According to Schmitt (1999a)customerexperience as the main component of experiential marketing that would replaces the traditional feature-and-benefits marketing. Moreover, Schmitt (1999b) also claimed what consumer want is the synergy of product, communication and marketing campaign that could generate the connection within them and the company. Supported by Cantone and Risitano (2011), during the pass decade experiential marketing had becoming a trend(Schmitt 1999).
Consumers are not only looking for the quality of product but also the experience provided by company(You-Ming, 2010). Experience is positively related to customer satisfaction which will lead to repurchase intention (Yang, 2009). According to Jeff (2008), marketing experience was valued at 500million USD to 1Billion USD in spending each year. It is important to carry out this study in order for company to leverage on this opportunity (Fremont, 2017).
This research is carry out to answer these questions:
The research objectives for this study are:
Underpinning Theory
Strategic experiential modules, SEMs is the module that founded by Schmitt (1999b) that divided the experiences into Sense, Feel, Think, Act,and Related. Additionally. According to (Grundey, 2008) SEMs are conveyed to individuals through Experience Providers (ExPro). As the mostimportant concept for experiential marketing, it will be suitableto use as underpinning theory for this study.
Figure 1 Experiential Grid
Independent Variables
Figure 2 The conceptual framework of the study of investigating the influence of experiential marketing towards customer satisfaction.
The conceptual framework above in figure 2.3 shows the 5 independent variables in this study, which explain the 5 kind of experience (SEMs). They are sense, feel, think and act and related that influence the customer satisfaction.
The independent variables will be analyzed to find out their influences towards customer satisfaction.
Sense refer to experience of vision, smell, taste, touch and hear which can trigger by decoration, design, music and other factors (Yang, 2009). The p value of 0.002 show that sense is strongly significant to customer satisfaction (You-Ming, 2010).
Colours are one of the most important things which meet the eyes of the customers and affect customer satisfaction. The different types of colours have different effects on the mind of the customers (Spence 2015). For example, blue is known to calm a person down while green creates an ambience of serenity. Red increases blood pressure and hunger. Purple makes one contemplate and increase expectation while yellow increases heart activity. An example of effect of colours on the customers can be seen in the hotels where the walls of the rooms are painted in light shades and mostly do not include red. The pictures of the fast food chains have remarkable use of red and yellow, the first one increases appetite while the second one excites the customers (Vasiljevic, Pechey and Marteau 2015). The parks and rest houses use a lot green and blue to create restful ambiences.
Another visual experience is the layout of places or the presentation of products. The companies have separate pages which are visually very attractive, formal and well presented to attract the customers attention towards their performances. These companies use the visual impact by highlighting the key performance indicators like their profits and increase in market share (Roggeveen et al. 2015). This visual presentation helps them to attract more investors to invest in their shares and business partners. The presentations of commodities have a very deep impact on the buying behaviour of the customers. For example, the advertisement of a formal shirt is done keeping the backdrop formal to appeal to the eyes of the customers (Townsend and Kahn 2014). The manufacturers and marketers illustrate their products in attractive ways to attract the eyes of the customers.
The touch of the texture of products or ambiences has a deep impact on the level of customer satisfaction. The customers today love to accept services in highly sophisticated outlets of the service providers (Rahimnia and Hassanzadeh 2013). That is why the outlets of mobile communication providers and the hotel lounges are lined with seats with soft cushions which help the customers to relax. The cinema halls have push back cushion chairs which allows the viewers to sit back, relax and enjoy the film. The touch of softness creates a positive effect on the minds of the buyers and increases their sense of satisfaction (Brakus, Schmitt and Zhang 2014).
Smell have a great impact in creating demand in the minds of the buyers and helps the optimisation of purchase decisions. The ambiences of fast food chain outlets have the smell of the food items in them. This smell creates appetite and makes the customers order for more food items (Alkilani, Ling and Abzakh 2013). In fact the eaters at the fast food chain outlets enjoy the smells of various food items and associate the fast food brand with them. Thus, smells create customer satisfaction and have become a part of the products of these fast food brands (de Farias, Aguiar and Melo 2014). The hotels often use fragrance to make their environment more appealing to customers and visitors. The visitors enjoy the well fragranced ambience of the hotel chains and feel relaxed in such environment. Hence, smell can be used to enhance customer satisfaction and retain customers(Jani and Han 2014).
