomas Cook to record the detailed accounts
for customer service issues or the customer feedback. It also helps to compile the data, to
develop overall experience of customer base. With the rise of digital technology, CRM is helping
to find possible problems by searching online, or reading knowledge base, created by other
companies (Bharwani and Butt, 2012). It also provides them a 360 view of every customer to
bring transparency with the sales funnel. For example, Cymetrix Software is developed by a
CRM implementation company that maintains customer interaction histories and grows other
prospects. CRM could also be utilised in Thomas Cook, as their sales team can use information
to send the personalised recommendations for service or product, and develop higher chances of
conversion (Ashley and Tuten, 2015). Moreover, it could be asserted that customer management

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strategy increases value for existing customer, so that overall efficiency could be developed in
marketing certain services and products.
Advantages and Disadvantages of CRM systems in service sector for acquisition and retaining
customers
Advantages
For acquiring clients, it works in centralisation of information from a single place, and this is
easily accessible to all people involved in treatment or attention to the client. In case of Thomas
Cook, it allows adequate response to the management, which will develop customer service to
offer the appropriate services on customised products (Neuhofer et al. 2015). In order to retain
customers, Thomas Cook would allow a follow-up for clients, by which commercial department
can be capable to make tasks in an easier way.
Disadvantages
CRM does not generally work for most customers. It is being found that the tool is implemented
in customers, who are valuable. It also builds a learning relation that detects needs of the clients.
It also creates rejection, as it needs more time to motivate staffs for using the tool.
LO4: Effective customer experience management within service sector to maximize
customer engagement (P6 & P7)
Customer service strategies to outline objectives and policies
Thomas Cook is focused on bringing the renewed customers with a focus towards its marketing
with their new campaign. Their strategy will stand out to work in an increasingly competitive
travel landscape. To outline customer service strategies for developing objectives and policies of
Thomas Cook, it is vital to develop their service with first priority in UK. Travellers in Thomas
Cook tend to choose hotel for first time, based on location, price and brand. Besides, providing
service with remarkable experience by Thomas Cook will hold good relation with other hotels
with the company (Zhang et al. 2015). Along this, hiring productive employees that are
passionate regarding their services could be a key part of customer service, as they would be
effective to guide them.

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Customer service strategies experience meet business standards and customer needs
Now, it is vital for Thomas Cook that they need to prioritise on guest satisfaction, with their
association on the hotels. As guest experience is a key factor, they could be the potent marketing
tool or principal detractors. If they find any negative experience from Thomas Cook, they may
express their views through online reviews.
Strategy1:
To meet these standards along the customer needs, it is significant to know that guest experience
begins long, before they arrive at front desk to check in. It is important to develop a mobile-
friendly website that offers social proof and visual appeal, which they would enjoy at the hotel.
Next, it is important to aim for fast internet speed that will develop valuable content, into every
page (Bharwani and Jauhari, 2013).
Strategy 2:
It is effective to respond to the guest feedback. While promoting or accepting online reviews,
one has to show the other travellers the value of the opinion of the guests. On sending automated
emails with guest satisfaction survey, one could prove guests more information regarding the
stay.
Strategy 3:
However, it is important to connect with guests on a personal level. It will begin before any type
of guests arrives at front desk. Use of social media could help to reach out to guests, on prior to
the stay (Rather and Sharma, 2016). Further, the customised booking forms could also gain the
insight of people staying in major hotels.
Strategy 4:
Further, using the guest feedback and relative data for guiding future decisions will also prove
effective. To monitor guest feedback, it is effective to take improvements that could develop the
future-based responses. However, the use of marketing data can finalise decisions for creating
events or making promotions (Kandampully et al. 2015).
Application of customer service strategies to create experience with recommendations

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It is recommended that since customers are a core part of business, they needs to be given with
the excellent service. At first, it is important to offer customers of Thomas Cook with numerous
ways to share feedback. By connecting with customers for gathering feedback makes benefits to
value team for resolving issues. It can help in establishing trust, and may prevent sharing the
negative comments on social media (Romero, 2017). Further, it is also recommended that
strengthening the customer service team of Thomas Cook would help to train and hire
professionals with the desired skills. This can be developed by people that may have effective
communication skills. Certainly, knowledge among representatives will work effectively with
the desired pricing plans, services and products.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the report that several customer experience management within the
service sector for the business will help to maximise engagement with proper improvement.
Besides, the study also evaluates that the use of Twitter and Facebook could be a better platform
that will evaluate the concerns or queries for customers from Thomas Cook web portal. Along
this, it is important to gain insights from the customer metrics, which will describe measure of
loyalty and satisfaction to meet the needs.