Managing Customer Experience: Strategies for Holiday Inn

This report provides a detailed analysis of customer experience management, focusing on the case of Holiday Inn. It begins by emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs, wants, and preferences, segmenting the market to identify target customers like high-class families and business professionals. The report then evaluates factors influencing customer engagement, suggesting strategies to enhance interactions with different customer segments. A key element is the customer experience map, outlining the customer journey from initial contact through post-stay interactions. Finally, the report assesses how various touchpoints, such as websites, physical channels, and post-stay surveys, create business opportunities for Holiday Inn, ultimately contributing to customer loyalty and revenue growth. The report concludes by summarizing the significance of customer-centric strategies in sustaining a strong market presence.

MANAGING THE
CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Analyze importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences of target customer1
P2 Evaluate different factors that influence customer engagement of different target customers
.....................................................................................................................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
P3 customer experience map.......................................................................................................3
P4 Evaluate how the customer touch points throughout the customer experience create
business opportunities.................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Customer experience defines the interaction and relation between organisation and
clients. This interaction involves customer journey and touch points to attract clients which
increases revenue and profitability of concerned company. Good customer experience means
facilities and services provided by firm matches the expectation level of clients (Frow and et. al.,
2015). Customer relationship management refers to strategies and practices a company adopt to
interact with clients. This present assignment is based on Holiday inn which a Britain owned
American hotel brand, headquartered in Denham, Buckinghamshire. This report includes
importance of acknowledging preference and needs of targeted customers along with ways to
increase their engagement. Also, Customer experience map and effective touch points are
discussed.
TASK 1
P1 Analyze importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences of target customer
To sustain their position within market, it is important for an organisation to properly
analyze the wants, needs and preferences of their customers. Large companies like Holiday Inn
acknowledge their customers wants by segmenting the market on the basis like age, income,
gender and religion. After that a particular segment of customer is targeted. Holiday Inn targets
high class families and business class because their facilities are standardized and priced high in
comparison with other hospitality companies.
Needs and preferences of high class: High class involves families and individuals
which are willing to pay more in return of standardized services & products. They posses high
budget and likes to spend money on luxurious facilities (Kietzmann and Canhoto, 2013). To
increase their customer base Holiday Inn needs to consider the demands of their high class
customers like luxurious services, standardized accommodation and superior quality food.
Needs and preferences of business class: Business class people prefer hospitality
services while traveling for business purpose. Their Foremost need is peaceful and comfortable
environment. Also, they want appropriate and affordable accommodation and food services.
Benefit to Holiday Inn for considering demands of clients: These aspects help the
company in sustaining their position at marketplace. Due to enhanced customer satisfaction,
customer base of hotel will expand. This leads toward increased profitability and revenues. Also,
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image of Hotel will improve which will benefit Holiday Inn to extend their presence at
international market in a standardized way.
P2 Evaluate different factors that influence customer engagement of different target customers
Guest engagement in hospitality industry means grabbing attention of travelers & visitors
to acknowledge them about facilities and services a firm is providing. The objective behind these
activities is to refine the journey of customers through specific touch points. Holiday Inn targets
Business and high class people as their potential clients. High class involves families and
youngsters (Payne, 2012). Holiday Inn needs to consider the requirement of all these segments
in an appropriate way. This will helps them in increasing their market image and revenues.
Ways to enhance engagement of targeted customers:
 High class Families: To enhance engagement of families within Holiday Inn, manager
and employees needs to carter the preference of kids along with adults. To engage kids,
hotel management can arrange different events and activities which includes games, play-
station and many more. Also, environment of hotel needs to be healthy and secure. To
attract families and especially kids, hotel management can design theme based rooms.
Standardized accommodation, food, transport and employee services will attract high
class families to stay at Holiday Inn.
 Young generation: Youngsters like positive, chilling and carefree environment. To grab
attention of young generation, managers in Holiday Inn can provide facilities and
services like disco, casino, free WiFi and internet services. Along with it, young people
like cool ambiance. To engage young generation Holiday Inn needs to provide them
entertaining and enjoyable environment (Reason, Løvlie and Flu, 2015).
 Business class: People from this segment likes well arranged and disciplined services. To
grab their attention, Hotel can provide them appropriate transport facilities along with
affordable food and accommodation. Prime location attracts business persons more. To
engage business class more, management in Holiday Inn can arrange conference rooms
for business purpose meetings.
