Report on Planning Customer Experience Management at Premier Inn

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of customer experience management, focusing on the case of Premier Inn hotels. The introduction defines customer experience and customer experience management, emphasizing their importance in meeting customer expectations. The main body explores key concepts, including the value of understanding customer needs, wants, and preferences, and the factors that drive customer engagement. The report then examines various touchpoints that create opportunities for enhancing customer experiences, such as social media and communication with clients. Furthermore, it discusses the use of digital technology in managing customer experiences and illustrates customer service strategies. The report uses a customer experience map to understand the customer journey. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and reinforces the significance of customer experience management in the hospitality industry. The report also includes references to academic sources.

Planning for customer
Experience
Management

Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................................3
LO 1............................................................................................................................................................3
Value and importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences of target customer groups.....3
Different factors that drive and influence customer engagement.............................................................4
LO 2............................................................................................................................................................5
Discussing the touch points that create opportunities..............................................................................6
LO 3............................................................................................................................................................7
Examining how digital technology is employed in managing the customer experience with examples...7
LO 4............................................................................................................................................................7
Illustrating customer service strategies....................................................................................................7
Demonstrating how customer service strategies create and develop the customer experience.................8
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................10
Books and Journals:...............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Customer experience can be understand as the perceptions of customers; both conscious
and subconscious of their relationships with the brand which results from interactions during the
life cycle of customer. Customer experience management is a practice which is used to overlook,
track and management of all the interactions with a view to help a business that focuses on the
wants of their customers (Ahn, J. and Back, K.J., 2019). This report is going to prepare on the
popular Hotel brand “Premier Inn” in the United Kingdom. The hotel represents their services in
a variety of localities including airport, city centers,suburbs. The organization was introduced by
Whitbread in 1987. The company has their nerve center at Dunstable, United Kingdom. The
experiences of your customer is a key that can exceed expectations of the customers. So the
brand have to be dependable accurate and supports the services they guaranteed.
MAIN BODY
LO 1
Value and importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences of target customer
groups
Customer experience management can be defined as a process of designing and reacting
to the interactions of customer to meet or increase the expectations and gains the satisfaction,
advocacy and loyalty of customers (Al-Kanj, L., Nascimento, J. and Powell, W.B., 2020). It is a
management of knowing customers completely which can help to create and deliver customized
experiences.Whereas target groups can be defined as a group of potential customers to whom
Hotel Premier Inn wants to sell their products and services.
Importance of Understanding the consumer needs, wants and preferences:
Understanding the human psychology and behavior is essential for the business. Needs of
consumer can be a basic physical need that can be a shelter, sleep, drink and more. Customers
also have their social and emotional requirements that are complicated to individual’s happiness
and mental health such as security, esteem, belongings, love,and self-fulfillment. Knowing
consumer needswill help to motivate the behavior of customers how to make a decision to find a
smart solution.Similarly, business also have needs that must be fulfilled to well-being and
survival in the competition.These needs can be considered by the strategic objectives and the
resources which are needed to accomplish the goals such as capital, supplies, services, inventory
and more.
Similarly, want is a reflection of desire preferences for particular routes to satisfy a need.
Specific product, service or brand are desired by the consumers to satisfy their needs in a
particular way. Needs are relatively few but wants are inspired by social influences, past history,
or the way of consumption. A businessman must know that different people have different needs
and wants to satisfy them.To satisfy the needs and wants of a customer managers of the Premier
Inn playsa specific role that helps to satisfy one or more their needs.

