The aim of the assignment is to identify the challenges and opportunities companies face in achieving positive customer experience. The data for the research has been sourced from face-to-face conversations, surveys of a large population of customers and several secondary sources like journals, articles and official websites of automobile companies. The researcher has taken Toyota as the chosen company and its products for the study. The paper has two sections namely, current service experience of customers using Toyota and its ratings in the markets compared to its competitors. The paper also contains mention of products of other automobile companies like General Motors. The extensive research and comparison has given the paper a strong base.
Toyota is the second largest and manufacturer of cars in the word, which provides evidence of the positive customer service experience the products under the brand, namely Toyota creates. Customer experience management refer to processes companies use to track, oversee and manage every communication of the companies with its customers (toyota-global.com, 2017).
The designated officers of the companies like Toyota monitor the rate of customer satisfaction through various channels like website purchases, face to face consultations with the customers and survey of large number of customers. The aim of CEM is to gain sizeable data to measure the rate of customer satisfaction they products creates. The top management of the companies use CEM research tools like ‘customer experience self-assessment’, ‘customer experience management survey’ and ‘CEM +Calculator ROI evaluation’. These CEM tools enable the top management to gain information about the satisfaction the products create to the customers (Homburg, Jozic & Kühnl, 2013). This also helps them to estimate the population of loyal customers their brands own and revenue these customers can create for the company by using their products. Thus, CRM has become an important tool to measure the revenue generation capacity of a brand in the market (Du Plessis, & De Vries, 2016). The CEM results have become very important to the companies because these revenue generation form important criteria, which companies take into consideration while making investment strategies. The amount of positive customer experience brands can generate play important while deciding the amount of capital, which companies allocate towards production and marketing particular products. For example, a company would allocate more funds towards products, which enjoy acceptance across huge consumer bases and generate huge revenue. As far as Toyota is concerned, Camry and Corolla are the models, which generate high revenue in the market. The company as a result allocates huge amount of money to produce and market these two models (drivespark.com, 2017).
Toyota is the brand of cars manufactured and marketed by Toyota Motor Corporation, which generates positive customer service experience. The cars under the brand name Toyota enjoys ready acceptance of the customers in the market, which is evident by its top market position. The following are the attributes, which create positive service experience among the customers:
Toyota is one of the top brand names in the automobile industry internationally which makes it first choice of most of the customers. Surveys and interviews of customers show that customers associate big brand names with customer satisfaction. The company manufactures cars for both the middle and the upper class customers. The car earns positive reviews among customers who purchase its models. The models of cars Toyota manufactures come with superior engineering as far gears and engines are concerned (forbes.com, 2017). This gives customers high driving comfort while driving the cars. The comfortable seats of the cars enable riders to have safe and bump free rides. The alloy wheels allow the passengers to steer their ways easily. The fuel-efficient engine allows the owners to save fuel cost by giving high mileage to them. These features of Toyota have made the customers associate the brand with high quality riding experience. This creates high level of customer satisfaction and helps the company earn high revenue. Thus, the customers have come to associate the brand value of Toyota with it customer satisfaction and great driving experience (auto.ndtv.com, 2017).
Superior quality service has become one of the important criteria, which companies have to achieve to gain positive customer experience. The customers today demand high quality services like after sale services from companies selling products. The staff members of the companies play very important role in ensuring that the customer receive high quality services and get products according to their needs. For example, a customer purchasing a model of car by Toyota, especially a high-end model would prefer to purchase the product on finance. The ability of the employees in the showroom of Toyota to help them to get financial helps to buy the car play a very important role in creating customers satisfaction. Toyota has partnered with various financial institutions who provide loans to the customers who buy cars. The company has an extensive network of service centres, which provide the customers with maintenance services for their Toyota vehicles create a huge value for customers who face breakdown on the roads (drivespark.com, 2017). This ability of Toyota to provide round-the-clock services to customers like finance and after sales services provide the company opportunity to create positive customer experience. The customers post their positive reviews on the various customer survey portals, which the company uses to bring about innovation to enhance this satisfaction. Thus, Toyota uses customer experience management to introduce more customers oriented products to create more positive customer experiences (Raju & Walavalkar, 2017).
