Importance of Customer Empowerment in Tourism Services - Coursework Example

Importance of Customer Empowerment Student’s Name Institution Customer empowerment is an essential tool for the growth of a company or industry in the business world. It’s a trend adopted by many businesses in different fields and encompasses involvement of customers in work related decisions. It involves providing clients with information, resources, and enough tools to help in decision making thus allowing a client to get services that fit their specification and desires. This method of marketing provides the consumers with the opportunity to tailor services to their liking thus, and this results to more fulfillment on both sides thus building a good customer relationship. Tourism companies create packages that strengthen the anxiety of the consumer making them believe that the offer in provision is the best suited for them. There is a big difference between customer empowerment and use of traditional marketing methods as empowerment plays a significant role in making consumers a brand ambassador. Customer empowerment plays an important part in giving the customer a great and positive experience so as they can spread the word thus spreading a good word about the company through word of mouth empowerment. Customer empowerment creates current and future opportunities for businesses and helps a company expand the company’s territories and thus functions as an essential pillar of marketing. Currently, many tourism companies are adopting the use of information communication systems and internet to enhance their relationship with the customers. Communication plays a significant role in refining the relationship between the involved parties and is key to better customer empowerment. The internet also provides a large platform for companies to communicate their intentions and showcase their services and also enable correct handling of customer grievances and suggestions. Overall, consumer empowerment plays a significant role in adding value, improving service delivery and contributes to the overall profitability of the company. Many shifts are occurring in the way companies handle their consumers in the current business world. Competition is currently based on the level of relationship a company has with its customer and the incentives used to improve their experience. Mostly an empowered customer depends and lives on the smartphone. The availability of all services ranging from maps, prices, online payment services and more others makes it an important device in the life of a customer. Customers do not also depend on an advertisement or catchy phrases but on the incentive offered together with an individual product and the availability of different choices to choose. Thus in this aspect, it is clear that empowerment also depends on packages on offer, what they want to buy, and the treatment they expect in the long run. So as to enable customer empowerment, different platforms both online and real-time are available to allow customers to share their experience and also advise each other on what choice to make. These platforms provide different information such as prices, destination maps and descriptions, best company to use, and even different modes of transport thus enabling the customer to make a decision from anywhere in the world. As a conclusion, it is clear that an empowered customer is inaccessible through the traditional means of advertisement but with good customer empowerment methods by a company a customer becomes enthusiastic and even generous in working with the enterprise. Empowerment faces different beliefs that at times affect the process. Among these is the notion that the industry wants the consumer to be their captive. Its negative as captivity tends to destroy trust.it is important to give customers many options as this works as an active tool in showing control and also negotiating power. Thus empowerment is summarized as giving the customer what they want, when they want it, in any location they are at and on your terms. Many companies that offer excellent customer empowerment embrace different marketing concepts so as to enable this.it helps capitalize on various methods with the aim of improving the relationships between a company and the customers. Many companies take advantage of the consumer empowerment to enhance customer relationship marketing. The current best tool in this sector is customer-centric marketing which aims at knowing everything about a client starting from the characteristics, what motivates them, their behaviors and attitudes and their opinion about the services on offer. It focuses on capturing and using the customer insights in the formation of marketing strategies which aim at the customers with the best relationships with the company. It encompasses three steps which include information collection on customers, using the information to serve customers efficiently and giving a chance to customers for customization and personalization of products and needs. This method also provides the tourism companies with tools that provide the opportunity to customers to customize any desired service of product to fit their needs. This empowerment strategy enhances loyalty from the client’s side thus leading to profitability to both parties, and in long-term, a company can return on their investments. When a company adopts the customer-centric marketing method, they also need to put in place a management style that is customer centered. This concept is ideal for the tourism, travel, and hospitality industries which require above