Tastes of items like food items have an important in creating and sustenance of customer satisfaction. The different tastes of coffee like latte and cuppa chino attract different customer segments that enjoy them. The great taste of the food offered by the hotels and restaurants become the unique selling proposition of them (Tan, Oriade and Fallon 2014). Customers relate these taste and visit these restaurants and fast food chains to relish them again. Thus, taste plays a great role in creating customer satisfaction and retention of customers. These restaurants keep on offering food with new and traditional flavours to entertain customers (Huang et al. 2014). Some restaurants become famous for the distinct taste of food items. Thus, taste as a feature of the products, the food items helps in their creators to achieve product differentiation (Spence et al. 2014).
Sound plays a great role in creating distinct identities of the products and people relate the sounds to their owner companies. For example, the mobile brands have their distinct sound tracks which are played on the advertisement. Here sound acts as a product differentiation attribute which makes the mobile companies stand distinct (Ali, Amin and Ryu 2016). These sounds give the customers a feel that they are buying the mobile sets having the latest features which create customer satisfaction. Sound helps in creating appropriate environmental conditions to attract customers. The premium restaurants often have soothing music playing in the background to make the ambience relaxing and peaceful (Bowie, Buttle and Brookes 2016). The customers enjoy the soothing music and it enhances their satisfaction level. The discos have loud music played to make the customer feel like dancing and have fun. Thus, music help the business organisations like the hotels and discotheque creates environments which become a part of the products. Sound differentiates its users and attracts the right customer segments. Appropriate sounds like loud music in a discotheque create and sustain customer satisfaction (Tarí, Heras-Saizarbitoria and Dick 2014).
Feel is the inner emotional experience that raised by the experience media (You-Ming, 2010). Feel is strongly significant to the relationship quality that will lead to customer satisfaction with p value of 0.00(You-Ming, 2010). Media creates awareness among the customers regarding a product and creates demand for it. The feeling customers develop from an advertisement and promotional events creates specific feeling or perception about the products s(Huang et al. 2014). These feelings and perception have deep impact on the purchase decisions and customer satisfaction. If the perception during using a product is same or more than the perception while making the purchase decisions, it creates customer satisfaction (Zopiatis, Constanti and Theocharous 2014).
The negative feeling of using a product in the past leaves a deep negative impression about the products of the same category. The companies offering products as a result want to create a feel about their products that the customer has never used a similar product before (Wu et al. 2014). This creating of a feel feeling or product experience makes the customers want to buy a product. The manufacturers try to differentiate their products from the competing products to create that distinct feel in the minds of the customers. For example, the soft beverage companies are closely associated and sponsor sports events. The advertisements and promotional events aim to create a fresh and sporty feel in the customers about their products (Bowie, Buttle and Brookes 2016). Thus, feel goes a long way in creating product perceptions, defining purchase decisions and enhancing customer satisfaction.
Customer satisfaction have a great relationship with emotions. The customers often give more importance to those experiences which meet their likes and choices. They tend to avoid those points which they do not like to know or read (Ali and Amin 2014). Sometimes, the customers skip crucial information like electricity consumption rate of an electrical appliance due to their biasness. That is why the companies present the important information like electricity usage and risk factor to customers on top on the package to attract customers’ attention (Wong, Wu and Cheng 2015).
Customer satisfaction is very important because it allows the business organisations to create a loyal base of customers. The business organisations sell products to this base and generate revenue on a regular basis. They can use this revenue to promote their products to enter new markets or acquire new customers. The companies channelize the revenue they earn from serving loyal customers to bring about innovative new products and improve their current products. Thus, customer satisfaction lends a base to the companies from which they can generate revenue required for deeper market penetration and business expansion. Customer satisfaction is become significant for the very sustenance of the companies (Baker 2014).
Figure 3. Graph showing increase in smart phone users
(Source: Statista 2017)
The graph shows that the numbers of smart phone users are increasing with years. It can be opined that the people are shifting towards smart phones because they are satisfied with them. This high level of customer satisfaction for smart phone is resulting in plummeting of smart phones demand. This demand and expanding smart phone market is encouraging growth of new smart phone companies. It must also be pointed out that the existing smart phone manufacturers are also expanding their market and profit management. This analysis shows that customer satisfaction is important for companies and even industries to thrive and expand (Kotler et al. 2015).
Poor customer satisfaction has devastating effect on the sustenance of the companies. It increases customer churning and the companies lose the expenditure they spend for marketing their products. They are not able to cement their position in the market and suffer competitive losses worth billions of dollars.
