Customer Experience Strategy - A case study of Samsung mobile phones PDF

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Customer Experience Strategy – A Case Study Of Samsung MobileExecutive summaryThe purpose of this report is to focus on the aspect of Samsung’s customer experience (CX) andto also discuss the CX strategy used by Samsung to sell their mobile phone. The report will alsoaim at meeting the general motiv...

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Customer Experience Strategy – A Case Study Of Samsung Mobile Executive summary The purpose of this report is to focus on the aspect of Samsung’s customer experience (CX) and to also discuss the CX strategy used by Samsung to sell their mobile phone. The report will also aim at meeting the general motive of the company using practical insights. In the course of this report, various areas of customer experience will be focused on, which includes the importance of CX, omnichannel marketing, etc. and they will be linked to Samsung mobile.

Introduction Customer experience is said to be a process of interactions between customers and organizations during the period of their relationship. These interactions may include customer’s awareness, advocacy, attraction, cultivation, and their purchase of goods and services. It can also be measured by the experience of individuals during points of contacts. In this report, the focus will be on Samsung mobile. The customer experience strategy of Samsung will be addressed. Samsung happens to be one of the top mobile phone companies in the world. Since the inception of mobile phones in 1983, a lot of phone manufacturers have come forth with different models and designs of phone (Microsoft research, 2014). With the strong competition in the mobile phone industry, every producer needs to come up with strategies that will make them rank top in the market and Samsung is not left out. Customer experience is an important aspect when it comes to running a successful business (sustainability report, 2013). . However, in this paper, the CX strategies that defines the growth of Samsung mobile will be analyzed and its proposed plans by Samsung mobile company UK to deliver meaningful experience to its customers. The importance of Customer experience (CX) Customer experience is the personal experience of customers and it has emerged as one of the key factors of marketing with the aim of creating, exciting, unique, and memorable experiences for customers (Siqueira et al, 2020). When it comes to practice and theory, CX has become a new concept that has attracted the attention of various companies. It can also be defined as a strategy applied by various brands to create great customer values, as well as also achieving differentiation and sustainable competitive advantage. CX is relatively a new concept, in both practice and theory, which has gained larger attention in the recent past. It is also defined as a strategic process applied by brands to create holistic

customer value, achieve differentiation and sustainable competitive advantage. CX has been defined in so many ways which includes; 

CX can be said to be holistic, social and sensory, has to do with interactions between customers indulging them. It is also focused on various marketing theories and practices as it is seen as an important element that aims at achieving customer satisfaction.



However, to understand and create true value within customer experiences, companies need comprehensive view of their customer experience overtime. This will integrate the digital, physical, and social aspect. However, if this integration doesn’t happen, companies are prone to facing some form of challenges in both the business to business market and the business to customer market.

Importance of CX in the case of Samsung mobile phones, UK When it comes to the concept of CX, it is very important for Samsung mobile phones because CX can be a determinant of their success in the UK. It interprets the behavior, satisfaction, and attitude of their customers as well as the quality relationship their brand has with its customers. When it comes to Samsung’s competitive advantage in the UK telecom market, Samsung can proudly say its success comes from leveraging CX. Building not just a good brand name, but also a strong relationship among its customers have kept them going (Manthiou, 2020). So far, CX have given Samsung mobile positive results, because by creating a relationship with their customers, they have been able to meet their customers needs by improving each model that drops in the market. Consumer Persona Creation A consumer persona which is also known as a buyer’s persona is a model hat represents the important characteristics of consumer’s database, based on the data collected from user research and web analytics (User testing, 2020). The role of consumer persona in developing effective CX strategy The use of consumer persona have become very effective for CX strategy because it is a better way of understanding the behavior of consumers when it comes to different acquisition stages

and user stages within the functional behavior of consumers. It also helps in supporting consumer journey which has become the most important aspect of CX

. The use of persona is a way for better explaining and understanding the complexity of sustainable consumer behaviour concerning different stages such as acquisition, use and postuser within the behavioural functions of mobility, housing, food, and clothing (6). Creating an effective customer persona helps a brand understanding how their customers interact with this brand throughout the entire lifecycle. Creating a persona would provide awareness of the many journeys that a brand’s customers may take, thus the brand can improve them. Identification of a key consumer persona regarding Samsung mobiles and a detailed visual (Jobbrief)_100 Interest is the key consumer person of Samsun Mobile phones, where three different interests are shown by the consumers of UK towards buying of a Samsung Mobile phone such hunters, quality-seekers, and nomads roaming the digital landscape for the latest innovation. Figure 1: Consumer persona (Source: Created by author)

3.

Mapping the customer journey A clear explanation of a customer journey with appropriate discussion of its importance to CX strategy A customer journey refers to a complete sum of experiences that a customer goes through while interacting with their preferred company and brand. Despite looking at only a part of an experience or transaction, the customer journey documents the overall experience of being a potential customer. CJM (Customer Journey Mapping) lists every possible organizational touchpoints that a customer may encounter during the service-exchange process, thus through clearly understanding those touch-points, the senior marketers could work with cross-functional teams to employ tactics fostering service innovation as an effective CX Strategy (7). The goal of these tactics is for enhancing the customer service provider interactions through improving the

customer experience regarding every touch-point. Hence, CJM is important because CJM is a strategic approach towards a better understanding of customer’s expectations and is critical to optimize the customer experience. A detailed customer journey Figure: The overall stages of CJM (Source: Created by author) Stages

Activities

1.

