INTRODUCTION
Customers act as the main asset for the hospitality industry. For hospitality industry, customer’s plays important role as the whole hospitality business depends on the experience. Services served by the hotel should be able to satisfy the needs and desires of customer in order to gain competitive advantage. Hotel will face huge losses if it fails to serve good quality services to their customers. Hospitality sectors overall deals with the services that is provided to customers in order to provide customer satisfactions. Hospitality sectors are growing very fast nowadays and is expected to grow at the rate of 6%. This report mainly emphasis on various factors that directly and indirectly drive and influence the customer groups. This report mainly covers about the overall understand the basic need, wants and preferences of the targeted customer groups. This report also explores about how digital technologies is employed to manage the customer experiences along with the specific service sectors.
TASK 1
P1: Value and importance of understanding the needs, wants and preferences of target customer groups
The main targeted customer for Five Field restaurant are business person, holidaymakers and hospital patients. They meets the needs of these targeted customers by provide effective customers services. In order to run the business well it is very essential to identify and understand the importance of all the needs, wants and demands of the targeted customers in order to run hospitality business well. Needs are the basic things that is essential to satisfy the customers. In order to analysis the needs and wants of the customers, it is crucial to adapt market segmentation as this allows Five Field restaurant to subdivide a large homogeneous market into some specific identifiable segments. In this segments all the needs, wants and demands of the customers are covered. With the help market segmentation, Five Field restaurant is able to target and cover variety of customers groups with various different behaviour and thoughts.
Some of the Five Field restaurant targeted customer needs, preferences and wants are discussed below:
Business Person: Five Field restaurant usually focuses and target the business class customer and serve excellent and professional services to customers. Five Field restaurant emphasis on the overall needs, wants and preferences of business class customer categories. Five Field restaurant provides various facilitates that includes Wi-Fi- facilities, charging points, mobile facilities, meeting rooms so that such customer can comfortably conduct the business meeting.
Hospital patients guests: In order to have medical treatment many guest moves to other cities. Five Field restaurant provide special check in and check out facilitates to the handicap patients. They emphasis on the needs and preferences of this patients guests by focusing and providing healthy and nutrition food items, delivering meals at rooms and providing clean surrounding.
Holidaymaker: For holidaymaker, Five Field restaurant emphasis towards the needs, preferences and wants. Holidaymaker generally refers to those guests that generally comes to visit the famous places. Five Field restaurant provides good hygienic local food and beverages to their holidaymaker customer along with nappy and changing facilitates. Five Field restaurant also provides cab facilitates to holiday maker which provides pick up facilities and drop-off facilities at visiting sites. All this facilities allows to build strong relationship with the holidaymaker guests.
Type of customer |
Different types of customer needs |
|||
Business person |
Wi-Fi facilities |
Sufficient space to pass between table, mobile phone charging points |
Meeting rooms so that comfortably conduct their businesses meeting without any hindrance |
|
Holidaymaker |
Nappy and changing facilitates |
Easy to eat food, meal brought to bedside |
Cabs facilities |
|
Hospital patients guest |
Calorie information |
Nutritious food |
Pool side services |
|
A nice view from window |
Charging point |
Soft music |
P2. Different factors which drive and influence customer’s engagement of different target customer group.
In order to enhance the customer engagement, it is crucial to continuously analysis the relation between customer needs and preferences and organisation objectives in order to deliver proper viable services. With the help of customers engagement Five Field restaurant is able analysis well whether they are able to deliver good quality services or not. There are different factors such as ambiance, quality of food, delivery services, employee’s courtesy which affects customer's perception related to brand. Following are the factors of targeted customers of Five Field restaurant mainly includes with holiday maker, disabled and hospital patient guests and Business person.
