Improving Customer Experience: A Strategic Report on Unilever

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Unilever's customer experience and value proposition. It delves into key aspects such as Unilever's value proposition, its contribution to customer experience, and customer demographics. The report also examines the application of the Six Pillars of Customer Experience model within the organization and explores the implications of digital disruption on customer experience delivery. Furthermore, it offers strategic recommendations aimed at enhancing customer experiences at Unilever, covering areas like integrity, resolution, expectations, empathy, personalization, and time & effort optimization. The analysis emphasizes the importance of a customer-centric approach and leveraging digital advancements to maintain a competitive edge in the consumer goods market. Desklib provides access to similar reports and solved assignments for students.

INDIVIDUAL
REPORT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Value Preposition.....................................................................................................................3
2. Customer experience contribution in value preposition..........................................................4
3. Customer Demographics..........................................................................................................5
4. Six Pillars of Customer Experience Model..............................................................................5
5. Application of the Six pillars of customer experience model in organizations.......................6
6. Implications of digital disruption to the delivery of the customer experience........................7
7. Strategic recommendations to improve the customer experiences..........................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Improved customer experience is becoming an important part of the corporate strategy as
a positive customer experience is important in determining the success of the business. One of
the best marketing that money can purchase is a consumer that will promote the business, the
customer that is loyal to the company and helps in the promotion of the business with the help of
word-of-mouth approach of marketing. The main touchpoints or factors that develops the
customer experience are the products and the people. When the customer experience is positive
then it helps in the promotion of loyalty and assists in retaining the customers and ensures the
advocacy of brand (Becker and Jaakkola, 2020).
Unilever is a multinational consumer goods company founded in British which is
headquartered in London, UK. The main products of Unilever's are the food, ice cream, vitamins,
minerals, tea, coffee, pet food, beauty products, etc. They also work together in order to
emphasize on the opportunities that are required to be acknowledged and modified. This report
will discuss the value preposition, key demographics, the six pillars of customer experience
model, implications of digital disruptions and the strategic recommendations to improve the
customer experience.
MAIN BODY
1. Value Preposition
Value Preposition is the service, feature or an innovation which is intended to make a company
or a particular product attractive to the customers.
Unilever is the organization which offers a large variety of products like Axe deodorant,
Lipton tea and Surf detergent and many other goods that are being used in everyday life. The
company's products involves food, beverages, cleaning agents and the care products of the
individual. Its products are offered in almost 190 countries as it is one of the oldest and popular
multinational companies across the world. Its products are divided into 4 sectors which includes
personal care, home care, foods and the refreshments (Rather, 2020). This company is a British-
Dutch transnational customer products company and acquires seventh position in the most
valuable organization across all the Europe. It also focuses the opportunity to work with brilliant
and encouraging leaders with the destination of the four sectors or pillars to bring back the EVP
to life, The main value preposition of the Unilever is the branding as an offerer of the quality
goods at the affordable prices. The scale permits it to produce products at a comparatively lower

cost and also maintaining it quality. Its scale also permits access to the niche markets, mainly in
the developing countries (Kuppelwieser and Klaus, 2021).
The value preposition of the Unilever is quite simple that is the basic razors which at
present times much better that the one in which the previous generations have an advantage
successfully will be given at the consumer's address regularly at a less expensive cost. However,
it only became successful because this was particularly a valuable customer insight that another
FMCG companies could not take it seriously but Unilever at the perfect time grabbed this
opportunity and utilized it in time with a successful outcome. The value preposition of the
company is “Targeting any individual who wants to pay a higher level than the original
transportation and the cost of search for buying the good quality products at lower price”
2. Customer experience contribution in value preposition
The value preposition of Unilever is contributed by its customer experience which
reflects on the commitment, fulfilment, seamlessness, responsiveness, proactivity and the
evolution (Nobar and Rostamzadeh, 2018).
Commitment: Consumers are of the utmost importance and the company organizes some
training days for the staff to become habitual to the customer experience. Also, the company is
committed to maintaining the customer experience a priority and to execute it at every level of
the company and the value preposition of the Unilever is also prepared to make the customer
experience a dedicated aspect and not just a promise.
Fulfilment: This company also fulfils the needs of the individuals by making the customer on
the priority. Also, having an extraordinary customer experience is restricted if it is limits itself to
only one particular type of a customer. So, Unilever not only fulfils the requirements of only
single type of customer but it fulfils every need of the customer (Fernandes and Pinto, 2019).
Seamlessness: The customer experience and every touch point of the Unilever's is made easy to
navigate and is free of friction. The consumer can purchase, contact and return the product of this
company if it is necessary at the earliest consideration without the need to be transferred to other
three different departments and various other customer help contacts. The value preposition of
this company shows the way in which it is easy to carry out the business activities with the
company and the reason that makes Unilever's stand out.