Identifying the reasons to purchase, looking for use, motivation and pain-points

Feelings and needs Potential areas Excitement, needy, interesting, anxiety and burden-free Needs: A budget-friendly with Patience-level quality mobile phone

Investing time in researching Using past mobile phone and laptop to do a research 2 Getting opinions and feedback

Stressed, anxiety and curious Needs: To be decisive on a

Listening ability

specific point and phone

from others

3.

Excitement and interactive Visiting the website of Samsung Need: To get the best offer UK

Time management

Confusing and indecisive 4.

Visiting the physical stores of Samsung Company, London

Need: To get a better offer from the website Anxiety and curious Need: To get a better low-

5.

6. 7.

Contacting relatives, friends and budget phone with the same close teammates features in Samsung

Communication

Quality-centric instead of pricecentric

Excitement and happiness Finally visiting the physical store Need: To get the phone as of Samsung to purchase the soon as possible mobile phone

Thanksgiving approach

Started carrying out personal and Satisfied and happy professional activities on the

Expressive approach

Need: To make my phone

professional operations running smooth

8.

Recommending this phone to friends and family

Feeling glad and confident Need: To make my decision

Convincing

helpful for others Pleasant, proud and satisfied

9.

Bought another phone for sister

Need: To make her happy and

Expression less

support her

Table 1: Customer journey map (Source: Self-Developed) 4.

Omnichannel marketing A clear explanation of what omnichannel marketing means and the role of customization and interaction in omnichannel marketing Omnichannel marketing refers to a practice of simultaneously offering shoppers information, services, products and support through two or more synchronized distribution channels in a seamless manner (8). It is an approach of providing customers with a completely integrated and seamless shopping experience from the first touch-point to last touch-point. A product option is a customizing way based on the product manufacturing responding to the personal preferences of the mass consumer (9). Thus, customized products related information can be transmitted as a unified message or voice of the company on which every channel of that company starts working. Thus, when a company aims at delivering a wide-market goods and services, which are modified for satisfying the specific customers’ needs, then omnichannel marketing is involved. However, omnichannel personalization is all about a data-driven marketing effort that provides a personalized experience to the customers via a specific channel based on the data gathered from the users behaviour on different channels. Hence, e-retail brands like Samsung collect user data from anywhere and then leverage the same for providing a personalized experience to its customers through various touchpoints. Furthermore, capturing, engaging and then delivering

constant experiences to the customers across various possible channels seem to be crucial for an e-commerce brand, thus omnichannel personalization works here effectively. Identifying various marketing channels used for Samsung mobiles Multichannel retailing is crucial for the success of current merchants because retail customers do not purchase solely dependent on online or in-store. However, in the context of Samsung, the marketing channels used for their mobile phones are Word of Mouth, Social media, email marketing, their website, and their retail stores. For example, Samsung utilizes its Galaxy Studios Live for showing the incredible benefits of NFC (Near Field Communication), this company creates a series of four live music events headlined by some biggest names in rap, rock, or pop. At this event, the gig fans are able for doing everything on their phones such as scanning the tickets at the door, assessing cloakrooms, and many others (10). This Live Experience availed by Samsungs customers makes them satisfied and confident in their purchase decision of Samsung mobile phones, as result, Samsung achieves a seamless customer journey. However, Samsung utilizes different marketing channels such as brick-and-mortar, online, in-store, websites, and different e-commerce platforms such as Amazon. For example, Samsung in-stores have integrated and mobile POS (Point of Selling), which enables the merchants associated with selling Samsung mobile phones, taking full advantage of seamless integration. Samsung Connected House is another channel for marketing, where this Company hosted an interactive exhibition stand for showcasing their ranges of mobile phones during the O2 Retail Conference. This experience offers a platform to the customers getting knowledge about the innovative features that Samsung builds into their mobile phones that drive a seamless customer journey. Samsung incorporates Virtual Reality into their retail practices for meeting the increasing demand of customers, increased favourable attitude towards VR implementation, and its potential for enhancing customers experience. VR tools that Samsung implements in its mobile phones are Samsung Gear (11). Samsung Pay is the successfully implemented payment system 5.