Disabled person are the targeted customers which claim a familiar surrounding for them to board their food item. This is inasmuch as they are not agreeable to sport others on them. This will composed disapprobation among the customers therefore Five Field restaurant should focus on eliminating such substitute so that they can attract their customers. Apart from the above mentioned factors, these customers also need high calorie food items because they cannot consume high fats. Therefore Five Field restaurant should foresee such healthier surrounding for its customers to make them requite with their benefit.
Business class customers personify as a targeted customers who desired to appoint a unofficial assembling for its clients and employees. To do this they require a clam environment for them so that they can convey with each other efficiently (Buttle, 2017). Apart from the above mentioned element Five Field restaurant should focus on foresee facilities like inclination Wi –Fi sockets near their table or other facilities which will not authority their product.
Holidaymaker’s looks for refreshment and entertaining environment so they can spend some quality time with their family members and dear ones. Five Field restaurant should focus on creating such environment which will automatically raise the customer engagement. Apart from the above mentioned factors Five Field restaurant should also focus on the serving tasty food items to their customers with special drinks. If they fails to provide such services to their customers the customer engagement will fall down.
With the help above discussed factors Five Field restaurant should more emphasis on collecting feedbacks on different services that are provided by them to the customers in order to improve their services. This feedbacks will help Five Field restaurant to enhance their customer experience.
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TASK 2
P3. Customer service map for Five Field restaurant
There are various factors on the basics of which customer experience can be well mapped by Five Field Restaurant. Some of the factors are discussed in detail below:
Website: Websites act as the starting point of connection of every customers with restaurant Effective website for the restaurant is crucial as it is the first thing that customer look before arriving at the restaurant while searching for food and services. Therefore the website designed should be proper enough so that the customer when visit the website, will feel positive with the content shown on website. The photographs of food items along with the appropriate information should be displayed real. All the photos should be clicked well by the professional photographer. Moreover, website should be created well with the help of professional web developer.
Review sites: After visiting the site, customer will check the reviews of restaurant so that they can check the experience of previous visited customers (Brandon, 2016). This step will come when customer will attract with the views of website. Every restaurant has its own review sites that can create huge impact on the views of customer's. Online reviews can even make or break the final decision of customers in order to visit the restaurant. Therefore Five Field restaurants should focus on improving reviews of its customers in managing customer experience.
Telephone: This is another aspect of customer experience map in which a customer will call the hotel for more information required. This step will come when it will satisfy with reviews of restaurant .Cell phones and telephone are used by the restaurant in order to convey relevant information in concern with food item, discounts to customers. The receptionist of Five Field restaurant should provide clear information about the facilities and services to the customer and communicate with it politely in order to attract customer and enhance customer engagement.
Restaurant Environment: It is very crucial to maintain the good restaurant environment which mainly includes soft music. Customers are very concern with the restaurant internal environment so that they can come and spend some time their family members in peace. Five Field Restaurant is able to maintain healthy and comfortable environment for their customers.
Restaurant Management: Management is most important aspect that directly and indirectly generate impacts on the experience of customers. Proper management of Five Field Restaurant allows them to convey message continuously in context to the services and new food item arrivals at restaurants to their customers.
Paper Mail: In this, any kind of message is communicated to customer by using papers. Five Field Restaurant provide consistent message to its guests by sending information and message physically through papers.
Text Messages: Conveying messages to customers through text is one of latest method that is used by the restaurant to provide various kind of information such as new food item arrivals, discounts and events to customers. In order to be in touch with costumers and deliver updated messages to their customers Five Field restaurant uses text messages.
E-mail: Five Field Restaurant provides effective and attractive message to customers with eye catching photographers on e-mails to customers. They are able to share special offers and discounts to their customers.
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P4. Evaluation of customer touch-points throughout the customer experience which created business opportunities.
