London Marriott County Hall Customer Experience Report - Unit 2

This report examines the management of customer experience within the hospitality industry, specifically focusing on the London Marriott County Hall hotel. It explores the application of digital technology, particularly Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, to enhance customer interactions, streamline business processes, and improve customer loyalty. The report delves into the various facets of CRM, including operational, collaborative, and analytical aspects, emphasizing their role in data management, personalization, and marketing. Furthermore, it analyzes customer service strategies employed by the hotel, including email marketing, social media marketing, and pay-per-click advertising. The report also highlights digital transformation technologies, such as Wi-Fi infrastructure, digital conference facilities, automation, mobile communication, and smart room keys, that contribute to a superior guest experience. The report concludes by underscoring the importance of customer service strategies in fostering customer loyalty and retaining existing customers in the competitive hospitality market. This report provides a comprehensive overview of how the London Marriott County Hall utilizes digital tools and customer-centric approaches to meet and exceed customer expectations, ultimately driving customer satisfaction and advocacy.

Managing the Customer
Experience (Unit 2)
D/616/1789

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................3
P5: Employment of digital technology for customer experience management...........................3
LO 4.................................................................................................................................................8
P6: Customer service strategies in London Marriott County Hall hotel.....................................8
P7: Application of customer service strategies..........................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Managing customer experience refers to the practice of designing and reacting to the
interactions for meeting and exceeding the expectations that customers have from a specific
service or product, which in turn increases the customer satisfaction, advocacy and loyalty. This
report will focus on the management of customer experience for the benefit of the hotel, the
London Marriott County Hall hotel which is situated in Westminster, London and has around
206 rooms, which also offer views of the Big Ben. This report will highlight the effects of digital
technology in customer relationship management and application of appropriate customer
experience management in the hospitality industry business for maximizing customer
engagement.
LO 3
P5: Employment of digital technology for customer experience management
Customer experience management or CEM can be described as the collection of
processes that an organisation utilises in the hospitality industry tracking, organising and
overseeing all sorts of interactions that occur between customers and the hotel in the entire
lifecycle of the customers. The customer management strategy places the customers at the centre
of the sales, marketing and customer service (Kandampully, Zhang and Jaakkola, 2018).
Customer relationship management can be categorised into:
 Operational: It offers a comprehensive view of every customer’s communication record
with the London Marriott County Hall and manages interactions with visitors while
streamlining different business processes through automation. Hospitality industry is
highly competitive due to the increasing numbers of hotels that have started targeting the
customer’s experience for gaining huge market shares. For example, service automation
in the hotel which deals in customer interaction like direct sales, web sites, blogs, direct
mail etc (Al-Homery Asharai and Ahmad, 2019).
 Collaborative: It allows to establish communication among different entities and
streamlines workflow across London Marriott County Hall. Customer experience has
thus become critical for attraction of new customers and retaining the existing ones. The
rise in technology has brought extraordinary changes in the way businesses can operate,
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especially in the hospitality sector. Most hotels and hospitality organisations have
embraced new technologies for provision of high-quality customer experience.
 Analytical: This segment deals directly with datasets and data management by
integrating invoice software to get detail reports of cash flow and focusses on customer
retention and data extraction. The organisations are becoming more innovative and
utilising mobility, data, connectivity which drive digital disruption as the visitors crave
personalised and high-quality experience (Parise, Guinan and Kafka, 2016). Guest
experience drives all technology related decisions that includes creation of engaged
environment, personalisation.
CRM System and its importance: Customer relationship management system refers to
the software solutions which assist the hotels in management of generating leads, conducting
marketing and sales, keeping the details of the customers up-to-date, tacking every integration
with business, management of accounts etc. are various trends and the digital technology,
specifically CRM, that have been employed in the hospitality industries which are significant in
improving the customer relationship, these include:
 Customer relationship management (CRM) help in recording the customer’s products
likes and dislikes, their spending pattern and the business location. They help in
identifying the customer needs. They are designed for helping the hotels in improving the
customer relationships and increasing the customer lifetime value. CRM systems goes far
beyond and allow hotels to focus on the business relationships in all areas like colleagues,
vendors and suppliers and users of services (Girchenko, Ovsiannikova and Girchenko,
2017).
 CRM enables London Marriott County Hall in developing a detailed picture of customer
needs, tastes and buying habits. Customer response and satisfaction is why hotels need
CRM is because hotel industry works on the aspects related to occupancy, and a
reduction in occupancy would lead to lower profitability. An effective CRM system helps
in retargeting the existing customers and helps in manging the lead sources. The major
aspect of feedback and follow-up is facilitated by the software. In case of sales, the hotel
has to send various quotations and revise them and the software helps in assisting error
free work.