 Identify the different categories of customers: It is fundamental to understand the
various categories on which a businessman can separate their customers. It can be
understand by the type of products, services they usually buy, geographical location of
customers, frequency of purchase and many more. When categories are designed and
customers are segmented it becomes easy for businessman to frame exact advertising
with targeted messaging.
 Track customers real-time behaviour: In today's time a business requires to be
proactive and prompt in their attitudes and tactics (Balaji, M. S. and Et.al.,2018). It
appears to anticipate the needs and wants of customer on all the platforms to serve than
even before the need is actually placed.
 Focus on customer’s personal test in preferences:Valuingthe guests or customers in
hospitality industry with informative contents about what the service or product is nice
but go beyond that. It will be great to serve with a purpose to the customers as it provides
impression that how an attendant or manager of the Premier Inn can be attentive towards
their customers and also bring their customer closer to the brand.
Different factors that drive and influence customer engagement
Customer engagement can be considered as an emotional connection between a customer
and brand. Highly engagement people will buy more services, promotes more, demonstrate their
loyalty more. When considering the hospitality industry strategies are made upon establishment
of relationship with their guest and intention to influence their behavior on location.Customer
will be loyal towards the organization, when organization provides quality products and services
top to their customers will result in higher engagement towards their brand.When customer is
highly engaged with the organization it shows their emotional attachment with the particular
brand. Premier Inn organizes various programs and events and offers tons of discounts to gain
the attention of their customers who are visiting their hotel (Chang, Y.W. and Hsu, P.Y., 2019).
And when the hotel management provides quality services with good gesture it will help to
engage their customers to revisit in the particular sector. The factors that drive and influences the
customer engagement in the Premier Inn are mentioned below:
Families: Hotels are the destination in which families are likely to visit and with the
same the respective company is able to cater the needs of the families and it will be helpful to
promote to their relatives and friends as well. The organization is fine with their services and
their environment that is quiet, peaceful and calm which is liked by families a lot and they are
likely to revisit the destination. These factors influences their decisions and they will be likely to
suggest their friends or relatives too.
Corporate Personnel: Many peoples are work in the corporate sectors or companies
they visit hotels for their meetings to please their deals or contracts. Premier Inn provides a
guarantee services to their customers with creating an enthusiastic and positive environment to
conduct their meeting in a positive way. This influence their customers to revisit for the meetings
and get their loyal corporate customers with Premier Inn.
College students: Hotels are the places with varieties of entertainment in which it
provides a great entertainment to college students or youngster group. Hotels includes theme

park, swimming pool, gaming zones and more (Yadollahi, S., Kazemi, A. and Ranjbarian, B.,
2018).Where students are likely to visit with their friends and spend enjoyable time over there.
This will increase the profitability of the hotel.The Premier Inn provides special discount to this
group to target more students to their company and increase their loyalty towards the hotel which
also supports them in attaining success.
But with the same, there are some factors that will impact negatively on the customer
engagement and must be studied and taken care off (Chien, C.F., Dou, R. and Fu, W., 2018).
Such mentioned factors should be avoided by the hotel management team to engage more
customers over there:-
Improper management: It is very significant to maintain the reputation of brand and to
be successful in operations to get things properly. Management is an art and science of getting
things in a proper manner. In the context to Premier Inn, the company has always proper
planning and manage thing before performing the projects. The company focuses on good
management skills that will result in a positive way.
Inappropriate food and beverages quality: Restaurant is a section in the hotel area of
Premier Inn. The main concern of customer now a days is hygiene and health when the hotel
services provide hygienic food and healthy and safe environment to sit and eat at (Das, P. and Et.
al., 2018). This factor is always considered by the hotel management team to provide quality
services that matches their standards and maintain their goodwill and reputation in the market
because of the services provided by them.
Factors which has been mentioned earlier has to be avoid for their smooth operations.
Such factors are taken with concern and properly care and it will help to attract more customers
and help to increase the profitability in relation to rivalries.
LO 2
Creating a customer experience map
Customer experience map is an approach that recognizes the needs of customer and
supports and imagining the customer experiences at several stages in his life cycle. Basically this
focuses on customer and improving their experience (Yachin, J.M., 2018). With this map the
hotel can provide their customers a better services and according to their likes and dislikes.
Underneath is the customer experience map of Premier Inn Hotel:
Request:This is the first stage in which an organization recognizes the ways in which they can
gain the attention or attraction of their customers. The company uses countless methods to attract
the customers such as Google or other software. It is very vital to find the right source to convey
the target message to their customers about the organization. Therespective company has a good
approach to reach their customers globally and convey their target message about their latest
discounts and offers they are providing including the information related to the events theme
parks, gaming zone that attract customers.

