Customer Experience in the Service Sector: A Hilton Hotel Analysis

This report delves into the critical role of customer understanding in the service sector, emphasizing its impact on sustainability and competitive advantage. The report evaluates how digital technology manages customer experience at the Hilton Hotel, London, examining the use of Wi-Fi infrastructure, mobile communication, and digital conference facilities. It also explores the evolution of CRM systems, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of operational and collaborative CRM. The report then outlines the planning and promotion of an international food event, including budget considerations, date selection, guest management, and advertising strategies. Finally, it discusses the importance of customer service strategies, such as employee training and issue resolution, to enhance customer satisfaction. The report concludes with an evaluation of the event and offers recommendations for improving customer experience.

UNDERSTANDING
CUSTOMERS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................1
P5. Managing the customer experience within service sector through employing digital
technology....................................................................................................................................1
LO 4.................................................................................................................................................3
P6. Customer service strategies in service sector........................................................................3
P7. Creation and development of customer experience through customer service strategies.....6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
In today’s era, especially in service sector, to have good understanding of customers is
crucial to gain sustainability and competitive edge in the market for surviving in the long run.
Present report will evaluate the way digital technology leads to manage the customer experience
in Hilton hotel, London. Also, it will cover strengths and weaknesses of some customer
relationship management (CRM) systems. Further, as per the given scenario, a menu with some
promotional material for the event will be provided with employing appropriate customer service
strategies. Evaluation of the event and valid recommendations will be provided as well.
LO 3
P5. Managing the customer experience within service sector through employing digital
technology
To manage the experience of customers in Hilton hotel, London, digital technologies play
a crucial role. Being operating in the service sector of UK, Hilton is supposed to employ various
digital technologies to increase its efficiency and competitiveness. Hotel has raised its Customer
Service Standards to great heights through adopting latest technologies (Kang and et.al., 2018).
Digital techniques adopted by the firm are like Wi-Fi infrastructure overhauls, mobile
communication and automation, digital conference facilities, etc. With the adoption of these
techniques, Hilton hotel is able to manage the customer experience as now-a-days, people
visiting a place do not consider Wi-Fi as a perk but as a must-have which offers them an ease in
connecting with internet seamlessly. Likewise, to conduct conferences, hotel provides customers
with high density Wi-Fi along with access to AV (audio-visual) and digital facilities which
renders a great experience to them that ultimately leads in their revisit (Wali and Nwokah, 2018).
The way digital technologies are changing CRM systems to retain customers
Digital technologies have transformed the CRM systems to retain customers. Earlier,
through CRM systems, healthy relation with customers was fostered and maintained with the use
of various practices, platforms and techniques. However, still there was some need of
improvement to retain customers for longer span of time which was done by digital technologies
like different software and hardware, tool of data analysis, internet, etc. Cloud based programs
are also common these days (How Technology Changed Customer Relation Management
Systems, 2014). Thus, it can be said that digital technologies have changes the CRM systems
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which allowed firms in service industry like Hilton hotel to lower their costs and increase the
revenue with maintaining strong relations with customers. With the help of digital technology it
will be very much helpful for company to enhance experience of customers. If Hilton is using
digital technology they will be able to attract more number of customers towards them. Thus this
will be improving the strength of CRM systems as enabling company to acquire new customers,
capturing of marketing data for marketing and then retention of customers for longer duration of
time. Like for example if Hilton is using tablets as hardware to attract customers for providing
them with wider range of menus. This will be helpful, convenient and quicker for acquiring data
of customers and useful for Hilton as well.
Strengths and weaknesses of some CRM systems
Different CRM systems are there like that of strategic, operational, analytical and
collaborative. Strengths and weaknesses of some of them are like:
Operational CRM –
This will be providing support to all type of business process including like that of sales,
marketing and services. It proves to be helpful for front office business processes in which firms
operating in service industry like Hilton hotel comes in direct interaction with customers through
communication medium like e-mail, phone, etc. (Lund, 2019).
Strengths
 Provides support to the departments like customer service, sales and marketing.
 Helpful in bringing together the client’s contact information.
Weaknesses
 Major challenge with implementing operational CRM is its cost.
 Sometimes, lack of leadership also play as a weakness of operational CRM.
Collaborative CRM –
Its main focus is on integrating the external contacts and offering information to its
customers through an extranet. Collaborative CRM includes like that of e-mails, webpages and
automated voice response and all of these will be improving service offered.
Strengths
 Allows customers to be proactive through offering them new tools and techniques.
 Help firms to track and share the data of customers (Van der Linden and Weijters, 2018).
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Weaknesses
 Poor communication may lead to incur negative results.
 If business culture is not good, there might be chances of resistance to cultural change in
organisation.
LO 4
P6. Customer service strategies in service sector
Planning the event
As per the given case, Hazev is required to plan and promote the international food event
first which includes the following steps:
1. Estimating the budget – At first, Docklands Academy, London will have to decide the
budget of complete event within which it will be conducted involving all activities. £2500
to £2750 will be the estimated budget for same.
2. Deciding the date – After that, the date on which event will take place is decided i.e. 20th
February 2019.
3. Taking care of special guests – As it is an international food event, some special guests
will also be invited that would be decided in this step (Merton and Thakor, 2018).
4. Selecting and reserving the campus space – Later, the specific space of campus will be
decided and reserved for the event considering the total number of people that will be
present there.
5. Arranging audio-visual needs – After this, the AV needs are identified and arranged like
LCD projector, a microphone, online media request form, etc.
