Customer Experience Management Plan for Globus Tourism

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments. This report analyzes Globus Tourism's customer experience management.

Planning for Customer Experience Management
1

Executive Summary
Managing the experiences of the customers can prove to be one of the vital activities for any
business organizations. There are many different ways in which the experiences of the customers
can be managed like the presence of the company over the social media and the reputation of the
brands offered by the company. Customer experience maps and models helps in judging the
different phases that a customer goes through before making a purchase decision and how their
experiences with different companies leads to the occurrence of repeat purchase of the products
from the same company. The different aspects of managing the customer experiences efficiently,
along with customer experience maps and models, for Globus Tourism, an organization
operating in the travel and tourism sector of hospitality industry, has been studied in detail in this
report.
2

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................5
P1 Explain the value and importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences of target
customer groups for the hospitality industry...................................................................................6
P2 Explore the different factors that drive and influence customer engagement of different target
groups within a service sector organization.....................................................................................6
M1 Review how customer engagement factors determine customer on-boarding strategies for
different customer groups within a service sector organization......................................................7
D1 Evaluate a broad range of target customer group’s needs and expectations in terms of the
customer engagement for service sector organizations...................................................................8
P3 Create a customer experience map for a selected service sector organization...........................9
P4 Discuss how the touch points create such opportunities throughout the customer experiences
in your hospitality organization.....................................................................................................11
M2 Create a detailed customer experience map that charts customer journey model and examines
the activities and actions taken at each customer touch point to create business opportunities for a
selected service sector organization...............................................................................................13
D2 Analyze how a selected service sector organization can optimize each of the customer touch
points to influence the behavior, responses and actions of its customers to enhance the customer
experiences....................................................................................................................................15
P5 Examine how digital technology is employed in managing the customer experience within the
service sector organization, providing specific examples of customer relationship management
systems...........................................................................................................................................16
M3 Evaluate how digital technologies employed in managing the customer experience within the
service sector are changing CRM systems to effectively acquire and retain customers...............16
D3 critically evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of CRM systems used in service sector
businesses for acquisition and retaining customers.......................................................................17
P6 Illustrate customer service strategies in a specific service sector context................................18
3

P7 Demonstrate new customer service strategies create and develop the customer experience in a
way that meet the needs of the customer and the required business standards.............................18
M4, D4 Review the application of customer service strategies of an appropriate service sector
organization such as yours in creating the customer experience and make recommendations for
improvement..................................................................................................................................19
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................20
References......................................................................................................................................21
4

Introduction
Customers are the main assets for any business as they bring the revenue for the organization and
thus management of customer’s experience is very important for any business organization.
Customer experience refers to the entire interaction of customers with the business organization
such as pre-purchase expectations, purchasing experience and post-purchase satisfaction (Lemon
and Verhoef, 2016). According to Homburg et.al., (2017), Customer experience management
refers to the plans and activities adopted by the organization to manage all sorts of customer
experience types and ensure ultimate customer satisfaction. This report contains a brief
description about the needs, wants and preferences of different customer groups of tourism
industry and factors influencing the customer experiences. It also highlights a detailed customer
experience map of Globus tourism highlighting the journey model of its customers. Globus is a
90 years old tourism company having its headquarter in United Kingdom which offers vacation
plans of various types to destinations all over the world and for people within an age bracket of 8
to 80.. The report also mentions the effects of digital technologies on the customer experience of
tourism industry and the several strategies adopted by Globus to manage and develop a quality
customer experience.
5