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 Using CRM, the hotel filters all the potential profitable visitors and beneficial prospects.
In current times, a major share of the business in hotels are by travel agents and portals
and online booking facilitators which is why CRM systems are essential in integrating all
that. There are multiple properties, sites and locations and various other combinations to
offer customers and therefore an effective CRM system is required for managing the
occupancy ratio for every property. A centralised CR system is highly required for
managing all activities under one dashboard as the sales team is always on the move and
highly distributed.
 CRM systems enables sending marketing related messages and offers customised as per
the needs of the customer. CRM system also assist in data mining as along with the
customer data, particular sales reports and other analytics helps in assisting the hotel for
discovering what is most suitable for them. It also helps to discover those areas in which
the hotel is making progress and the outcome is creation of real-time business
environment that is dynamic and can incorporate any changes that are made. The data can
also be accessed remotely with the help of cloud, broad coverage of 4G data, VPN
capabilities which indirectly help in improving the rate of conversions and the rate also
become faster (Inversini, De Carlo and Masiero, 2020).
 CRM implementation can be considered as customer-based marketing strategy used to
raise the revenue of the hotel, and improving customer satisfaction. Customer loyalty
leads to retention of customers as hotels utilised various software like enterprise resource
planning, property management system and other desk-based applications, a more
centralised customer relationship management will help in enabling the appropriate
workflow, communication and help in avoiding any duplication of work. There are
various advantages of the CRM systems (Law and et.al., 2018). CRM systems integrates
everything in one place and for them to be effective centralisation in essential. All the
data that can be collected in the hotel has to be easily accessed by everyone and bring
people on the same page.
 The system helps the hotel in targeting new prospect and increase their sales. The CRM
system has the scalability aspect as the number of customers tends to grow by the minute.
It provides a value proposition as per the ever-growing customer database and helps in
countering the needs of the customers on a more personal level as all interactions pertain
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to individual investment in time. This is especially important for hotels that seek to offer
online experiences for establishing rapport with the customers. It also helps the hotel in
engaging in simplified forms of marketing and customer targeting on the basis of the
gathered data for studying purchasing behaviours to lifestyle.
 CRM systems are easy to understand and be able to attract new customers. Overall, it
ensures better customer service by offering what customers yearn for and effectively
using better customer service solutions and facilitating and adapting to consumer needs
and expectations. It also lowers the average costs incurred regularly in the hotel and
increases overall productivity and management through centralisation and effective use of
data.
However, there are also certain disadvantages that come with CRM systems. The major
downside to the software is that the hotel has no control over the details of the guest and in case
of an outage occurrence in the CRM system, the hotel could lose thousands of pounds due to
ineffective CRM system. The hotel needs to hire system administrators, software developers and
staff for maintenance along with keeping regular backup of the data which adda to the costs of
the hotel. All the hotel staff and personnel have to be effectively trained through workshops as if
the employees are not able to handle and operate along with the CRM system than it could create
issues in operations, management and productivity. Apart from these there are obvious issues in
context to security, data privacy and technical issues (Rahimi and et.al., 2017).
The major social media platforms used in London Marriott County Hall hotel for raising
awareness of products and services which communicate with the customers:
 Email Marketing: This social media platform is used for the promotion of London
Marriott County Hall, for nurturing the future guests, increasing sales, cross selling
experiences and rooms, and for keeping in touch with the previous guests. The emails
from all the visitors are collected and stored in the CRM systems and periodical updates
regarding events and offers are sent (Ramdin and Naraidoo, 2020).
 Social Media Marketing is used by London Marriott County Hall hotel for advertisements
and relationship management as the target customers of the hotel tend to used social
media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter et. And also use sites like Kayak,
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Bookings, Pinterest and TripAdvisor. The hotel promotes services in these platforms to
attract attention and generation of traffic through effective multimedia, live events,
upcoming evets etc (Tatar and Eren-Erdoğmuş, 2016).
 Pay Per Click Marketing is used for advertisements on the web and the hospitality market
for gaining more visibility on the search engines like Google. Through Pay per click, he
chances of the hotel getting advertised notably through hotel key words (Ramdin and
Naraidoo, 2020). It helps in driving traffic to the website of London Marriott County
Hall hotel.