6. Deciding food and beverages – After that, food and beverages that are going to be served
to students and staff will be decided.
7. Making the event safe and reachable – If more than 300 people are expected to come in
the event, safety of them including guests will be considered (Ali and et.al., 2018).
8. Advertising the event – Finally, after completion of all above steps, media through which
the event will be advertised is decided.
Promoting the event
With the use digital media like social websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
as well as on the website of college, information about event will be given through using tool of
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advertisement. Docklands Academy will also promote the event through giving ad in newspaper
as well to make audience informed about same at large.
Preparing dishes or drinks to serve customers
Some of the drinks and dishes that will be served to guests, students and staff are decided
and prepared by the partner restaurant of Docklands Academy i.e. Hazev. These are like soup,
coffee and tea with light snacks in the beginning when they come (Min, Joireman and Kim,
2019). Fresh fruit and vegetable juices will also be served along with Bar Man and Special
Mocktail.
Menu for international food event
Appetizers  Pastina Soup
 Mushroom Gravy
 Seasonal Fruit Skewers
 Cheese and Fruit Tray with Local Cheeses
Mains  Creole Ratatouille
 Braised Seasonal Cooking Greens
 Jerk Chicken Kebobs with Christophene
 Haitian Red Beans & Rice
Sides  Homemade Fettucine
 Taralli
 Crostoli
 Spanish Ham and Potato Croquettes
Sweets  Rice Pudding
 Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
 Jelly and Ice Cream
 Pumpkin Custard and Dried Fruit Shortbread
Beverages  Non-alcoholic beverages
 Jamaican Hibiscus & Spearmint Iced Tea
Promotional material for the event
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THE INTERNATIONAL FOOD EVENT
Please join us to celebrate 20 years of Docklands Academy.
Friday, 15th February beginning at 11:00 a.m.
We will be serving different mind blowing food and beverages.
We will also have some of the new samples for your view.
Please come to relax, socialize and have lunch with us.
Let’s enjoy with good people and good food.
Docklands Academy, London
414-338-2121
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P7. Creation and development of customer experience through customer service strategies
During the event, Docklands Academy will have to employ appropriate customer service
strategies to increase the satisfaction of students, staff and guests. Some of these strategies that
college is going to adopt are:
Training employees in customer empathy – It is important for employees in this event to share a
happy customer’s enthusiasm so that they can made highly satisfied with the services offered.
This is the most important strategy that involves training employees in how to create empathy
with customers. Thus for this company could start conducting role plays in which employees will
play role of customers so that they could understand behaviour and feelings of them.
Resolving customer issues at initial point of contact – One more customer service strategy is to
keep their issues resolved at first point of contact only to keep them happy and satisfied
(Hassenzahl, 2018). When employee is getting any negative feedback from customer at that
point only they must try to resolve it which will be helpful for company to not to escalate issues
further.
Evaluation of event with valid recommendations
Event will prove to be successful if its implementation will be done properly keeping in
consideration the factors like safety and accessibility of guests, taste and quality of dishes and
drinks served as well as the timing of all activities conducted. To improve the quality of
customer experience i.e. the staff and students, college can first conduct an audit regarding their
tastes and preferences and accordingly, Hazev can prepare and offer the same (Liang, Choi and
Joppe, 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that customer experience can be effectually
managed through adopting many tactics like building relationships and rapport with customers
and by offering high quality of products and services. Also, keeping the safety and satisfaction in
consideration are essential elements to render great experience to them.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ali, F. and et.al., 2018. Make it delightful: Customers' experience, satisfaction and loyalty in
Malaysian theme parks. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management. 7. pp.1-11.
Hassenzahl, M., 2018. The thing and I: understanding the relationship between user and product.
In Funology 2. pp. 301-313. Springer, Cham.
Kang, S. and et.al., 2018. Understanding Customers' Interests in the Wild. In Proceedings of the
2018 ACM International Joint Conference and 2018 International Symposium on
Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Wearable Computers (pp. 90-93). ACM.
Liang, L. J., Choi, H. C. and Joppe, M., 2018. Understanding repurchase intention of Airbnb
consumers: perceived authenticity, electronic word-of-mouth, and price
sensitivity. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing. 35(1). pp.73-89.
Merton, R. C. and Thakor, R. T., 2018. Customers and investors: a framework for understanding
the evolution of financial institutions. Journal of Financial Intermediation.
Min, H. K., Joireman, J. and Kim, H. J., 2019. Understanding why anger predicts intention to
complain among high but not low power customers: A test of competing models. Journal
of Business Research. 95. pp.93-102.
Van der Linden, S. and Weijters, B., 2018. UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMERS’USE AND
INVESTMENT TRAJECTORIES IN ACCESS-BASED DIGITAL PLATFORMS.
In 2018 Global Marketing Conference at Tokyo. pp. 1375-1375.
Wali, A. F. and Nwokah, N.G., 2018. Understanding customers' expectations for delivering
satisfactory and competitive services experience. International Journal of Electronic
Marketing and Retailing. 9(3). pp.254-268.
Online
How Technology Changed Customer Relation Management Systems. 2014. [Online]. Available
through: <https://www.smartdatacollective.com/how-technology-changed-customer-
relation-management-systems/>.
Lund, J., 2019. How Digital Transformation is Driving Customer Experience. [Online].
Available through: <https://www.superoffice.com/blog/digital-transformation/>.
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