P1 Explain the value and importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences of
target customer groups for the hospitality industry
To understand the needs, wants and preferences of the end consumers, understanding the target
customer group is essential (Steinhoff and palmatier, 2016). According to Komppula and Lassila
(2015) the target customer group refers to the intended group of customers of the organization
including a bunch of potential customers for the company who are categorized according to
certain criteria such as age, location, sex, occupation, income level and others. For example: the
target customer group for religious trips will be the people within the age bracket of 50-70. After
the selection of the target customer group, the next vital task of the concerned organization, is
to understand the needs, wants and preferences of the members of that group, to prepare a proper
customer experience management plan. Understanding the customer’s needs is important due to
the following reasons:
 Helps the tourism organizations to avoid wastage of money by preventing them from
investing to wrong customer groups (Christensen et.al., 2016)
 Saves time of the tourism organizations to be spent on advertising by shortening the reach
time to the target customer group
 According to Homburg et.al, (2017), it helps the tourism organizations to tailor their product
or service offerings such as accommodation types, tour locations, tour durations,
transportation types and others, according to the customer’s expectation.
P2 Explore the different factors that drive and influence customer engagement of different
target groups within a service sector organization
By understanding the needs, wants and preferences of the target customer groups, the
organizations can ensure proper customer engagement. The term ‘customer engagement’ refers
to the process of development of relationship between the customers and the organizations based
on brand loyalty and awareness. It is an outcome of the proper management of positive customer
experiences. There are different factors, which drive and influence customer engagement of
different target groups of Globus tourism some of which are as follows:
6

 Vacation type influences the age based target groups. For example: Religious vacations will
influence customers within the age group of 50-70 years, Educational trips will influence
teenagers and likewise (San Martín et.al, 2018).
 As per Sparks et.al, (2016), package pricing influence the target groups based on income
level. For example: Premium tour packages will attract the upper-middle class people
whereas, budget tour packages will influence the customers from middle class background
 Package duration influences the occupational status based target groups. For example:
Worldwide tours will attract retired personnel having plenty of time whereas, short getaway
vacations will influence corporate professionals having time constraints
M1 Review how customer engagement factors determine customer on-boarding strategies
for different customer groups within a service sector organization
After selecting the proper target customer groups and understanding their needs, wants and
preferences accurately, the tourism companies can identify the factors, which are influencing the
customer engagement and plan their marketing strategies accordingly. Some of the strategies that
the Globus Tourism UK can adopt to ensure maximum customer engagement are as follows;
 Promoting the destinations to create needs within the customers like promoting Quebec as a
suitable honeymoon destination to the customers
 Offering powerful contents to the customers such as colorful, unique and informative
brochures, via social and print media
 Reverting to every enquiry or complaint over the social media platform to maintain good
customer relationship
 Taking the help of influencer marketing i.e. motivating bloggers, you tubers and others to
promote the company services through their content platforms
 Partnering with the local channel partners such as the hotel or guest house owners,
transportation vendors, and others
 Listing the business name within the directories such as Google, Trip Advisor, yelp and
others so that customers looking for trip information can get to know their brand name
7

D1 Evaluate a broad range of target customer group’s needs and expectations in terms of
the customer engagement for service sector organizations
From the above study, it can be stated that the customers of travel and tourism industry have
some specific needs, wants and preferences, understanding which is essential for the tourism
companies to develop strategies for engaging the customers and increasing the company profit.
The Globus tourism company can apply certain customer engagement strategies according to the
expectations of their clients such as emphasizing on online promotion to save time and money
for advertising and reach larger audience and also use customer feedback for further
development (Harrigan et.al., 2017). Developing attractive promotional contents by choosing
good holiday destinations and offering numerous facilities along with special benefits as per the
cultural values, beliefs and other attributes of the target customer groups. For example: preparing
less strenuous tour plans for older people searching for religious travel plans, preparing Short
Getaway packages for working professionals searching for vacation plans with smaller duration
and others.
8

