Analyzing Customer Engagement Strategies at Virgin Holidays

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MANAGING CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO1................................................................................................................................................3
Explain the needs and expectations of market segments for the service industry........................3
P1 Explain the value and importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences of
target customer groups of the virgin holiday. 300......................................................................3
...................................................................................................................................................5
P2- the different factors that drive and influence customer engagement of different target
customer groups within a service sector organization...............................................................5
M1 - how customer engagement factors determine customer onboarding strategies for
different target customer groups within a service sector organizations.....................................6
LO2................................................................................................................................................7
Explore the customer experience map to create business opportunities and optimize
customer touch points................................................................................................................7
P3 Create a customer experience map for a selected service sector organization...................8
P4 Discuss how the touch points create such opportunities throughout the customer
experience in your hospitality organization..............................................................................11
M2 Create a detailed customer experience map that charts the customer journey model and
examines the activities and actions taken at each customer touch point to create business
opportunities for a selected service sector organization..........................................................12
LO3..............................................................................................................................................13
Investigate the impacts of digital technology in customer relationship management..............13
P5 Examine how digital technology is employed in managing the customer experience within
the service sector organization, providing specific examples of customer relationship
management systems..............................................................................................................13
M3 Evaluate how digital technologies employed in managing the customer experience within
the service sector are changing CRM systems to effectively acquire and retain customers...14
LO4..............................................................................................................................................15
Apply effective customer experience management within a service sector business to maximize
customer engagement.................................................................................................................15
P6 Illustrate customer service strategies in a specific service sector context.........................15
P7 Demonstrate how customer service strategies create and develop the customer
experience in a way that meets the needs of the customer and the required business
standards.................................................................................................................................17
M4 creating the customer experience and make recommendations for improvement............18

CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................18
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................19

INTRODUCTION
This assignment will create an understanding of the hospitality industry, how these industries
maintain the clients and customer’s initial wants and need through analysis and sales follow-up.
During this assignment, the client's experience map will be developed to determine the
opportunities to meet the customer needs through crucial bit points and by recognizing these
points business will optimize the customer experience.
This assignment will create the understanding about the dynamic use of technology in order to
maintain or manage the customer relationship, and how the industries are changing the
customer relationship management system to retain the clients and guests. The customer
services strategies will be discussed here to manage the customer experience effectively.
The study will be conducted on virgin holidays limited. This company is the part of Sir Richard
Branson's Virgin group and the headquarter is in Crawley, West Sussex. After the success of
Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984, they formed a company in 1985 that is holiday virgin. Initially,
the company was into selling the seats on Virgin Atlantic routes to Miami, New York City and
Orlando and steadily it has grown up and become the most successful and largest long-haul
scheduled tour operators in the United Kingdom. In 2017, the managing director Mark
Anderson has been replaced by the Joe Thompson.
LO1
The needs and expectations of market segments for the service
industry
Nowadays organizations are recognizing that they cannot target all the customers and clients in
the market at least they can approach all the clients in the same manner. Customers and
clients are widely scattered and their needs and buying process are much different from each
other. Thus, the organization chooses to serve differently according to their abilities in the
market segments. The organization must determine the area of the market where they can best
perform and gets the profit by developing customer-driven marketing strategies that will help in
building the right customer relationship. According to the Kotler target market consist of three
different steps. The first step is market segmentation which divides the market into different
groups. The second step is to target the market by determining the attractiveness of each
segment. And the third step is the market positioning which helps in developing appropriate
marketing mix and competitive positioning of the product in the market.
P1- the value and importance of understanding the needs, wants and
preferences of target customer groups of the virgin holiday. 300
It is very important to understanding and identifies the target market of your company in order to
create effective marketing strategies. Target market refers to the set of the person who shares
similar characteristics and needs that the company wants to serve. The clients and the