The customers today expect the companies to act in socially responsible ways to ensure that their activities benefit the society. The service experiences of customers are not restricted to after sales services or brand names. The companies are corporate citizens and have to act responsibly to reduce the harmful impact of their operation like pollution created due to production of cars in the automobile industry and when customers drive those cars. Toyota is a global automobile manufacturer and marketer. The company owing to its global business expanse interacts with millions of customers, host governments, suppliers and employees. The company as a result has a strong corporate social responsibility policy, which encompasses four stakeholders namely, customers, business partners, employees, shareholders, global society and the local communities (Carroll, 2015). CSR of the Toyota is under the supervision of the shareholders and the directors. They hold corporate planning meeting and corporate governance meeting to take important decision towards social development. The company as a part of its CSR provides innovative, safe and high quality products to its customers to ensure safety of customers. The company provides equal opportunity to its employees to bring about their career development. It strives to empower its employees and train them so that they are able to provide better services to the customers. The company involves its shareholders to gain their support in its social development initiatives. The continuous support from shareholders ensures continuous flow of funds towards these CSR initiatives, which in turn strengthen the brand value of Toyota in the society (Pedersen, 2015). Thus, corporate social responsibilities help in creating a positive image of the company among the customers. The customers today prefer purchasing services and products from companies, which operate in a society responsible ways. One can construe from the analysis that following a strong corporate social responsibility strategy under the supervision of the directors help in creating a positive impression in the minds of the customers. Thus, it can be summarised from the discussion that customers have positive service experience while purchasing products from Toyota (Cheng, Ioannou & Serafeim, 2014).
Toyota is one of the biggest brands in the automobile companies in the world. The toughest competitors of Toyota, which challenge its position, are Volkswagen Group, General Motors, Honda and Nissan. These companies compete in the global market with their innovative product offering. Analysis of these competitors show they have strategically structured product offering which allow them to attracts customers with diverse needs.
The product offerings of Toyota contain cars, vancs, SUV, commercial vehicles like trucks, hybrid cars and electrical cars. The biggest competitor of Toyota internationally, Volkswagen manufactures SUV and commercial vans (en.volkswagen.com, 2017). The unique feature of the company’s product offering is its capability to manufacture both expensive and affordable vehicles. The second toughest competitor of Toyota, General Motors manufactures cars, SUVs and small commercial trucks. The unique products of General Motors consist of financial products under the name of GM Financial, the financial service arm of the company (gmfinancial.com, 2017) . The product offerings of Honda consist of automobiles, motor bikes and power products. The product offerings of Nissan consist of SUV and trucks.
A comparison of the product offerings of these five companies namely, Toyota, Volkswagen, Nissan, General Motors and Honda reveals that these companies have unique product offerings which lend them their competitive advantages. All of these companies are present in the car and SUV segments. They also manufacture trucks, commercial vehicles and automobile parts. The companies like Toyota and Nissan also manufacture electrical vehicles. General Motors stands apart from these companies because it also provides financial services. Similarly, Honda is the largest automobile manufacturer of motor cycle in the world and also manufactures power equipments. The ratings show that Toyota and Volkswagen occupy the leading positions in the SUV and car segment internationally. Toyota loses its leading position to Volvo and Isuzu in the trucking segment. The company is absent in the financial and motor cycle segments. Thus, it can be concluded that Toyota leads the car and SUV segments.
Conclusion:
The extensive discussion about customer experience management, customer satisfaction, Toyota and its competitors bring into light several facts about CEM. The companies should operate towards maximising customer satisfaction by bringing about improvements in attributes like product features, better services and building socially responsible images. The companies like Toyota should seek to make their product offerings unique and diverse to maximise customer satisfaction.
References:
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Cheng, B., Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2014). Corporate social responsibility and access to finance. Strategic Management Journal, 35(1), 1-23.
Compare Toyota Etios Liva Vs Volkswagen Ameo Vs Toyota Etios Price, Mileage, Specs, Reviews, Performance. (2017). CarAndBike. Retrieved 10 November 2017, from https://auto.ndtv.com/compare-cars/toyota-etios-liva-1220-vs-volkswagen-ameo-1409-vs-toyota-etios-1219
Corporation., t. (2017). Toyota Global Site | Vehicle Gallery | Result. Toyota Motor Corporation Global Website. Retrieved 10 November 2017, from https://www.toyota-global.com/showroom/vehicle_gallery/result/#commercial
Du Plessis, L., & De Vries, M. (2016). Towards a holistic customer experience management framework for enterprises. South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 27(3), 23-36.
Forbes Welcome. (2017). Forbes.com. Retrieved 10 November 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/2009/04/27/jerry-flint-toyota-volkswagen-business-autos-flint.html#136a67881bb2
Homburg, C., Jozic, D., & Kühnl, C. (2013). Customer Experience Management. IMU Research Insights, 19.
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Paul, K. (2017). DriveSpark – Top 10 Car Group Manufacturers In The World In 2016 By Sales. www.drivespark.com. Retrieved 10 November 2017, from https://www.drivespark.com/four-wheelers/2017/top-10-car-manufacturers-in-2016-in-the-world-020233.html
Paul, K. (2017). DriveSpark – Top 10 Car Group Manufacturers In The World In 2016 By Sales. www.drivespark.com. Retrieved 10 November 2017, from https://www.drivespark.com/four-wheelers/2017/top-10-car-manufacturers-in-2016-in-the-world-020233.html
Pedersen, E. R. G. (Ed.). (2015). Corporate social responsibility. Sage.
Raju, J. K., & Walavalkar, D. (2017). Customer Experience Management-the Mantra for Success. Ushus-Journal of Business Management, 5(1), 1-8.
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