P3 Create a customer experience map for a selected service sector organization
As opined by Chen. et.al., (2015), the customer experience map is a single or a set of multiple
diagrams which highlights the various stages the customers go through during their interaction
period with the company i.e. starting from purchasing the product to accessing the service till
providing positive or negative feedbacks about their experiences. The Globus tourism company
generally follows a specific type of customer experience map to visualize the customer’s
experience from the customer’s point of view to identify their pain points and prepare proper
measures to resolve them and offer a enjoyable journey experience to the customers. The
probable customer experience map followed in Globus tourism is as follows:
Areas of
consideration
Description Recommendation
Inquire The customers begin their search about
their holiday destinations via search
engines such as Google and others to find
cheap packages, shorter durations,
attractive schemes and others
Globus should decide their package
pricing according to the market trend
and mention all additional services to
allow the customers to choose their
packages quickly and easily.
Customization of trip durations should
be provided to the customers to help
them in saving time and money
9
Inquire Compare Purchase Collect
TravelFeedback
Fig1: The process involved and the components of the customer experience map
Source: Created by the author

Compare Customers compare the package pricing
with other companies through different
tourism sites such as trip advisor and also
on Google
The company should enlist themselves
to these sites and mention all their
terms, conditions, pricing details and
facility information in an competitive
manner to attract more customers
Purchase The customers finalize their destinations
and book their packages by registering
themselves in the company’s website and
making the payment online
The Globus company should keep their
online registration procedure very
simple to minimize the wastage of
customer’s time and effort for signing
up. They should also maintain security
of the customer’s details and payment
credentials by offering multiple
security questions or checking points
Collect In this stage, the customers collect their
train tickets of flight boarding passes from
the checkpoints such as stations and
airports. They need to carry all necessary
documents with them to receive the tickets
and thus this stage can result in anxiety
and stress within the customers
The company should send all essential
documents to the customers much prior
to their journey dates and send
continuous reminders to them for
carrying all of those documents during
the journey
Travel In this stage, the customers start their
journey and start enjoying all the facilities
offered by the company such as seat types
and food arrangements in the
transportation, environment of the
accommodation, weather and beauty of the
destination and others
The Globus management should ensure
continuous follow up with the
customers to understand their
satisfaction level and identify the issues
they are facing, if any and offer instant
corrective measures
Feedback The customers, after returning from their
trip can share their journey experiences in
The management of Globus should
ensure proper handling of these
10

the company website or the company's
social page including all positive and
negative experiences
feedbacks by addressing each feedback
or complaint with patience and
humbleness and offer compensation if
required, to mitigate customer
grievance, if any
P4 Discuss how the touch points create such opportunities throughout the customer
experiences in your hospitality organization
From the above analysis of a customer experience map of Globus Tourism Company, it can be
seen that there are certain touch points with a customer’s experience, which can act as good
opportunities for the company to increase their revenue. Touch points can be defined as the
points or mediums of interaction between the company and the customer, which can manipulate
the customer’s perception about the brand, product, business or service. Some of the probable
touch points are mentioned in the following diagram:
Fig 2: The touch points for consumer experience
(Source: Chen et.al., 2015)
The customer touch points vary according to the stages of purchase of the tourism package by
the customers. For example: before purchase the social page of Globus, its ratings and reviews,
customer testimonials, word of mouth promotions, community involvement, advertising,
11

marketing and others play important role to reach the customers and offer sufficient information
which will help them to plan their holiday destination. During purchase, company office of
Globus, its website, attractive catalogue, promotions, staff or sales team interactions, phone
systems, point of sales and billing help the customers to choose a suitable package, complete the
registration, make the payment and receive necessary documents. After the purchase,
transactional emails, sms reminders, service and support teams, online help centers, follow up
teams, and thank you cards or sms help the Globus Company to remind the customers about
carrying essential documents, ask for help if needed during the journey, submit feedback and
forward grievances. By addressing to all these needs by reaching the customer touch points, the
Globus Company maintains customer relationship and ensures customer satisfaction.
M2 Create a detailed customer experience map that charts customer journey model and
examines the activities and actions taken at each customer touch point to create business
opportunities for a selected service sector organization
Globus Tourism Company follows some specific customer journey maps or models to create a
satisfactory trip experience mapping in their customer’s mind. The schematic diagram of the
journey map followed in Globus, is given below:
Fig 3: The customer journey map, as followed at Globus Tourism
(Source: Globusjourneys.in. 2019).
12