Responsiveness and Proactivity: Unilever's allows its team members to deliver the response at a
reasonable time. Also, it is proactive and reaches out to the customers , forecasts the behaviours
and needs of the customer and provides it with the help of the sales funnel.
Evolution: Unilever's aims at changing the goals, expectations and the dynamic needs of the
customers. The value preposition describes the ability to change and move with the customers
by putting the requirements of the customers at the topmost priority (Roy, 2018).
3. Customer Demographics
Demographics are one of the most important elements of the customer segmentation.
Targeting particular consumer groups helps the company in the effective and efficient allocation
of the resources related to marketing and enhances the opportunities related to the cross and the
up selling. This practice also makes more interaction of individual customers to be possible and
enhances the customer service and helps in the expansion of the customer loyalty and the staff
retention. Unilever's studies the customer demographics to comprehend the structure of
something like exploring the nature of the population in a specific area or the consumers of a
website. This approach is utilized in making the demographics profiles of the particular
customers and also the groups (Stein and Ramaseshan, 2020). Female sun silk is seen as a
shampoo for women and it is a brand that symbolizes for the women and promoted through
various starts such as Marilyn Monroe, Shakira and endorsing the goodness of the shampoo from
various generations.
The products of Unilever's target every particular customer in the market starting from
small children to the elderly people and one of its five products can be found in every household.
Unilever's has specificly made profits in the departments where the females have in the past been
under- represented. The company executed various initiatives which involves a Global Diversity
Board and approximately 100 'Diversity and Inclusion champions' networks who have set the
limit for the way in which the community can have an authority on a culture across the markets.
Although the company will continue to execute the activities related to the equal opportunities
for the females and other under- represented teams and groups in the business of Unilever's. The
Chief Executive of the Unilever's stated that the equality of the women is the most important key
for the social and the economic development across the globe and there should be a maintenance
of a well-balanced gender aspect and that the company is proud of reaching the objective of the

equal representation of the females and males in the company in the composition of 14000
mangers and still going on (Wu and Gao, 2019).
4. Six Pillars of Customer Experience Model
The six pillars of the customer experience model was made to show the businesses the
types of the emotional result which is linked to offering an extraordinary customer experience.
These pillars are interconnected and when bind together these can help the company to
understand the performance of the customer experience offered across different channels and the
industries.
Integrity: Companies that shows trustworthiness on a regular basis are the main foundation of
integrity. It is found in the firm sense of purpose and the way in which it socially, morally,
ethically discharges the pupose.
Resolution: Two of the main important resolution factors are the sincere apology and actions
with the urgency in correcting the wrong which teaches that is no longet sufficient for resolving
the problems.
Expectations: The top companies know that their barnd promise and the communication set the
expectations to the consumers which they should fulfil in most cases.
Empathy: It means understanding the experiences of the customer emotionally and building a
strong relationship(Batat, 2019).
Personalization: It means making the consumer feel in control, appreciated and important after
their communication with the firm.
Time & Effort: Removing the problems which delays the consumers' process of decision making
and increase the loyalty towards the customers.
5. Application of the Six pillars of customer experience model in organizations
Integrity: Unilever's company shows trustworthiness on a regular basis which is the main
foundation of the integrity. The company and its staff can make trust building events which
assists to enhance the integrity. From the point of view of the customer, Unilever's offers its
promises which is the main key to integrity.
Resolution: The company makes it necessary to recover the customer which has got a bad
experience. Unilever's have its strategy which can put the consumers back in the place in which