Analyze: The second step is to analyses the products and services which are provided by the
hotel management also at the same time they are comparing with the same to their competitors.
The companies having a well reputed image and it offers a customer better than and their
competition in the same industry.
Buy:In this stage varieties of methodologies are used by the firm to let the customers purchase.
Gather:This is a stage of stress for their customers as this is the time decision making where
customers have to select among the varieties of offers and choose the best one which provides
them with the best discounts and offersde (Ruyter, K., Keeling, D.I. and Ngo, L.V., 2018).
Enjoy: The last and final stage in the process to enjoy the services provided by the company
where customer visits and gets varieties of offers and discounts. And the process gets complete.
Above is the customer experience map build by the Premier Inn Hotel to get all the stages
of customer experiences.
Discussing the touch points that create opportunities
Touchpoints are considered as a link between business and their customers. Such
touchpoints when customers come in contact with the organization. It can be considered any time
whether it is before purchase, during purchase or after purchase. Highlight the customer and try
to understand their feelings and preferences that will fulfil the touch points of customers by
satisfying them better.These touch points may be verbal or in written manner when customer
come to know about their hotel.There are several touchpoints that are enhances to grab the
opportunities of enhancing the experiences of customer which are mentioned below:-
Social Media:In a present scenario, almost every individual uses social media platforms and
spend their most of the time on these networking sites (Yuan, J. and Et.al., 2019). Search
platforms are also used by many companies to promote their products and services and to reach
most of the peoples through this platform. The intention to use such platforms to get the most
attraction by advertisements at these platforms.As the world is revolving digital, the Premier Inn
has also established itself on social media platforms and get promoted by their services. This will
create a long lasting impression in the minds of customers and create a positive goodwill in the
respective service sector.
Communication with clients: It is very significant to be in touch with regular clients or
customers and get properly communicated with each other so it will enhance the image of the
organization. Taking review and feedback from customers will help to enhance the image of
Premier Inn.
Online advertising. When the organization on hotel Premier Inn uses posters and banners to
build an image in the minds of customer (Fechter, M., Seeber, C. and Chen, S., 2018). The more
the poster is attractive it will enhance the chance of customer to visit their hotels. Attractive
banners of posters will create the first impression in the minds of customers.

These are some of the touch points that are used by Premier Inn Hotel to influence the
customers and build a positive image in the minds of customer and to get more engagement with
their hotel.
LO 3
Examining how digital technology is employed in managing the customer experience with
examples
Customer relationship management is the management of maintaining relationship with
customers and build good relations with an intention to make them happy and satisfied by the
services provided by a particular organization. A good CRM benefits organization to serve better
and turn increase their profitability and the local customer base of the hotel.Implementing digital
technology has enhanced the process of CRM and now there is no need to do manual things and
operations in engagement of customer (García, J.A.C., Galindo, A.D.V. and Suárez, R.M., 2018).
With reference to Premier Inn Hotel, digital technology has increases customer involvement
even with the rapid speed. CRM included customer interactions and understanding what they
need afterwards serving them with same. Serving with same means according to the trends in the
market which is also an essential part to serve customer’s which intended to build a strong
relationship with them.
Premier Inn hotel uses RightNow technologies for this purpose:
Customer relationship management package: The Strengths of CRM has been
improved by the use of technologies and make it very simple to deal with the clients. The
company invest money in technologies as they keep up to date and these days’ digital routes are
very easy to handle their customers in a best way (Talón-Ballestero, P. and Et.al., 2018) Overall
the introduction of digital techniques have made the procedure faster and easiest.
LO 4
Illustrating customer service strategies.
In this service sector, the end product which is rendered is the service by the
organization. The services are tangible but an intangible attribute is gained which is resultant of
service and that is Customer Satisfaction (Rahmanzadeh, S., Pishvaee, M.S. and Rasouli, M.R.,
2020). In reference of Premiere Inn, the Hotel focuses on customer centricity more which can
later or in near future turn out. The particular strategy or attribute applies not only in service but
it applies to industrial firms, retail and wholesale businesses, government bodies, service
companies, nonprofit organizations, and every subgroup within an organization as well.
The following are the Customer Service Strategy which are practiced by Premiere Inn to attain
customer satisfaction:
Customer Centric: To maintain the positive image in the market, the organization has to
create and maintain a positive image in people’ mind from ab-initio. To maintain that they have
followed multiple mechanism within the organization and staff to keep the goodwill high. They
tried to maintain Hygiene and healthy food and environment to the customer. The Hotel ensured
that the customer need not to approach more for any help, instead they reached up to the
customer for their care and needs.

