Module 5 Customer´s Experience Rooms – Identify a situation of interaction between customer and servicescape, week 3

In this blog post I´ll write about the customer experience room when visiting hotel Leela Palace in Bengaluru, India earlier this year. This was the hotel we used to facilitate a Sales Force Event.

Leela Palace is counted as among the best 5* hotel in Bengaluru. This hotel offer courier services, in-room safe, access to international newspapers, Car and Limousine service, babysitting services, florist, foreign currency exchange, international satellite television channels, outdoor swimming pool, shopping arcade, three restaurants, lounge and bar, Spa, Salon and state-of-the-art-gym, Hi-speed broadband and Wi-fi internet.

The exterior gives a really exclusive feeling, as well as the interior.

 

 

 

 

 

Basically we can say that these pictures really helps setting the expectations and definitely influences the perception of the part of the customer. Before coming to the hotel, I had high expectations.

We arrived to the hotel late at night and was then greeted by a welcome committee serving refreshments. After this, we got assigned one person each from this welcome committee that helped us with the check in and that personally showed the way to the room, That was, at least for me, really unexpected and added a very exclusive feeling.

The room was of no disappointment either.

 

 

The restaurants were of really high quality. Neat, clean, big and spacious, a big selection of food, chefs working and preparing food in connection to the buffet.

 

 

Everybody in the staff were really friendly, spoke English very well and was also nicely dressed in uniforms. There were also always fresh flowers in big arrangements standing in the lobby.

According to Brian Wilson, all physical evidence of a business sends a message to the customer and you as a company need to make sure that the message is what you intended.

To summarize, I think that Leela Palace really have succeded in creating a genuine 5* feeling. This is also confirmed by customer rating – if you look at Hotels.com you can find “outstanding” as the summarized review of this hotel.

 

Module 5 Customer´s Experience Rooms - Reflection of video, week 2

I have chosen to reflect upon Brian Wilsons video "Physical evidence of the servicescape".  

According to Brian Wilson, physical evidence are of big importance of the company and all  physical evidence of a business sends a message to the customer. It´s therefore really important make sure that the message is what you as a company has intended.
Brian says that Physical evidence comes in two types – servicescapes or other tangibles. Examples servicescapes is facilities: exterior/interior design, signage, parking, landscape, surrounding environment, equipment, signage, layout, air quality/temperature, sound/music/scent/lighting etc. Other tangibles could be Business cards, stationary, the way employees dress, company brochures.

According to Brian Wilson service escapes can package everything for the benefit of the firm and the customer experience. It can help sets expectations and definitely influence the perception of the part of the customer. It also acts as a facilitator. In the role of service it´s really important to simplify for the customer and make it easy to understand – make it easy to make business. It also acts as a socializer. It can facilitate interactions not only between the customers and employers in the firm, but also between customers and fellow customers. Servicescapes can also act as a differenciator  - it can set the provider apart from competition in the mind of the customer.

Within our company we are working a lot with physical evidences. For example we have a  so called “Dealer Operating Standard“ that our dealers/workshops needs to follow. This standard is a kind of “quality-stamp” for the customers – when you visit one of our dealers or workshops you shall be able to expect a certain standard of the workshop when it comes to the physical workshop as such - the workshop facilities shall be situated so they are easy to find, the signs shall be well exposed (and significant) and the workshops are neat and clean. The standard also tells the customers what they can expect when it comes to how they shall be met as customers and also what level of service they can expect. The standard also works a quality assurance/quality assurance tool for us as a mother company.

To be able to keep track of how the customers view us, we have a so called “CSI” (Customer Satisfaction Index) studies. The aim with this study is to find improvement areas for the distributors in each country. Continuous improvements are one of the mantras within the company. According to Brian Wilson it´s important to be prepared to update and modernize the physical evidences. Among other things, this “CSI follow up” help us to keep track of needed updates.



 

Module 5 Customer´s Experience rooms – Expectations, week 1

This module focuses on the physical environment which impacts customers as well as the staff .
I think this will be interesting to get to learn more about.

Within our company we have for example a so called “Dealer Operating Standard “ which is a kind of “quality-stamp” – when you visit one of our dealerships or workshop you shall be able to expect a certain standard of the workshop both when it comes to the physical workshop as such but also when it comes to how will be met as a customer and also what level of service you can expect.

I think that physical environments are of really big importance for the complete customer experience and it will be interesting to learn more about the subject.

//Anki