they should have been as early as possible which implies that no matter how long the time period
it takes but the consumer has to feel better in terms of the experience of customer recovery.
Expectations: Unilever's has the best brands products so it is normal for the consumers to have
high expectations on the satisfaction of their needs on the basis of their standards. Expectations
are all about meeting, managing and exceeding the expectations of the customers.
Empathy: The company understands the situations of the customers to make a better customer
relationship, comprehends the experience of the customers at the emotional level which is
closely linked with empathy. This allows the Unilever's to show the consumers that they know
the way in which the customer feel and then accordingly give the solutions on the basis of their
understanding (Batat, 2019).
Personalization: The company displays that they comprehend the situation of the customer and
adjusting to the experience in accordance to that is a main part of personalization. With the help
of the preferences of the customers, interactions of the past and developing individual attention
the experience of the customers that feels personal could be developed.
Time & Effort: The company reduces the customer efforts and create a friction less procedures.
The customer is seeking for instant satisfaction because of the lack of time that they have. The
company reduces and cut down the obstacles which restricts or delays the decision-making
6. Implications of digital disruption to the delivery of the customer experience
There are five main factors of digital disruption that impacts the experience of the
customers-
Pace of innovation: Nowadays, the technological disruptions are increasing day by day at a
faster rate which means that the consumers will be acting critical about anything which is new
and enhanced as they come to the knowledge of an even improved product. Unilever will carry
out the Research and Development matters in this quickly changing marketplaces.
Improved competition: Digital disruption assists in increasing the competing and contrasting
ideas and opinions even because it makes the entry of the earlier impossible number of ideas.
Personalization of interactions: Research shows that the consumers welcomes more
personalized approaches like the price matching and the loyalty aspects. Large data analytics
helps the marketers to send consumer related communications that are more relatable ,
personalized and targeted than the earlier times. By utilizing the data-driven approach of

marketing the marketers can learn the way which helps them to use their appeal to the single
customers which is the only way in which the marketers can keep up with competition.
Interaction speed: The requirement of customers in increasing for the personalization just as like
the real time interaction with the brands. For many individuals, the digital communication is
equal to the speed of the interactions (Mathayomchan and Taecharungroj, 2020).
Integration: Without the use of integration, the company will never be able to find out the
overall potential of the digital technologies so initially the company will be requiring the
integration to develop cohesion in all the marketing channel and other marketing platforms. After
that, integrated internal marketing functions assists in the improved understanding of the patterns
of data and interactions of the customers. Moreover, it also provides the importance to prove the
ROMI in campaigns in the multi-channels in present times.
Google analysts reports which searches involving the product reviews and top or best
brands rises up from 35 percent to 95 percent, between the year 2015 and 2017 and the searches
which ended with to avoid risen up to 150 percent which specifies that no matter if the company
works work in manufacturing, professional services, retail or the Business to Business, the
company need to fight the battle against the hidden forces before the customer experience
acquires the grip. So there are exists a few best practices or strategies that the Unilever's takes in
account that will assist them when any unavoidable change arrives which includes collecting the
consumers' data in each touchpoint, making a consumer centric culture of the company and
investing in the appropriate and related tools.
7. Strategic recommendations to improve the customer experiences
Create a clear vision related to customer experience- The initial step in the company's customer
experience strategy is to develop a clear customer emphasized vision that the manager can
convey within the organization. The easy manner to make the vision is to develop a set of
statements that performs as the guidelines or principles. Once these principles or guidelines are
executed properly then they will be deciding the nature of the company (Tridevi, 2019).
Understanding the nature of the customers- The customer support teams is required to deal
with different types of customers on day to day basis. So, if the company comprehends the needs
and wants of the customers then only it will be able to be in connect with the circumstances that
the customers face.