customers are the end users who are interested to purchase or avail your product and services
(Bowie and Buttle., 2013). This helps the company to determine their target market through the
market survey, scanning industry reviews and running a focus group. This helps in framing and
crafting the specific messages that can appeal the specific individuals, these market messages
are crafted different that reflect how the different needs can be met. It allows the company to
focus on potentials and reach to the right audience or client (Bowie and Buttle., 2013). This also
enables the company to develop a cost-effective marketing strategy for unreached part of the
market.
This can be done through the STP model of modern marketing, this is the most popular model
used by every company as this approach helps in delivering the right message to the right
people or audience.
Market segmentation
includes:
Target market Product positioning
 Demographics- it
breakdown the
combinations in
occupation,
profession, income,
gender, age,
education, household,
status, length of
residence, size and
types of residence.
 Psychographics- refers
to personality and
emotions such as
lifestyle, attitude,
personality, hobbies,
etc.
 Criteria size- market
area must be large to
justify the
segmentation.
 Accessible- segment
should be reachable to
the team and
marketing message.
 Money- profit must be
more than the
additional cost of a
marketing plan.
 Focus on different
benefits- different
benefits must be there
in a different segment.
 The difference-
measurable
differences
It is an important part of a
marketing plan which helps in
communicating their product
in the best way to the target
market as per the customer
needs, wants and competitive
pressure.
Virgin holiday is segmented into 6 groups:

Figure 1: virgin holiday segmentation
Source: Annmarie Hanlon, 2018
Figure 2: virgin holiday
P2- the different factors that drive and influence customer engagement of
different target customer groups within a service sector organization
There are various factors which influence the customer engagement of different targeted
customer groups. So, here are some factors that affect or change the buying pattern of
consumers in the virgin holidays-
CULTURAL FACTORS-

1. Culture: culture refers to the behaviour of the society, traditions, values, customs, and
roles of society and human society that influence the behaviour of consumers.
2. Sub-culture: these are the group of people who share similar customs values and
traditions; these can be termed as religion, nation, same geographic location and racial
groups.
3. Social class: every society has a social class which possesses similar buying behaviour
and engagement. The income, as well as other factors, describe this class (EDUCBA,
2019).
SOCIAL FACTORS-
1. Reference groups: this group has strong potential to influence the behaviour of
consumers, they are also known as opinion leaders who make the people affected the
brands and its product.
2. Family: personalities and motivation affect consumer behaviour but the family and the
members are the great influencers of customer engagement (Kapiki, 2012).
3. Role and status: individuals belong from different families, society, groups and
organizations which pressurize them to maintain their status, this influence their
behaviour and make them spend accordingly (EDUCBA, 2019).
PERSONAL FACTORS-
1. Life cycle stage and age: this factor includes two important subfactors. People change
their taste and preferences according to their age, motives of purchase get different
according to the life cycle as decisions get changed as per the stage of the human cycle.
2. Occupation: different occupation affects the buying decision of an individual for goods
and services. Different occupation group has different needs and demand from the
organization.
3. Financial situations: Individual’s unstable financial situation leads him weak as his
purchasing power get decreased which affects the spending decision of the consumer.
4. Lifestyle: people come from different living styles, cultures, occupations and social class
which influence their opinion, activities and interest towards customer engagement.
5. Personality and self-concept- every individual has a distinct personality which
influences their buying and engagement decision; it varies from person to person
(Kapiki, 2012).
PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS-
1. Motivation: motivation of an individual helps in to determine the internal requirements
and needs of the consumer such as social needs, psychological needs, security needs,
and self-actualizing needs and esteem needs.
2. Perception: it refers to sensing the situation and makes the decision according to the
situation. People look at this world and situations differently, their capacity and ability to
understand is very different from each other, which results in separating the consumer
decisions.