Touch points is the latest technology that is used by the customers while placing orders. It act as an interaction between customers and the services that is directly and indirectly offered by restaurant. It includes during, before or after the buying of something from the firm. Therefore, to identify touch points of customers Five Field restaurant provide facilities during, before and after purchase of any item. In case of before purchase all the companies gives all the details and information about their services, product and process by word-of-mouth, online social media, marketing and advertisement Touch points are somewhere involved in the mapping of customer experience but the mapping is not able to be included in touch points. There are various touch points that directly affect the customer experience. Some of them are discussed in detail below:
Website: Website act as the first touch point of the customers through which it becomes easy to know about the services quality that is offered by the customers. All the important details like list of menu, calories charts are displayed clearly on the websites. It is important to display the correct information and prices of the food items so that the experience of the customers is positive. This will surely help in developing and enhancing good customers services and boost up the business opportunities (Verma, 2015).
Telephone: Telephone act as another important aspect of customer touch point through will customers can experience the all the services and resources of the customers. Through this touch point customers feel free to call and gather information and details about the food items and services offered by the restaurants. If this experience of customers is not properly maintained it will lead to dissatisfaction among the customers due to which business also get affected. In order to improve this services, proper training should be given to receptionist to develop interpersonal skills to interact with customers in positive way. This will surely increase the number of customers and develop business opportunities.
Restaurant staff: Under this the behaviour of the staff members with customers is considered. It is important to behave in positive way to the customers and consider their issues in order to generate customer’s satisfaction. Restaurant staff should try to improve the communications skills along with behaviour in order to deal with customers in positive way.
Restaurant Management: The management of restaurant should be good enough so that it will help the customer to feel good in the premise of Five Field Restaurant. The services offered should be in time and the quality of food should be up to the mark. This will enhance the experience of customer and thus the chances of grabbing opportunities will increase
TASK 3
P5. Examining digital technology which employed in managing the customer experience within the service sector, providing specific examples of customer relationship management systems
Customer relationship management (CRM):
Customer relationship management is one of the famous implemented theory that is usually practiced in order to improve the customer experience along with the proper delivery of services to its customers. Customer relationship management helps the organisation to deliver better facilities and services to customers by adopting advance technologies, practices and strategies. The data and appropriate information from the customer experience are recorded at Five Field restaurant so that through the feedbacks future issues in the services can be improved and resolved. This process helps in increasing the sales growth along with the delivery of quality services to the customers.
- What was the name of the company making the presentation?
Black and White Hospitality is the name of the company making the presentation. This is a Macro Pierre White company. - What was the name of the person who made the presentation?
Julian Hook was the person who made the presentation. - What is the name of the software program that they demonstrated?
Opera is the name of the software programme which they demonstrated. - What are the key elements of their program?
The key elements of their program are Opening a table, booking a table, Bookings.com, Reservations, EPOS system. This is used by almost all four and five star hotels. - Name some of their current customers?
Macro Pierre White Restaurant, IHG (Inter-continental Hotel Group), Hilton International Hotel and Travelodge. - How long have they been in business?
Opera is operating its business since 1970 and Black and White Hospitality is operating since 2014 (Chathoth, 2018). - How does the company see these programmes developing in the future?
These programmes help the company in increased functionality, new market entrants, and further integration with guests, identifying trends and better analysis of feedback.
TASK 4
P6. Customer service strategies in Five Field Restaurant
Customer services act as one the most effective and important part in hospitality sector in order to attract large group of customers and maintain customers engagement. To provide effective services to guests and customer it is very essential for the manager of Five Field Restaurant to implement and deploy some customer services strategies (Bilgihan, Kandampully and Zhang, 2016). Some of the strategies are discussed below:
Reward loyal customers: Rewarding loyal customers is also one of the effective strategy that allows organisation to providing good experience to customers. For Five Field restaurant it is necessary to keep their regular customer happy and satisfied by offering them special discount offers while visiting their restaurant. This can include discount code, free food in prize draw or something as helpful video or blog post.
Offering technology they require: The technology which can be provided by restaurant to its customers is free Wi-Fi, online payment etc. This helps the customer in doing things quickly and efficiently. Free internet facility can be provided to customer because it does not charge cost.
