Customer Experience Management at Marriott Hotel: A Detailed Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of customer experience management within the context of Marriott Hotel. It begins by emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs, demands, and preferences, highlighting the role of tools like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in identifying these factors. The report then delves into the significance of customer needs, wants, and preferences, and how they influence customer engagement. Various factors driving consumer engagement are discussed, including service quality, the impact of negative feedback, and the role of social media. A customer experience map is presented, detailing the stages of the customer journey from research and booking to check-out and follow-up. The analysis includes an examination of how different touchpoints within the map, such as word of mouth, social media, hotel staff, and email interactions, contribute to business opportunities. The report concludes by summarizing key findings and emphasizing the customer-centric approach that Marriott Hotel adopts to meet and exceed customer expectations.

MANAGING THE
CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................1
P1. Importance of understanding wants and preferences of customers......................................1
P2. Various factors that drive and influence consumer engagement..........................................2
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................2
P3. Customer Experience Map....................................................................................................2
P4. Analysing how touch points in the map create business opportunity...................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Identifying and understanding the needs, demands and preferences of clients is highly
important for all the businesses in every industry or sector as this assists an organization supply
better products or services to the customers. Organization needs to use various kind of software
for example Customer Relationship Management or CRM. that helps to recognise the needs and
preferences of buyers. This report will be based on Marriott Hotel, United Kingdom. study will
describe the importance the needs of the buyers that affect the or influence the customer segment
and engagement process. It also develops & motivates the new experience map for the buyer to
gain the business opportunity.
LO 1
P1. Significance of understanding needs of customers.
Need refers to the requirement of something for satisfying the basic requirements to
survive. Customer purchases products or services to fulfil their needs such as food etc. On the
other hand, Wants of buyers are different as compared to their needs (Cook, 2017). Wants in
respect of products or services changes on continuous basis. Preferences of the customers refers
to the likes, inclinations, dislikes that affects the decision of customers in respect of purchasing
products or services.
Information regarding the wants and preferences of buyers helps the hotel in developing
marketing campaigns for attracting targeted segment of clients towards the products or services
of the hotel. Understanding the demands of the buyers will help Marriott hotel to offer better
services such as food and beverage, service of rooms etc. to the guests (Nema and Joshi, 2016).
This will help the company to gain competitive advantage over competitors that are operating in
hospitality industry. Hotel should make efforts to know the need, wants and demands of the
customers in respect of products and services through investing in social media platforms,
receiving reviews from customers. This will help the firm to modify its services so that, it can
satisfy the wants and preferences of targeted customers in better way than competitors.
P2. Various aspects that drive and influence consumer engagement
Customer engagement is the procedure of optimising the interrelationship between needs,
wants and preferences of consumers and objectives of the hotel to develop the most feasible
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deliverable. Various factors include; Interaction and involvement, services, social media, etc.
Following are some factors;
Services- This factor include internal services of the hotel. If hotel provide high quality
services under consideration of what actually consumers need and want from the company
enhance consumer engagement and brand loyalty (Homburg, Jozić and Kuehnl, 2017). In
contrast, if the company not able to do this, can breaks down the engagement of customer with
the hotel.
No response to negative feedback- Whether it is existing consumer or new, negative
review and feedback can make impact on the every consumer behaviour and furthermore, no
response given to the negative feedback make the things worse. It can reduce the customer trust
and their loyalty from the Marriott Hotel.
LO 2
P3. Customer Experience Map
Stages Research
and
Comparis
on and
decision-
making
Booking
and
payment
Arrive
and
Check-in
In-Room
Experienc
e
Check-
out
Follow-
Up
2
Illustration 1: Customer Experience Model
(Source: Customer Experience Map, 2019)

Activities
of
customer
Read in
newspaper
and seen
through
various
advertisem
ent
Heard
from
relatives
and
friends
Consumer
compare
various
hotels and
make
choice of
the hotel
that best
fitted in
his
preference
s
Book
room or
other
services
and make
payment
Ask any
queries
regarding
rooms,
services,
booking
details
Enjoy and
experience
the
services
Order
again if
satisfy and
promote
the brand
Engaged
through
digital
media
providing
feedback
and
reviews
Touch
points
Social
media
Word of
mouth
Email
Through
various
Websites
Online and
offline
booking
and
payment
system
Ticket
detail page
Tour detail
page
Staff of
various
departmen
ts
Word of
mouth
Social
media
Website
Visit again
Experienc
e
Satisfy Don't
know
Satisfy Not
Satisfy
Satisfied Somewhat
satisfied
Satisfy
Feeling The
reviews
are fine
and the
website is
attractive
There are
no tools
for
comparing
the hotel
to others
Booking is
easy but
the pop-up
advertisem
ent made
me
frustrated
Service
staff is not
cooperativ
e and kind
Rooms are
comfortabl
e and
service is
excellent
Overall
experience
is in mic
feeling
Presence
on social
media is
quite
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P4. Analysing how touch points in the map create business opportunity
 Word of mouth- Word of mouth is one of the most essential touch point for the business
growth. In other words, this touch poitnt get influenced from other people who
recommend for the customers (Customer Journey Maps, 2019).Therefore, this helps in
driving the attention of new customers to try the Hotel once and if they satisfy with the
services they also promote the brand to the relatives and friends. However, this strategy
can helpful for the business to gain the customer attention towards the company product
or services.
 Social media- Social media platform is the most challenging and business opportunity
that contains the business all information and that can also helpful for the business to gain
leading task. Social media platform also gives all information direct to the development
of society opportunity. It assist the businesses to keep in touch with the customers
effectively.
 Staff of the hotel- Staff are the most concrete touch point in the consumer experience
map and with the guests from starting to the end (Kumar and Reinartz, 2018). Well
trained and highly qualified staff can be the most highly engaged opportunity for the
business. This also generate the big opportunity and task to make the better understanding
and leading opportunity.
 Email- Organisation can use e-mail to being in personally touch with the customers and
can affect their behaviour that increase business opportunity. E-mail is another
opportunity for the business that can helpful to understand and get the feedback from
which makes the effective learning outcomes.
CONCLUSION
From the present study it has been summarized that consumers are the centred approach
of the industry and their experience matters for Marriott Hotel the most. The company is
committed to consistently meet and exceed the need, demand and preferences of the consumers.
The effective touch points has been analysed through consumer experience map that appeared
beneficial in creating business opportunity for the Marriott Hotel.
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