Other digital transformation technologies that improve the experience of the customers
during their stay in the London Marriott County Hall hotel and deliver value to consumers are:
 Wi-fi infrastructure: Hotel have adopted a wi-fi based infrastructure as in current times
all the customers travel with their digital devices and need internet. Hotels ensure that the
customers have seamless connectivity without interruptions. Hotels are starting to invest
more in this area and are slowly moving away from models of user pay and rethinking the
price models without compromising on user experience (Bolton and et.al., 2018).
 Digital conference facilities: Hotels are majorly used for conducting corporate events and
meetings and require supported technology. Apart from wi-fi, the hotels have
incorporated digital tools like audio-visual facilities in the conference halls and
associated digital equipment, indoor mobile coverage, RRTS and IPTV etc (Deloitte
Pelsmacker and et.al., 2018).
 Automation and mobile communication: People have started becoming more restless and
don’t want to stand in queues for long durations and thus their expectations have
increased for things like technology-driven check-in at hotels and automated kiosks. This
has led to the hotels investing more on digital applications, personalisation technologies,
room service, customer-centric digital interactions, food ordering systems, concierge
application and other facilities (Hoyer and et.al., 2020).
 Smart room keys: Hotels are also investing on accessing of smart room system which lets
guests unlock their doors by only swiping their digital smartphones across the keyless
pad outside the door. Other systems include fingerprint activated accessing of rooms etc.
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 Integration of all technologies from the booking, staying and checking-out of the hotel
and giving feedback. All customer experiences are now becoming a part of integrated
dynamic system with appropriate management and interactions. This helps in enhancing
the customer experience by reducing inconveniences and waiting time (Batra, 2017).
LO 4
P6: Customer service strategies in London Marriott County Hall hotel.
Customer service is the primary aspect of organisation’s operations and business that
operate in the hospitality industry. The customers in present times have high levels of
expectations and the level of customer service determines if the hotel will be able to increase
customer markets, customer loyalty and retain the existing ones (Hewagama and et.al., 2019).
Hotel customer service refers to the care that is offered by the hotels to its guests before, during
and post their stay and thus various strategies for customer service can help in achieving high
customer loyalty:
 Assessment of the market needs, surveying the guests as people like sharing opinions on
how hotels can implement better services. Assessment of the market needs, the
uniqueness of services and speed of the market has to be evaluated. Hotels can undertake
various surveying tools such as electronic polls that sends follow up emails after a client
has booked a room, whenever they check-in and whenever they check out. The questions
should be too the point for most effective response or through multiple choice questions.
The hotels staff can customarily just ask the guest as they check out and get the first-hand
feedback on needs of improvement (Chen, 2019). Empowering the employees of the
hotel as the best moments in customer experience management are not always dealt by
the senior management but regularly by the employees. The standard employee training
programs should include the skills on improvisation. Apart from this, the hotels should
empower the staff for performing stellar customer services via budgeting (Mady, 2020).
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 Experience Mapping of customers can help in identification of the requirements and
improvements needed to maximise the experience. The hotel has to understand the target
market which is mostly high-end consumers. Conduct focus groups and surveys to
understand their experiences at every stage in the consumer journey and understand their
considerations. The best experience customers can have will be through individual
approaches like customization and personal tough. This can be done using experience
mapping and understanding the target customers and touch points. For example, how a
customer behaves in the awareness and information search stage to post purchase
behavior. The hotels already conduct database marketing and track customer purchase
behavior via software like customer relationship management systems which can assist in
delivery of promotional content as well as actual services. The benefit from this strategy
is that customers tend to reciprocate positively due the high relevancy of the services and
the content that attracts them in choosing the hotel and being more satisfied with the
services. The touch point analysis helps the hotel in understanding the details before the
stay like booking, during the stay like choices and demands and after the stay like service
review.
 Imbibing technology in the service and customer experience management through usage
of digital tools and infrastructure such as integration of mobile applications and
communication, application of CRM systems for seamless customer experience and
through installation of innovative technology in various areas of the hotels like food
ordering system, smart keys and room, high quality infrastructure, unique and distinct
ambience, virtual reality to see the hotel before booking, consistency in advertisements
and actual services and products (Rahimi, 2017). To provide customers with the
feasibility to check out the originality factor regarding the services of the hotel and user
generated content with ease. Millions of images that are travel related are uploaded on
social media sites such as Instagram. Photo booths can be set up in the hotels and the
generated content can be branded which successfully establishes the purpose of positive
marketing and making consumers feel more attached to the hotel (Mady, 2020).
