Customer Experience Management - Coursework Example

Experience Management: Graceland Hotels [Lecturer] Details] Experience Management “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” – Peter Drucker Introduction In today’s current competitive market climate companies and individuals are all jostling for a share of consumer expenditure. For every business, or individual, that intends to be sustainable and profitable, we need to look at what is one of the most important aspects to ensure the sustainability and profitability of our enterprise. Nothing is more important than the customer at the end of the day, and if we don’t have customers, we don’t have revenue generation activities and ultimately we won’t have an enterprise, moreover we have to look after our existing customers and employees. We can ensure this by designing and implementing organizational processes and policies, with the overall customer experience and satisfaction in mind. One of the key elements of our customer retention and growth strategies would be that of an innovative Customer Experience Management (CEM) framework and policy. CEM is defined as “the process of strategically managing a customer’s entire experience with a product or company” (Schmitt, 2003, p.17). Schmitt goes on to specifically identify that CEM is different from CRM, in such a way that it is process and not outcome oriented, which in our opinion creates the human element, that ensures an overall positive customer experience with our organization. Our proposed CEM framework and policy will be centered on a value added chain of self-contained budget accommodation units for families. Why do we need to develop this proposed new customer experience? Customer satisfaction is of utmost importance to not only retain these customers, but to acquire new customers, whilst improving and customizing our own products and services. Most business programs and policies lead management on a trail of facts, procedures and figures around the sales and performance of the company, without focusing on the actual customer who, in fact, is actually the main contributor to the company’s turnover. This lack of customer-centric activity tends to neglect the customer, their likes, dislikes and therefore their overall satisfaction or experience in dealing with Graceland Hotels. We need to focus on the total customer experience, not only the functional controls of finance, budget and cost control, to ensure sustainability and ongoing profitability of our chain. This CEM proposal has numerous advantages for our company as a whole and the major benefits are: Catalyst for organizational, management and employee change; Value added customer focused activities; Return on Investment (ROI) measurement tool, once proposed CEM is implemented; Performance alignment with organization’s goals, objectives and vision; and Affords greater employee involvement and responsibility of the desired outcomes of the organization’s marketing and financial direction. We have therefore established that we have to bring the human element back into our organization to ensure our sustainable business growth and ultimate financial success, within the budget accommodation sector. By implementing CEM policies and framework, we are certain that these activities will boost customer satisfaction, giving us a marked edge over our competitors, as the legendary Jack Welch says: “If you dont have a competitive advantage, dont compete.” Who are the Target Customers for This Experience? When targeting our selected customers or group of customers, and whilst designing the processes and framework, we have to be cognizant of those specific customers and especially in the customer interactive areas within the service industry. We have identified out target customers as not only our existing customers, that frequent our chain of venues, but potential customers within a defined demographic, thereby offering an alternative to their current accommodation destinations, with the view of acquiring and retaining these customers. The demographic that we will be focusing on is the middle income earning families, which want to enjoy the experiences associated with going on vacation and traveling. Because these people may not be at the top end of the income earning and disposable income categories, does not mean, we as a value added provider of accommodation cannot cater to this market and boost the customer experience and overall view of our chain of accommodation venues. Based on our group of existing and potential customers, we will focus on an individual basis within the various age groups and interest groups. With our broadly defined target and business strategy, we believe that taking the best of available strategies and frameworks would ideally have the best result for our company, the employees and our customers. After careful research and analysis our proposal is based upon a combination of the Customer Experience Management Framework (for inclusion of key performance areas), and a very valid “6 Laws of Customer Experience” Temkin, B, 2008. Our Framework, together with our 6 Laws, will be used together with the five steps to understand and manage the Customer Experience. Diagram 1: Customer Experience Management Framework (adapted from Customer Experience Management, John Kiska) The above diagram indicates the inclusion of all departments of the organization, ensuring the involvement, commitment and responsibility of ALL team members. What are the Key Features of the Proposed New Customer Experience? As stated previously, as a key to our innovation within the CEM proposal, we have included the 6 Laws of Customer Experience (Temkin), these are: 1. Every interaction creates a personal reaction; 2. People are instinctively self-centered; 3. Customer familiarity breeds alignment; 4. Unengaged employees don’t create engaged customers. 5. Employees do what is measured, incented and celebrated; and 6. You can’t fake it. These 6 laws are additional guidelines for all our staff to work towards the common goals of the organization. By ensuring that every staff member, within the organization not only subscribes to, but is committed and involved, we will maintain a competitive edge over competitors and ensure sustainability of the company. With the involvement of all levels of the organization, we need to focus on the customers we intend acquiring and retaining. According to Schmitt, a brand creates five different types of experiences: Sense; Feel; Think; Act; and Relate. Schmitt distinguishes between hard-wired and acquired experiential response levels in each of the above cases. We as marketers can provide experiences for our customers via the following 5 steps, the first two steps form the basis of the CEM (analysis and strategy, respectively), and the third, fourth and fifth steps are structured around the implementation thereof: 1.) Analyzing the experiential world of the customer; socio-cultural context – needs, wants and lifestyle of the customer; our business concept – what are the requirements and the solutions. 