Creating an emotional connection with the customers- One best way in which the customer
experience can be achieved is when the any member of the team is able to create or build an
emotional connection with the consumer.
Capturing the customer feedback in real time- It helps in measuring the customer experience in
which the company can use the live chat tools which can be used to have real time conversations
and then sending a follow-up email to each customer by using the post interaction surveys and
other related customer experience tools.
Using a quality framework for the development of team- The company is recommended to
provide training sessions to each and every individual member of the customer support team with
the help of coaching, digital learning and training in groups (Pandey and Chawla, 2018).
Taking actions after regular employee feedback- The company should have a survey process
once in a year to measure the complete feedback of the team, their level of engagement and the
ability of the businesses to provide an excellent service.
Measuring the ROI after delivering better customer experience- It is one of the main challenges
which is faced by many other organizations so the company should use the Net Promoter Score
which helps in the collection of the valuable information by asking questions like how likely are
the audience is to recommend the company.

CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been discussed the value preposition of the company and it
contribution in the customer experience, the key customer demographics, six pillars of the
customer experience model, its application in the organizations, implications of the digital
disruption and the strategic recommendations that could improve the customer experience in the
organization.
It has been concluded that by completely understanding what makes up the customer
experiences for a company, it can start to examine and optimize these experiences to make sure
that the business develops loyal customers for a long term. Loyal customers tend to spend
comparatively more so investing time in retaining these loyal customers will help in making a
better business strategy.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Batat, W., 2019. Experiential marketing: Consumer behavior, customer experience and the 7Es.
Routledge.
Becker, L. and Jaakkola, E., 2020. Customer experience: fundamental premises and implications
for research. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.48(4).pp.630-648.
Fernandes, T. and Pinto, T., 2019. Relationship quality determinants and outcomes in retail
banking services: The role of customer experience. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services, 50, pp.30-41.
Kuppelwieser, V.G. and Klaus, P., 2021. Measuring customer experience quality: the EXQ scale
revisited. Journal of Business Research, 126, pp.624-633.
Mathayomchan, B. and Taecharungroj, V., 2020. “How was your meal?” Examining customer
experience using Google maps reviews. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 90, p.102641.
Nobar, H.B.K. and Rostamzadeh, R., 2018. The impact of customer satisfaction, customer
experience and customer loyalty on brand power: empirical evidence from hotel
industry. Journal of Business Economics and Management.19(2).pp.417-430.
Pandey, S. and Chawla, D., 2018. Online customer experience (OCE) in clothing e-retail:
exploring OCE dimensions and their impact on satisfaction and loyalty–does gender
matter?. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.
Pleyers, G. and Poncin, I., 2020. Non-immersive virtual reality technologies in real estate: How
customer experience drives attitudes toward properties and the service provider. Journal
of Retailing and Consumer Services, 57, p.102175.
Rather, R.A., 2020. Customer experience and engagement in tourism destinations: the
experiential marketing perspective. Journal of Travel & Tourism
Marketing.37(1).pp.15-32.
Roy, S., 2018. Effects of customer experience across service types, customer types and time.
Journal of Services Marketing.
Stein, A. and Ramaseshan, B., 2020. The customer experience–loyalty link: moderating role of
motivation orientation. Journal of Service Management.

Trivedi, J., 2019. Examining the customer experience of using banking chatbots and its impact
on brand love: The moderating role of perceived risk. Journal of internet
Commerce.18(1).pp.91-111.
Wu, S.H. and Gao, Y., 2019. Understanding emotional customer experience and co-creation
behaviours in luxury hotels. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management.