average customer relationships so as to stay in business. In this industry, consumers combine a broad range of products and services so as to come up with an ideal package and experience. Such combination includes booking of airline seats, restaurants, guided tours in a park of their choice, transport methods and much more. In most scenarios, customers create their packages while at the same time consuming what is already on offer. Communication between a company providing this services and the client is mostly done through phone calls, online platforms and at times there is the application of face to face communication. As a result, it is clear that technology plays a significant role in the empowerment of customers as it creates more channels of communication and information sharing. Thanks to technology, customers from different part of the world can share their experiences on various platforms and can change from one to another platform according to their likings. Customers have the freedom of choice on how they interact with companies (Wilder Collier Barnes 2014). Such empowerment leads to the need of creating and owning an online platform or website there the customer can pop in to check on new services, information about different services and also communicate with the company if need be. Researches show that consumer behavior is rapidly changing with the evolving nature of the digital world. Companies create an application for mobile phones which is the most used device in accessing this services due to its portability nature. Customers expect services on their terms thus choose the most efficient and convenient method of interaction available. It shows that customer wants services faster thus leading to the creation of self-service platforms which are safe and precise in predicting what the customers want and delivering. Information technology facilitates the growth of the industry and expansion of markets, and thus this increase also requires advancement in technology to manage the organization. The life cycles of services and products offered by the tourism sector are becoming smaller thus pushing for more innovations by these companies to satisfy the customers. Research shows that every tourist is different and has varying preferences as they carry different but unique desires and experiences. The flexibility in choice and how services are delivered makes customers more demanding, and thus they request services that portray the value for their money. The heavy reliance on electronic media present in this industry demands innovative minds in the companies so as to enable customer empowerment. Thus personalized approaches are increasing in the market due to the requirement of personal relationships in the industry. Relationships between customers and consumers vary between being personalized and being cyber-connected. Nevertheless, consumer empowerment should not overshadow the ability of the company to attain its goals, as at times these relationships are not as profitable as foreseen in the beginning. A range of new technologies that are guided by the specific needs to acquire tourism services is emerging in the market. The two commonly used systems in tourism include triple hop’s trip matcher and vacation expert advice platform. Both provide travel agents who help and advise customers on the best holiday destinations around the world and which package to choose. Technology also has its adverse effects in the tourism industry. As much as it empowers the customer, it also created problems with the specified company in such a way that just in time production, and customer engagement becomes expensive. Though technology has enabled the reduction of human labor, it has also led to the emergence of new threats which in the long run become severe to the industry. Online marketing has become more of spam as different companies use the platform to carry out surveys on customers and not all people like this. Frequent messages which are unwarranted discourage customers from getting involved with the enterprise (Constantinides, 2014). Also, there are additional charges that are billed to the client thus generating more revenue for operations by being opportunistic on customers. Another problem is the lack of accessibility to this services in some areas and also due to the high nature of this devices. In the long run, technology helps in increasing the revenue while reducing customer service as all transaction are done online, and the lack of the face to face aspect discredits services at times. As much as technologies improve the customer service and experience it also have major effects especially in the pollution of the environment. Devices like phones enhance communication but on the other hand, may be used in terrorist acts especially in bomb detonation. Despite this few problems, technology plays a significant role in making life easy for both the customers and the companies. As a result, technology should be used wisely to enable smooth operations and promote customer empowerment. Tourism companies should decide on the technology required as its excessive use reduces and destroys customer based relationships thus affecting consumer empowerment. Companies should keep in mind that tourism is about real time experiences and also interacting with others and technology cannot offer that. Employees should also be well trained on the use of technology to avoid excessive use of misuse and training should be done based on the evolving technologies. Wise use of technology enhances relationships as no matter how advanced the technology is; it