{"id":1660,"date":"2020-09-18T16:39:04","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T16:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/chapter\/customer-experience\/"},"modified":"2021-06-04T21:15:24","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T21:15:24","slug":"customer-experience","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/chapter\/customer-experience\/","title":{"raw":"9.1 Customer Experience","rendered":"9.1 Customer Experience"},"content":{"raw":"

Overview<\/h1>\nWhile there are many other factors that contribute to the success of a tourism business, one of the easiest to control is customer service levels.\n\nMany of BC\u2019s tourism operations have mastered high and consistent customer service levels. Why and how are they able to do this? What are the characteristics of exceptional customer service and the benefits to the business and the employees? How does technology apply to customer service and how is it constantly evolving?\n\nThis chapter will answer these questions as we explore the fundamentals of customer service in the context of a competitive global tourism environment. We will interview experienced tourism professionals, as well study the success of BC\u2019s own customer service program, SuperHost, which has been training BC hospitality professionals for over 35 years.\n\nWe will be introducing concepts such as Total Quality (TQ), Net Promoter score and Customer lifetime value (CLV) used to measure customer service impact.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1659\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"500\"]\"A Figure 9.1 A family getting their regular drink at the local coffee shop, where they are provided with prompt and courteous service.[\/caption]\n\nCustomer service delivery and experience in today\u2019s economy is becoming increasingly significant owing to change in demographics and psychographics. Words such as \u201cauthenticity\u201d, \u201cunique,\u201d \u201cone of a kind,\u201d and \u201cmemorable\u201d are being widely used by BC hospitality and tourism businesses to describe their customer experience.\n\nExperience in the hospitality and tourism industry is a word that has been defined by various authors since 1982 until now. In the published article from Godovykh & Tasci (2020), the literature review explores the definition of the word \u201cexperience\u201d spanning across various periods of time (Table 9.1).\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Table 9.1 The evolution of \"experience\"<\/caption>\n
Authors<\/th>\nDefined \u201cExperience\" as<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Holbrook and Hirschman (1982, p. 132)<\/td>\n\u201ca steady flow of fantasies, feelings, and fun\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pine and Gilmore (1998, p. 99)<\/td>\n\u201c\u2026are inherently personal, existing only in the mind of an individual who has been engaged on an emotional, physical, intellectual, or even spiritual level\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004, p. 8)<\/td>\n\u201can environment in which consumers can have active dialogue and co-construct personalized experiences\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gentile, Spiller, & Noci (2007, p. 397)<\/td>\n\u201cexperience originates from a set of interactions between a customer and a product, a company, or part of its organization, which provoke a reaction\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bagdare and Jain (2013, p. 792)<\/td>\n\u201cthe sum total of cognitive, emotional, sensorial, and behavioral responses produced\u2026.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Godovykh and Tasci (2020, p. 8)<\/td>\n\u201cthe totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and conative responses, on a spectrum of negative to positive, evoked by all stimuli encountered in pre, during, and post phases of consumption affected by situational and brand-related factors filtered through personal differences of consumers, eventually resulting in differential outcomes related to consumers and brands\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nThe above word \u201cexperience\u201d has seen an evolution in terms of its description where now this is further expanded across the customer journey through various interactions. In the next section, Ben Day sheds some light on what customer service is and how critical it is to the industry.\n
\n\nIndustry Conversation: Ben Day, Director of Sales and Marketing, Blackcomb Springs Suites by Clique<\/strong>\n\nWhat makes customer service exceptional in the hospitality and tourism, from a provider point of view and a customer point of view?\n\n\u201cExceptional service is most often delivered by people who care. Poor service from a poorly trained staff member is made much worse if the guest doesn\u2019t feel like the employee cares.\n\nTeam members who care start by paying attention to what the guest needs and taking the time to think of ways to go above and beyond.  From a customer point of view the next most important thing is for the person providing the service to be well trained and know what they are doing.\n\nFrom a provider viewpoint hiring the right team members who like to help others and take the time to listen is critical. The next big step is to provide extensive training so that team members are comfortable to help in every situation and empowered to think out of the box and come up with solutions on the spot.\u201d\n\n<\/div>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1659\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"450\"]\"A Figure 9.2 Great customer service and experience takes place across many platforms and is critical for tourism and hospitality employers.[\/caption]","rendered":"