incorporated into its mobile phones that offer a seamless customer journey to its customers. CX Performance metrics Identifying and critically evaluating four suitable CX performance metrics Metrics used for customer experience performance include loyalty, the share of wallet and retention (12). However, in this context, the four suitable CX performance metrics are NPS (Net Promoter Score), CSAT (Customer Satisfaction), Retention Rate and Churn rate. For instance, NPS would help the respective company for indulging the customers to answer only two questions such as “How likely the customer is to recommend Samsung mobile phones to their

peers or friends” and “why they give that specific score”. This metric gives Samsung that one number related to CX, which their leadership seeks for target-setting and bonuses. CSAT is another important CX metric that has many scales and forms however the common is a scale of 1-5. The application of this metric would help Samsung for measuring if their customers are satisfied with one-time interaction. Samsung can use it for asking its customers about the customer support ticket for evaluating the efficiency of their customer service department regarding the purchase-decision of the mobile phone or after-use of mobile phone. Churn Rate would help the company for reflecting that how many of their customers stop using Samsung phones. This reflects the total number of lost customers within a specific time, for instance in the year-begin, Samsung signed 1000 contracts of a value of 100 pounds by selling mobile phones, however, only 800 customers keep using that mobile phone at end of the year. This rate directs Samsung to retain its existing customers rather than investing in acquiring new customers. A perspective of customer engagement highlights the need for understanding the link among customer retentions, Customer influence value, and word of mouth (Customer referral value) (13). Hence, Samsung using the customer retention rate could identify how their business can retain their customers over a specific period. This rate is inversely proportional to the churn rate, if Samsung obtains a higher retention rate then their churn rate would be lower, for instance, if the retention rate of Samsung is 90% for its mobile phones, then their churn rate for the same mobile phones would be 10%. Justified recommendation of two key metrics for Samsung mobiles The two metrics suitable enough for the Samsung mobile phones would be NPS and CSAT. In order to grab reports on their performance revealing whether the customer experience after purchasing their mobile phones is in favour of their company or not, Samsung needs to perform a surveying task by asking only two questions from their customers, who would have bought the mobile phone to evaluate whether they would promote the same mobiles to their closed ones or. If the customers answer that they would recommend this phone to their peers or family, then customers’ experience is in favour of the company. This is to be applied because it could highlight Samsung that why they stand in terms of CX and it is simple, short, and convenient for its customers to answer. CSAT is one of the flexible and adaptable tools for Samsung to interpret customer ratings towards the use, feature, convenience, excellence, quality, price, and competence of the same phone. 6.

CX processes in various industries

Using five CX CSFs, comparing and explaining the CX processes in Samsung and a company in another industry Hedonic and utilitarian factors affect the consumer behaviour during the use of mobile applications, which direct the marketer to judge their experience, where utilitarian factors are ease of use, customization, the usefulness of technology, features of technology and hedonic factors such as convenience, compatibility, personalization, and effort expectancy (14). Apart from this, ease of use and website design could also be some drivers that drive a positive customer experience (15). However, in this context, the four CSFs of CX explaining the CX process in Samsung, a mobile-retail industry-player and Tesco, a grocery-retail industryplayer are ease of use, convenience, compatibility, empathy, and responsiveness: Basis Samsung Tesco Tesco keeps its focus on cutting the Samsung at a constant rate works on its price and putting more staff in device manufacturing process only to stores and improving the customer provide more and more ease to its experience attempting to revive the customers. With this approach, customers Ease of use fortune of the company. Hence, of this company become more connected this company’s focus is on in-store with their devices; as a result, they are ease instead of product or service becoming more connected to this brand. ease More devices this company expects to Customers of Tesco find it launch means a huge chance to build loyal convenient to shop at small customers for life. This is achieved by convenience stores rather than Convenience aiming for high-quality customer service Tesco. They also consider it convenient for shopping little via a large of channels resulting in an instead of doing a once-a-week increased convenience level for its big-shop customers. Samsung has been expanding its chatbot Tesco has been shutting its 60 unprofitable stores and shelving ability through using bots for efficiently plan to open more 49 supermarkets directing the customers to a real person, Compatibility who could answer their questions. This will for increasing its compatibility in the UK. lead to a more customized experience. Samsung is changing its attitude towards Tesco keeps its focus stagnant by CX since the mobile and technology world continuing in investing in this price is changing. Samsung starts focusing on dynamics. Their improvement building a long-lasting and meaningful seems to be slow as their attitude Attitude relationship with its customers. This would towards customer-relationship is direct Samsung to go beyond one-off remained the same throughout their service fixes as the break-Fix model does overall journey by fixing only the broken device Employees are trained to overcome Responsiveness Samsung to build relationships with its their stressed, unproductive and customers solving their problems and improving their lives needs to put inactive approach to provide 24*7

resources into their programs. Employees apply their power to go above and beyond customer services in the UK market for delighting their customers.

Table 2: Comparison of Samsung CX process and Tesco (Source: Self-developed) Using five CX CSFs, comparing and explaining the CX processes in Samsung and a company in another industry This comparison of the CX process based on five CSF is to be carried out between Samsung and Arcadia Group and the CSFs include timeliness, top-management support, critical-skills availability, Digital Service, and Rewards Basis Timeliness

Top-Management Support

Digital Services

Rewards

Critical Skills

Samsung

Arcadia Group The company shifts its focus Regards interactions with its from multi-point customer customers as the highest priority service to fully online CX Performs a wide range of proactive This company indulges Thirdand technical quality collaborations Party retail partners for giving their customers an exciting such as Quality improvement, Requirement Management, and others shopping experience This company ...