can show care, love, or understanding which is paramount in customer empowerment. Excellent time management and meeting of deadlines are of utmost importance to enable customer satisfaction. Also, clarity and consistency in offering services show that a company has implemented technology use appropriately. Availability of correct information and reply is to inquiries without delays enhance the relationship between the customer and industry. Customer empowerment in new product development helps firms design better products and offer better services and also helps in risk reduction as the product already has a market base. The involvement of customers in product development reflects the relationship between the two parties. Ultimately, product development is centralized in most companies, and the companies have the final say on what is to be produced. However, it is clear that in business people get more satisfaction in participative systems thus making more companies become customer oriented thus simplifying the hurdle of fulfilling the customer needs and requirements. Before the creation of a new product, customer based involvement actions like surveys and inquiries are done so as to get an overview of what type of product or service is more suitable currently. Customer relationship is essential to avoid accusations on companies by exerting too much power and exploiting the customers. Technology enables customers to get involved in designing, marketing, producing, and even marketing in new product development Customer empowerment also has negative impacts on companies and their management. Substitution of labor roles with their clients is one of the common factors affecting companies. Too much involvement changes a customer to a worker, as they are involved in all aspects of production and management of the client (Rust Olive 1994). Another problem is misbehaving clients. They are the type of people who are too demanding or do not follow the set regulations thus creating a hard time for the company in offering their services. Methods of dealing with such rowdy customers should be introduced to ensure smooth cooperation between both parties (Pires Stanton Rita 2006). Another problem is low employee contact which is harmful in the long run. Good relations require real connections as information is communicated in a better way and more efficiently. Technology costs may end up reducing the overall turnover in investments. Such costs revolve around acquiring new technologies, maintenance, and repairs and also learning advanced technologies. So as to maximize the impact of customer empowerment tourism firms need to offer education services on its importance. All involved stakeholders i.e. the management, employees, clients and the company in a whole need to have a joint forum so as to educate all parties. Awards and penalties are significant as they help show appreciation to the involved parties. When a good worker gets rewarded his motivation increases drastically, and he or she ends up offering better services within the department they are involved. On the other hand, when a customer is required excessively in decision making and customer empowerment he takes advantage of the company, and this can have a negative impact. The setting of boundaries is necessary so as to maintain a healthy relationship where one party I not taking advantage of the other. Consumer reviews on products have adverse effects also as they affect the way other customers view the services and product as they may give negative reviews at times (Giesler, Veresiu 2014). When customers utilize online platforms to review services and products, bad reviews are more influential than positive reviews thus having an adverse effect. So as To avoid this, tourism companies should encourage new customers with incentives and also ask them to provide reviews and positive feedbacks so as to attract more customers. It is important for businesses to keep in mind that many customers believe more in texts that the overall performance of the enterprise (Lefebvre 2007). So as to minimize this negative impacts, companies need to formulate new strategies and policies on how to manage customer empowerment and also to get positive benefits. The key to successful customer empowerment is consistency in how the company is engaging them. By adopting this culture, customers get empowered in the right way with enough knowledge that their input matters. In conclusion, the tourism industry is very dynamic in nature and companies in it need to stay updated so as for stay competitive in the market. Customer empowerment is essential in this industry, as companies require good customer relationships so as expand their market. References Constantinides, E., 2014. Foundations of social media marketing. Procedia-Social and behavioral sciences, 148, pp.40-57. Giesler, M. and Veresiu, E., 2014. Generating the liable consumer: Moralistic consumer subjectivity. Periodical of Customer Research, 41(3), pp.840-857. Lefebvre, R.C., 2007. The new technology: the consumer as a participant rather than target audience. Social Marketing Quarterly, 13(3), pp.31-42. Pires, G.D., Stanton. And Rita, P., 2006. The internet, customer enablement, and marketing approach. European Periodical of Marketing, 40(9/10), pp.936-949. Rust, R.T. and Oliver, R.W., 1994. The death of advertising. Journal of Advertising, 23(4), pp.71-77. Wilder, K.M., Collier, E. and Barnes, D.C., 2014. Modifying to buyers’ needs: Understanding how to sanction an adaptive amenity understanding Periodical of Service Research, 17(4), pp.446-459. Read More