Overview<\/h1>\n

While there are many other factors that contribute to the success of a tourism business, one of the easiest to control is customer service levels.<\/p>\n

Many of BC\u2019s tourism operations have mastered high and consistent customer service levels. Why and how are they able to do this? What are the characteristics of exceptional customer service and the benefits to the business and the employees? How does technology apply to customer service and how is it constantly evolving?<\/p>\n

This chapter will answer these questions as we explore the fundamentals of customer service in the context of a competitive global tourism environment. We will interview experienced tourism professionals, as well study the success of BC\u2019s own customer service program, SuperHost, which has been training BC hospitality professionals for over 35 years.<\/p>\n

We will be introducing concepts such as Total Quality (TQ), Net Promoter score and Customer lifetime value (CLV) used to measure customer service impact.<\/p>\n

\"A
Figure 9.1 A family getting their regular drink at the local coffee shop, where they are provided with prompt and courteous service.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Customer service delivery and experience in today\u2019s economy is becoming increasingly significant owing to change in demographics and psychographics. Words such as \u201cauthenticity\u201d, \u201cunique,\u201d \u201cone of a kind,\u201d and \u201cmemorable\u201d are being widely used by BC hospitality and tourism businesses to describe their customer experience.<\/p>\n

Experience in the hospitality and tourism industry is a word that has been defined by various authors since 1982 until now. In the published article from Godovykh & Tasci (2020), the literature review explores the definition of the word \u201cexperience\u201d spanning across various periods of time (Table 9.1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Table 9.1 The evolution of “experience”<\/caption>\n
Authors<\/th>\nDefined \u201cExperience” as<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Holbrook and Hirschman (1982, p. 132)<\/td>\n\u201ca steady flow of fantasies, feelings, and fun\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pine and Gilmore (1998, p. 99)<\/td>\n\u201c\u2026are inherently personal, existing only in the mind of an individual who has been engaged on an emotional, physical, intellectual, or even spiritual level\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004, p. 8)<\/td>\n\u201can environment in which consumers can have active dialogue and co-construct personalized experiences\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gentile, Spiller, & Noci (2007, p. 397)<\/td>\n\u201cexperience originates from a set of interactions between a customer and a product, a company, or part of its organization, which provoke a reaction\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bagdare and Jain (2013, p. 792)<\/td>\n\u201cthe sum total of cognitive, emotional, sensorial, and behavioral responses produced\u2026.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Godovykh and Tasci (2020, p. 8)<\/td>\n\u201cthe totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and conative responses, on a spectrum of negative to positive, evoked by all stimuli encountered in pre, during, and post phases of consumption affected by situational and brand-related factors filtered through personal differences of consumers, eventually resulting in differential outcomes related to consumers and brands\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The above word \u201cexperience\u201d has seen an evolution in terms of its description where now this is further expanded across the customer journey through various interactions. In the next section, Ben Day sheds some light on what customer service is and how critical it is to the industry.<\/p>\n

\n

Industry Conversation: Ben Day, Director of Sales and Marketing, Blackcomb Springs Suites by Clique<\/strong><\/p>\n

What makes customer service exceptional in the hospitality and tourism, from a provider point of view and a customer point of view?<\/p>\n

\u201cExceptional service is most often delivered by people who care. Poor service from a poorly trained staff member is made much worse if the guest doesn\u2019t feel like the employee cares.<\/p>\n

Team members who care start by paying attention to what the guest needs and taking the time to think of ways to go above and beyond.  From a customer point of view the next most important thing is for the person providing the service to be well trained and know what they are doing.<\/p>\n

From a provider viewpoint hiring the right team members who like to help others and take the time to listen is critical. The next big step is to provide extensive training so that team members are comfortable to help in every situation and empowered to think out of the box and come up with solutions on the spot.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"A
Figure 9.2 Great customer service and experience takes place across many platforms and is critical for tourism and hospitality employers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"menu_order":1,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":"cc-by"},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[52],"class_list":["post-1660","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","license-cc-by"],"part":1656,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1661,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1660\/revisions\/1661"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/1656"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1660\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=1660"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=1660"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/introtourism2e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=1660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}