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TASK 2
P3 customer experience map
Customer journey mapping is a procedure to determine the feelings of customers
regarding products and facility's touch-points. It starts from purchasing products online to
catering needs of customer via phone to airing grievances on digital media. CEM consists of
various diagrams that denotes the stages passed by a customer while interacting with Holiday
Inn. Using this approach helps the firm to engage more customers. This map ensures that all
cleints's touch-points functions in a positive and desired way (Verhoef and Lemon, 2013).
In hospitality sector it is vital to engage with clients to maintain good client relationships.
From the first interaction of customers with Holiday Inn until they stay there, manager in
Holiday Inn needs to contact them on regular basis. Customer journey in respect with Holiday
inn is mentioned beneath:
 Travel idea
 Research about hotel and location
 Booking
 Stay at the hotel and Post stay
All these stages depicts customer's experience map for hospitality industry. At each stage
hotel communicates with their potential clients in a different way. It is very important to make
customers feel special and treat them as a priority. It is the duty of manager in Holiday Inn to
deliver them valuable and memorable experience. This map analyzes the desires and
expectations of customers. As different customers have different needs, hotel needs to make
persona's for different customers. Touch-points associated with hotel industry are websites,
physical channel, guest check-in, occupancy stay and post-stay.
P4 Evaluate how the customer touch points throughout the customer experience create business
opportunities
There are different touch-points throughout customer experience which influences the position
and growth of Holiday Inn. These are mentioned below:
Before stay
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 Website: It acts as a most crucial customer touch-point within hospitality sector. Website
of Holiday Inn requires to be fully featured and contains all necessary information
regarding the facilities and services hotel provide (Wilson and et. al., 2012). This is the
simplest way to expand clients base.
 Physical channel: This touch-point includes billboards and print advertisements which
acknowledge clients about services provided by Holiday Inn through physical means.
 Guest check-in: To enhance customer loyalty and engagement, hotel needs to provide
alternatives while booking rooms. Alternatives like online and phone booking, payment
through credit and debit cards etc.
During stay
 Occupancy stage: While staying at hotel, it is important to provide eminent facilities to
customers like luxurious accommodation, standardized food and transportation services
during site visiting. To insure repeat business, holiday Inn can feature entertainment
venue and casinos which will acts as an effective touch point.
Post stay
 After the stay: Job of Hotel authority is not done when the customer checks out. Manger
in Holiday Inn must communicate with clients to earn repeat business. These post-stay
surveys include feedback and reviews of customers regarding services and facilities
provided to them. This is an important touch point which specifies the future growth of
company.
These customer touch points are very beneficial for an organisation to sustain their
position at market place. The foremost and crucial touch points are websites that contains all
important information about hotel and online facilities to ensure bookings (Wong, 2013).
Through websites million of people will get to know about services offered by hotel within
limited time. This will help Holiday Inn to increase their revenue and profit margins. If needs of
clients are given proper considerations then they will like to stay there during their next visit
also, which will increase revenue of Hotel. Positive feedbacks and surveys will attract new
clients and helps in expanding customer base.
CONCLUSION
From the above described report, it has been analysed that to maintain and sustain
effective presence in market, an organisation needs to give proper consideration towards the
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needs and preferences of customers. Customer journey map denotes the experience of customers
while enjoying the facilities and services offered by the firm and touch-point are vital to increase
the profitability within service sector.
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REFRENCES
Books and journals
Frow, P. and et. al., 2015. Managing co‐creation design: A strategic approach to innovation.
British Journal of Management. 26(3). pp.463-483.
Kietzmann, J. and Canhoto, A., 2013. Bittersweet! Understanding and managing electronic word
of mouth. Journal of Public Affairs. 13(2). pp.146-159.
Payne, A., 2012. Handbook of CRM. Routledge.
Reason, B., Løvlie, L. and Flu, M. B., 2015. Service design for business: A practical guide to
optimizing the customer experience. John Wiley & Sons.
Verhoef, P. C. and Lemon, K. N., 2013. Successful customer value management: Key lessons
and emerging trends. European Management Journal. 31(1). pp.1-15.
Wilson, A. and et. al., 2012. Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm (No.
2nd Eu). McGraw Hill.
Wong, I. A., 2013. Exploring customer equity and the role of service experience in the casino
service encounter. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 32. pp.91-101.
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