Customer Experience Management for Contemporary Hospitality

Question: Discuss about theCustomer Experience Management for Contemporary Hospitality. Answer: Introduction The aim of this report is to develop an understanding of the importance of the customer experience comparative to the business strategy and success. For this assignment, two services have been selected among which, one is considered to have poor customer experience whereas another with a good customer experience. The service industry chosen are Japanese restaurants in Sydney, Australia. The restaurant with a poor customer experience is Sushi Hotaru because it requires waiters as well as waitresses to take the orders from the customers and this is frustrating for the busy crowd as it is time consuming (thegaleries.com, 2018). However, on the other hand, the restaurant with good customer experience is Yayoi Garden Restaurant. The reason behind a good customer experience from this Japanese restaurant in Sydney is that they use tablets for ordering food. Through these tablets, the customers can also track the food being order by following when it is being cooked, finished as well as serv ed (Yayoigarden.com.au, 2018). Discussion Proto-persona diagram (poor experience component): Name Kate Behaviors Loves Japanese food Eats at Japanese restaurants twice a week Studying in university Loves gadgets and tech savvy Demographics Post graduation student 24 years old Part time worker in Coles Needs/Goals Needs faster service in any store or restaurants Prefers using gadgets for everyday activities Prefers online services Difficulties while waiting for something for too long (Source: Created by author) Two most significant pain points of the negative experience Customer pain points are the problems, which could be real or perceived by the customers during the consumption of products or services. In the customer experience management, the pain points provide the scope of improvement to the product or service providers (Homburg, Jozi? Kuehnl, 2017). In the above example of the negative customer experience in the Japanese restaurant Sushi Hotaru, the customer, Kate, experienced poor service. The two most significant pain points could be not using modern technology to make the services convenient and wasting the valuable time of the customers by keep them waiting for the orders, especially during the rush hours, when the wait time increases considerably. These experiences of the customers can be explained with the concepts of experiential components. Emotional components are the feelings, moods and other emotional experiences creating affective relationship with any company, its brands and goods and services. Another key concept that can descr ibe the poor experience is the relational component. The experiences that emerge from social relationships and contexts, occurring from common consumption within a real or imagined community is known as the relational experience component (Schmitt, 2011). The poor experience of the customer in the Sushi Hotaru can be a resultant effect of the emotional and relational components. While waiting for the waiter or waitress to give the food order, Kate experienced irritation and agitation for waiting too long. The serving of the food also takes substantial amount of time, which also causes irritation among the customers. This is an emotional experiential component that has led to poor experience (Wilson et al., 2016). On the other hand, all the customers at that restaurant are facing the same problem of wasting their valuable time due to the restaurant not using modern technology for serving the customers. Hence, all are experiencing agitation, especially during the peak hours and this c an be justified using the relational experience component. Proto-persona diagram (positive experience organization): Name Kate Behaviors Loves Japanese food Eats at Japanese restaurants twice a week Studying in university Loves gadgets and tech savvy Demographics Post graduation student 24 years old Part time worker in Coles Needs/Goals Needs faster service in any store or restaurants Prefers to have quality food in any restaurant Prefers using gadgets for everyday activities Prefers online services Difficulties when not being able to customize something she likes (Source: Created by author) Two touch and pain points of the positive experience Touch points refer to those things or factors that affect the customers positively to have a good experience. The customer, Kate, had a positive experience in Yayoi Garden Restaurant. In this restaurant, Kate experienced that they use tablets for ordering the food, which saves a good amount of valuable time of the customers. They also save the time by checking the menu online prior to order and not wait for the waiter to come with the menu for ordering. The new technology also enables the customers to check the status of their food being cooked and served while they wait for it. This keeps the customers intrigued with the whole order to food serve process (Lemon Verhoef, 2016). The whole experienced can be explained by applying the experiential components. Customer lifestyle and pragmatic experiential component can explain these positive customer experiences. Kate found the usage of tablets is tech savvy and convenient for all the customers, which saves their valuable time while ord ering food. This is aligned to the lifestyle of Kate, and thus has resulted in positive pain point. Similarly, pragmatic experiential component explains the experiences that result from the practical act and the usability (Kandampully, Zhang Jaakkola, 2017). In this case, the usage of modern technology in the most important service of a restaurant makes it convenient for both the restaurant management and customers by saving the valuable time and keeping the customers engaged by enabling the access to view their order status while waiting for the food. Many would find this experience interesting and will feel happy about it. Comparison of the two experiences Between the positive and negative experience, the positive experience is better for the customers as they feel good about going to the Yayoi Garden Restaurant, and help the restaurant to earn popularity as well as revenues. However, along with the touch points, there is another pain point also. Since, in the Yayoi Garden Restaurant, the entire process of checking the menu, ordering food and checking the status happen online through the tablets, the customers sometimes face the difficulty if they want to change any order or wants to modify the order by increasing or decreasing the quantity order. This experience can be explained by using the pragmatic concept (Holland Ramanathan, 2016). On the other hand, Sushi Hotaru can make improvements from taking the feedback about the customers negative experience and making changes in those areas. Conclusion From the analysis of the two positive and negative experiences of a customer in two different restaurants, it can be said that, the experiences are generated from various factors and those can be explained using different concepts of experiential components. Customer lifestyle, emotional component, relational component and pragmatic component can describe the pain points and touch points of the customer in the above mentioned two restaurants. Consumer behavior depends on many emotional and circumstantial elements. The proto-persona diagrams are helpful to analyze the customer profile and the background of the experiences of the customers, while consuming any product or service. In the above examples, the customers faced negative experiences and those are explained by the concept of emotional and relational components; and the positive experiences are explained by customer lifestyle and pragmatic components. References Holland, H., Ramanathan, N. (2016). Customer Experience Management.Dialogmarketing Perspektiven 2015/2016, 83-101. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-12924-8_4. Homburg, C., Jozi?, D., Kuehnl, C. (2017). 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