Deliver on your promises: It is very essential for organisations to deliver their promises on time within the allocated time frame. Every service that delivers on time reinforce existing and potential customers of firm to trust in it. As Five Field Restaurant restaurant deals in hospitality sector, service is considered as the main part for the organisation growth and success.
Trained staff to read guest: The staff of Five Field restaurant should be properly trained so that they can predict the requirements of customers (Kruger, 2016). It is necessary for the employee to learn from the past experience and the decision made before.
P7. Demonstration of customer service strategies which create and develop the customer experience in a way that meet the needs of customers and required business standards.
Customer Audit Trail, Critical Observations:
Name of hospitality business visited: |
Hotel Russell, London |
Date and time of visit: |
30th November, 2018 |
Ambience and First Impressions:
Things that I observed that were positive, or good ? |
Things that I observed that were negative, or bad? |
What would I change if this was my business? |
The lightning, sounds and interior of hotel was very good and attractive. |
There is no one available on help desk which demotivate the customer Along with this space and sitting arrangements of hotel is not good. |
If this was my business, I would like to strict the rules and regulations of work and change sitting arrangements so that appropriate space can be made. |
Signage, Tariff Boards, Labelling, etc.:
Things that I observed that were positive, or good ? |
Things that I observed that were negative, or bad? |
What would I change if this was my business? |
Various signage like fire exit, no entry way etc. are attached. |
There is no proper directions are available in Hotel which confuses the customer. A proper tariff board is not available in hotel due to which customers may not be able to know prices of room. |
I would like to make proper sign boards of direction and ensure to make available a tariff board which contains all the information regarding room rates, food etc. |
Prices:
Things that I observed that were positive, or good ? |
Things that I observed that were negative, or bad? |
What would I change if this was my business? |
Rooms are available in hotel at economic prices. |
Hotel charge very high prices on some services which is not as valuable as their prices. |
I will primarily focus on providing value to customers for which they pay. |
Range of Products:
Things that I observed that were positive, or good ? |
Things that I observed that were negative, or bad? |
What would I change if this was my business? |
There is a lot of food items and services offered like Wi-Fi and availability of housekeeping. |
The water of swimming pool is not so clear. |
In order to improve the pool area, I will recruit a person to clean that area on daily basis. |
Staff:
Things that I observed that were positive, or good ? |
Things that I observed that were negative, or bad? |
What would I change if this was my business? |
Large number of staff is hired by hotel for providing services to guests. |
Due to some unskilled members of staff, services are not effectively delivered as require. |
I will hire skilled and competent staff in order to ensure high quality services will offer to customers. I will also provide training to improve their skills. |
Time:
Things that I observed that were positive, or good ? |
Things that I observed that were negative, or bad? |
What would I change if this was my business? |
The ordered food is delivered within time. |
A huge amount of time taken in laundry services. |
I would like to manage each and every task of the hotel within time so that customer experience can improve. |
Supplementary Items:
Things that I observed that were positive, or good ? |
Things that I observed that were negative, or bad? |
What would I change if this was my business? |
Staff members on front office provide quick services to customers and provide all the things they want. |
Hotel do not provide some welcome or complimentary drink to guests. |
I will provide some refreshing drink to guests so that they feel refreshing after drinking that. |
Payment:
Things that I observed that were positive, or good ? |
Things that I observed that were negative, or bad? |
What would I change if this was my business? |
The payment can be done with the help of cash or card. |
A plenty of time is taken in hotel to make online payment. |
The problem related with time should be resolved by me. |
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CONCLUSION
It has been concluded that Customer experience management is very crucial for organisation in order to increase sales revenues and deliver quality services to customers. In this report, needs and expectations of market segments are discussed along with customer experience map which creates business opportunities and optimize customer touch points. Apart from that, impact of digital technology in customer relationship management and effective customer experience management are also discussed in this report.