 Conducting a touch point analysis before the stay, during the stay and after the stay to
understand consumer needs. Differentiating the hotel from other competitors is highly
necessary and can be achieved through the creation of unique experiences like distinct
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ambience, new style of serving and dining, new room-based facilities and local cuisines
and produces based offerings. Integrating marketing strategies with the operational
processes by increasing the speed and quality of all business processes such as by
introducing self-serve kiosks that help in saving time during check ins and check outs and
establishing and partnering up with online booking systems and travel agencies that
might allow customers to digitally preview their rooms. Quick problem solving and
turning the complaints into advocates because guests usually turn to social media as their
channels or medium to give their reviews and voicing their complaints. The resolved
problems tend to show the prob-solving attitude that hotel employs and retains customers
and gather attention on new ones. The only way to do problem-solving is to listen more
to the needs and demands of the customers and adopting business level to functional level
changes in the attitudes and fix the problems (Mady, 2020).
P7: Application of customer service strategies
London Marriott County Hall understands the value of customer engagement and
customer services and has currently invested and focussed on enhancing the same across its hotel
chains worldwide. By using a range of qualitative and quantitative insights and predictions,
premier inn has sought to measure the service perspective effectively. The hotel chain has
conducted an analysis of two years data that include behavioural, customer loyalty, social
demographics, post stay survey and physical evidence attributes like details of site, paid prices,
competition and other macro details. Predictive models have been developed and employed by
the company for exploring the impact of customer service on its visitors and all the hotel staff
gets incentives on the basis of customer service-based scores and the hotel has built a tailored
communication concentrated service (Ghandour, Jebai and Hussain, 2020). But there are other
strategies that the company can deploy to further enhance their customer experience such as:
 Assessing customer needs as soon as possible, and always taking feedbacks regarding
their likes and dislikes. The major customer needs are analysed through the price they are
ready to pay, the degree of quality they prefer, the choices and preferences they have and
the amount of convenience needed by them.
 Effective communication and marketing: the hotel can further increase its social media
interactions and keep its customers update regarding various services, events and offers
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and use repetition as a method of marketing by constantly posting photos and videos of
the hotel and reviews. The hotel can create pop-up or scheduled events to make the entire
experience more authentic for potential visitors who can opt for this hotel (Hudson and
Hudson, 2017).
 Investing in high quality customer relationship management systems in all the rooms and
food and beverage outlets and incorporation of technology in all areas of the hotel. The
hotel should aim at improving their ambience and service facilities apart from the training
the human resources in dealing with the dynamic demands of the customers. Problem
solving and compensating guests should be a part of operations strategy if any major
complaint occurs or major dissatisfaction is observed in order to resolve any conflicts
(Ghandour, Jebai and Hussain, 2020).
 Hiring the right workforce and customer service employees is important as the staff
directly deal with customers and cater to their problems which has a direct impact upon
the customers. The recruitment and selection method should focus on communication,
problem solving, flexibility, and management skills.
 To utilise the digital marketing method of influencer marketing through the inspiration of
authenticity, adventure and exploration of verified and pre-reviewed services by social
media influences and employed sponsors. Real-life brand ambassadors like various
celebrities and travellers who can be employed for influencer marketing in their social
media accounts to gather viewers and new and undifferentiated customer base. Thus,
strategy can be adopted holistically to establish brand authenticity and generate more
traffic (Hudson and Hudson, 2017).
 Asking for reviews is a notable part of customer engagement process where potential
guests rely on certain verified accounts for picking up hotel rooms. Most customers go
through multiple reviews online before they initiate the booking process. Therefore, it is a
good initiative on the Premier Inn’s part to ask its existing guest to review their services
online after they check-out and constantly ask for way in which they could further assist
the customers in improving their experience and stay (MENESES, 2020).
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CONCLUSION
From the above report it was concluded that customer experience is highly significant in
the hospitality industry. Customer experience was described as a collection of such processes
that can be utilised for tracking, organising and overseeing all sorts of interactions that occur
between customers and the hotel in the entire lifecycle of the customers. The digital technology
that is employed in the hotels in current times aware elaborated as Wi-fi infrastructure, Digital
conference facilities, Automation and mobile communication, Smart room keys, Integration of
all technologies from the booking, staying and checking-out of the hotel and giving feedback.
The customer relation management systems were elaborated and critically evaluated. Various
customer relationship and engagement strategies were suggested that hospitality industry uses for
enhancing the customer service. The application of certain customer service strategies was
elaborated for the London Marriott County Hall.
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REFERENCES
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