2.) Building the Experiential platform; strategy and implementation; what value is there for our customer; 3.) Designing the Brand experience; the look and feel of our brand, what are the features; 4.) Structuring the customer interface; where can we interact with the client – contact points; what is the general attitude of staff, where can we add value; 5.) Engaging in continuous innovation; Where can we improve all stake holder’s lives (internal and external) With our framework in place, these steps are used in conjunction with the mentioned 6 laws to create these contact points with our customers and staff members to ensure a strategic way forward. Management needs to support the customer feedback initiative by individualizing experiences, according to our defined target market, an example of this may be a free round of golf at the local course for golf enthusiasts, or perhaps a nail treatment at the local nail salon for our female clients. These would apply to our regular customers, which can be monitored via a ‘special guest’ program – thereby prioritizing our segmented target market. We could establish these rewards systems by interacting with the customers at every given opportunity, from the GM to the housekeeper, when coming into contact with guests – our guest feedback must be the driving force behind the company’s direction. Employee empowerment is also a valuable tool, by eliminating or greatly reducing the unnecessary bureaucratic red tape within our organization, we ensure that our frontline employees can resolve issues quicker and more easily – creating a meaningful experiential moment almost instantaneously. To reiterate it will require the total commitment by all staff, and once we have this commitment, we can create an internal rewards program for encouragement of our internal stakeholders. As the feedback filters through, we gain insight into the ‘experiential’ minds of our customers, in turn these can be used to maintain and create further unique CEM opportunities for our organization. What are the Implications for Marketing? Unlike CRM, which collects and analyses data about what our customers are purchasing and how much they are spending, our implementation of our CEM policies will provide the most valuable feedback in terms of what are our customers thinking and feeling. This in turn provides us with a direction to steer our marketing campaigns to aim directly at the customer and value relationship. Together with the already gathered CRM data, we must combine the CEM data and then organized into specific target segments, as per our desired overall marketing strategy. This combination of business intelligence can be used to identify emerging trends within our customer base and in turn allows us to design more effective and targeted marketing communications and campaigns. Teamwork with the newly created positions mentioned in the next point, will enable the marketing personnel to effectively manage, gauge and design new and exciting campaigns in line with the desired customer feedback. What are the Implications for Staff Recruitment, Training and Support? In order for our CEM practices to be truly effective, we have to start at the base of any potential problems that may arise, these may occur in the form of a customer complaint. A customer complaint management process must be designed and implemented – this will enable our staff to effectively deal with any complaint before it possibly becomes a relationship-destroying issue. Therefore proactive training of our staff and ongoing support structures must be created and followed to prevent any potential customer defection events from arising. In terms of our overall Human Resource function within the organization, our compensation policy needs to be aligned around our customer-centric implemented CEM practices. It is critical for our desired sustainability to implement a reward system for all our staff measured by ongoing positive customer experience and satisfaction measures. Commitment to our proposed CEM processes needs to start at the top, from the CEO to the executive level and filter all the way down to each and every staff member. Although the company may be new to this sort of management process, we can implement this over a period of time to gain a true understanding and effective CEM process. Key ‘executive’ positions, such as ‘Chief Customer Officer’ can be allocated to create and coordinate our CEM efforts. With this single focus position we have the opportunity of cementing our existing client base and building solid new client relationships. What is Innovative about this Proposal? Although we continue with our CRM efforts, our financial controls and management procedures, we implement our CEM strategy into our existing framework to achieve maximum business intelligence and customer support. Our proposal does not merely address the importance of the CEM framework and policies; we will subscribe to the quoted 6 Laws of CEM, which aides us in the complete understanding of the CEM concept. By embracing the principles outlined, we effectively create the platform for ongoing customer interaction, and thereby ensuring product/service development and improvement according to what our defined target market customers are not only looking for, but asking for. The implementation of a key position, namely the Chief Customer Officer, enables our organization to continually make decisions and alter processes, according to the valuable feedback and business intelligence. Effectively we remove the additional workload from already overburdened management, by creating this position, and our organization enjoys the approach of a dedicated customer-centric professional – to highlight our areas of concern around our valuable clients. Thus our innovative approach to our clients, staff and a newly implemented CEM strategy will assist the sustainability and long term growth of our organization. References Kiska, J. CMA (October 2002). Customer Experience Management: Using Technology to Build an Unshakable Customer-Supplier Relationship. CMA Management p.28-30. Duncan, L. Just What Is Customer Experience Management, Anyway? Retrieved from website www.marketingprofs.com. Retrieved September 26, 2008 Fred van Bennekom, Dr BA. (2007).Customer Experience Management – By Design. http://www.greatbrook.com/customer_experience_management.htm. Accessed and retrieved September 25, 2008. Global Oneness Website. Customer Experience Management – The CEM Technique http://www.experiencefestival.com/customer_experience_management. Retrieved September 24, 2008 Jurik, B (2007). Adding Customer Centricity to Your CRM Initiative With Customer Experience Management (CEM). CRM Project Volume 7. CRM Transformation: MRI Montgomery Research. http://www.crmproject.com/documents.asp?d_ID=4592. Retrieved September 23, 2008 Rae, J (2006). The Importance of Great Customer Experiences. Business Week. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_48/b4011429.htm. Retrieved September 26, 2008 Schmitt, B. (2003). Customer experience management: a revolutionary approach to connecting with your customers. New York: Wiley. Shaw, C. and Ivens, J (2002).Building Great Customer Experiences. New York Palgrave. Smith, S., & Wheeler, J. (2002). Managing the customer experience: turning customers into advocates. London: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Temkin, B. (2008). The 6 Laws of Customer Experience: The Fundamental Truths that Define how Organizations Treat Customers. Experiencematters.wordpress.com. Retrieved September 25, 2008. Read More