3. Learning and experience: every individual research about product and services before
buying that. Learning and experience help the person to make a decision through his
past experience and education (EDUCBA, 2019).
4. Beliefs and attitude: it refers to the emotional feelings as well as favourable and
unfavourable conditions of the consumers which reflect their behaviour in a particular
situation. This company needs to strongly consider human behaviour to understand
customer engagement.
M1 - how customer engagement factors determine customer onboarding
strategies for different target customer groups within a service sector
organizations
The more interaction and engagement of customer with the brand or company will enhance
customer loyalty, so here are some customer engagement strategies which must be used by
virgin holidays-
1. Social media is not a simple platform but the effective tool for customer engagement
such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. which provide a platform to connect with
people. 85% of social media users are connected via mobile devices and almost 2.3
billion people are the social media users out of the total world population (BLAIR .I,
2019).
2. Customer engagement through in-product messaging, this refers to notify your customer
or client about your new services and product via messages, social media, email,
customer care or mobile. In-product messaging has shown the best result by converting
most of the potential consumers.
3. Attract the consumers for free trail prospects and get them familiar and upgrade about
the product and services through their time, focus and money.
4. Convince and communicate with VIP or long-time customers for promotions of the
business or can be said referring to friends, fans and family members.
5. Think about your customer first and do something about their welfare, get control over
your customers by delivering best and enormous values.
6. To nurture the existing customer's the company needs to create a custom content that
identifies the bugging questions of customer or client. Useful content will help in
engaging the customer.
7. Conference engagement can help in holding the customers, this strategy helps in
encouraging the customer for collaboration.
8. Create interactive content to educate the consumers and clients, this approach makes
them willing to engage and take actions (BLAIR .I, 2019).
9. Develop listening centres to enable communication and make promise to answer every
consumer for his questions.
10. Prepare the customer engagement budget which includes distribution and content
creation for marketing, and yes companies are spending billion in content marketing.
11. Quickly respond to the customer calls will enhance customer engagement.
12. Mobile apps can be developed by virgin holidays to improve customer engagement
(BLAIR .I, 2019).

LO2
The customer experience map to create business opportunities and
optimize customer touch points
The customer experience map is the tool to envision the experience to interact with the brand
through the point of view of the customer. This map forces the organization to look at the actual
customer experience versus how the organization thinks they do. This map provides a better
understanding of customers so that the company can deliver as per the customer expectations
(Lemon and Verhoef, 2016). This can lead towards the quality products or services and great
experience of the customer.
This mapping provides many opportunities and benefits to business as well as customer-
 The customer experience mapping provides a better experience to the customer with
your brand as it helps in meeting the expectations of prospects and consumers. This
helps in creating loyal customers and more satisfied clients.
 This customer experience map helps in covering the various ways which help the
customer in achieving their goals in a better way. This provides an understanding of
what is working and what is not working for their customers (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016).
 This map provides an essential and valuable view of your existing and potential
customers; this enables the organization to see the complete picture which helps in
gaining better returns on investments. And engage everyone with the customers.
 It provides a better position for the company which gives better and positive results, this
helps in lowering the complaints of customers and increase customer satisfaction. In
recent studies, many professionals have surveyed and got the positive result of
customer experience mapping in the organization (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016).
P3 Create a customer experience map for hospitality sector organization
Essential steps to create a customer experience map-
Step 1- collect internal understanding and
awareness
External observation, experience and idea
about the customer will help the leader of
the project to determine the customer data
and involve the stakeholders in the project.
Step 2- development of an internal
hypothesis
The findings will be shared by stakeholders
and Internal insight in documents will be
done in order to create a framework to
develop the research-based maps.
Step 3- research customer processes,
perception and needs.
Get the customer insight for all touch
points by using different methods
ethnographic study, tapping into social
media, contextual observation to determine
the common issues and customer
sentiments.
Step 4- analyze customer research After that filter the findings which have
been gained from the customer interaction

with the company and analyze what they
want from the company and how they feel
after the interaction.
Step 5- map the customer experience Then analyze the situation and represent
the visuals of customer’s needs, processes
and perception, this is how the journey
map is created.

Customer experience map of the virgin holiday-
Awareness consideration Purchase retention advocacy
Positive
experience
Virgin holiday
will create
service
awareness
through the
company
website,
SEO, social
media,
Google
AdSense, etc.
Here the
service
research will
be done by
interacting
with existing
customers and
regular
customers.
The purchase
will be done
by visiting the
hotel or
talking with
the regular
clients and
how the
customers
are coming to
the hotel will
be analyzed.
Then the
virgin holiday
will determine
the elements
which help in
retaining the
customers
such as by
providing
good
customer
services,
offering good
offers and
discounts to
the guests
then the
company will
analyze
customer
issues and a
problem
which the
guests are
facing by
talking
feedback
from every
customer.
Negative
experience
After
identifying the
problems of
the guests,
the company
can improve
their area of
services with
the help of
feedback.

Figure 3: customer experience journey