Building Customer Centric team: The customer service teams are the ones who are
champions in maintaining the customer satisfaction level high. The standard of customer service
is always maintained and kept high. To build a customer service team, the following points
should be considered in order to achieve the above mentioned goal:
 Staff should be motivated to work beyond for money and status.
 They should know their work and how it impacts on the customer.
 They should be adaptable to the new techniques and trends in the market which customer
might demand.
 Social interaction skills should be there to interact professionally with the customer.
Use of Touchpoint Analysis: A customer contacts the organization to communicate his
demands which he expects for which he has planned to make business with. The more the
services provided, the more will be goodwill earned by the organization (Ketter, E., 2018). The
same way, Premiere Inn also kept the demands fulfilled from their end for the customer. For
example: hygiene is a must in hotels when anybody plans to stay in a hotel. Premiere Inn has
always maintained their hygiene at the primary stage which always attracted the customer.
Aligning or keeping up with the Technological advancements: Globally, everything is
becoming technologically advanced and digital events are more taking place in the new era. This
attracts multiple customers as well. Hence the team and the organization should always focus
and updated on new technological advancements in the market which they can adopt before the
competitors does.
Deliver Results: There might be hindrances while meeting the customers need, but at the end
what keeps the organization’s goodwill is delivering results. It means succeeding in what the
organization was doing. What do they promise and what are the representation they ensure in the
market versus what they actually do.
Demonstrating how customer service strategies create and develop the customer experience
Customer experiences meant the perception of customers towards a particular brand. It is
important to develop a good customer experiences as that is what they will be forwarded to their
relatives or friends about the brand (Masuda, H. and Utz, W., 2019, August). When customers
having good experiences or bad experiences they will give their reviews accordingly and
promotes the brand. With reference to Premier Inn, they develop strategies which are fruitful for
the hotel management as they will maximizes the satisfaction level of their clients. The company
uses touchpoint strategies that will ensures their image in the minds of customer and develop a
great interaction between the hotel and the client's visiting over there. When company organized
event or some discounts over activities, engages with large amount of crowd and this will give
advantage as more customer are part of it. When company gets feedback and review that will be
beneficial for the areas that need improvement and know better there they are lacking. Another
strategy is customer mapping which supports the hotel a lot by understanding every stages of
customer life cycle so that they can be available to serve better.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that when a customer experiences positive
aspects from the brand it will strengthen brand preference through variety of experiences. Great
customer experience management supports to maximize revenue with increasing sales from

existing customers and generate new sales with a great review of feedback by existing
customers.Customer experience can be both positive and negative with some elements. Overall
purpose of customer experience management is tooptimizing the interactions of customer align
with the brand perception of customer but sometimes it is crucial for sales and marketing agents
to access anorganized customer data.

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