Think experience can be stimuli by intellect with the objective of creating cognitive or problem-solving experiences that engage customer creatively (Halil, 2013). The research from Halil (2013) claims that the significance level of think towards customer satisfaction is extremely low with value of 0.82. The thoughts customers develop about products impact purchase decisions and customers’ satisfaction. The manufacturers today target at presenting their products as capable of solving the problems or meeting the requirements of the customers (Alkilani, Ling and Abzakh 2013). For example, the mobile phone users expect mobile phone sets to be able to satisfy with multiple needs like supporting multiple applications like banking applications, music application, Google mapping applications and internet money transfer applications. The mobile manufacturing companies make mobile phones to meet the thoughts processes or needs of the customers. The customers think positively about products with which they had great using experience (Özer, Argan and Argan 2013). The companies today promote their products to make the customers think optimistically about their products. This creates positive thoughts in the minds of the customers.
Act marketing is focus on effecting physical experiences, life styles and interactions and alternative ways of doing things (Tsaur et al., 2006). With the significance of 0.02, act strongly influence the customer satisfaction (Halil, 2013). The companies hold events to find out the response to a new product. The companies often use this technique to test the acceptance of new products. The manufacturers of beauty products like deodorant have their representatives who physically meet the customers at the malls and stores and ask them to use their new products (De Mooij 2013). Then they ask the customers about their experience of using the product like the feeling of freshness and the smell. The multinational food manufacturers meet the customers and ask them to taste the new products like noodles. This method helps the companies gain direct information about the level of customer satisfaction the new products are likely to create. They also get information about the customer perception regarding the product like the customers have a perception of fresh fragrance when it comes to deodorants. They want a creamy feel when the product is soap while it is uninterrupted network for a telecommunication product (Chang and Taylor 2016). The method helps the companies manufacturing and marketing products acquire information about the prices customers are ready to shell out for their products. They gain information about the lifestyle and the social standard of the prospective users. Act marketing method helps the companies gain information about their market segments. The companies can also form pricing and promotional strategies. They can also recognise ne w markets which are yet to be tapped and can emerge as profitable markets (Huang and Sarigöllü 2014).
Related experience can be stimuli by expand customers personal-feelings and related them to something outside their private-state(Nigam, 2012).Research from Halil (2013)proven that relate experience has significant influence towards customer satisfaction with the p value of 0.00. The purchase decisions of the customers are usually dependent on several factors like their past experiences and their relatedness to products. The companies make used of the related experiences regarding a particular product to create demand. The customers relate to products due to good or bad experiences of using them. For example, the customers who benefit from the products of a particular company and feel relatedness to it will easily accept the new products. They will also advice others to use the products of the company, promoting the company because they trust it. The rate of relatedness to a product decides the rate of customer satisfaction. For example, if a company opens current account with a bank and profits by it, it keeps on using other products as well (Gürhan-Canli, Hayran and Sarial-Abi 2016). The directors of the company may open savings account with the bank, open a trading account and take a loan from the bank because they feel related to it. They may also open the salary accounts of their employees with the bank and advice their business partners to open accounts with the bank. Here, the level of customer satisfaction experienced by the company is high because of the relatedness to the bank and its service. This relatedness help the companies acquire a loyal base of customers who keep on using their products. The automobile companies also use this relatedness to market and promote their automobile products(Martinaityte, Sacramento and Aryee 2016). They often show advertisements like a son is gifting a model of car to his father who is elated and emotional at receiving the gift. The jewellery manufacturers often show husband gifting a diamond ring to his wife as a surprise. The customers can relate to feelings and feel inclined towards buying those products. The relatedness helps the companies to differentiate their products from their competitors. The customers buy those products due to the high degree of relatedness to the experience shown in the advertisements. This relatedness creates a high degree of customer satisfaction because the customer already likes the products. However, the companies who promote these relatedness have to face the challenges of actually planning their products according to the high expectation of the customers which are fuelled by the advertisements and promotions. Failure to meet the expectations of the customers may result in business losses and loss of market position. The companies frame their promotions in way to relate to the customer base of a particular culture, race, religion and other customer background factors (Hynan, A., Murray, J. and Goldbart, J., 2014).
Relatedness is not restricted to the need generated by advertisements and promotions. The international confectionery manufacturers offer products during a festival with the cover showing some resemblance to the festival. For example, during the Christmas Eve the companies package their products with packages having pictures like Santa Clause, Christmas tree or Christmas greetings. The Christians can easily relate to such products and prefer to buy them.
The figure below shows that increase in the sale of smart phone on yearly basis. The graph shows the sale of android phones increased at the highest rate leading the segment the greatest slice of market. Android phones hold 55.7 % of the smart phone market followed by IOS which holds 42.4%. The android phones increase the customer satisfaction due to their ability to support a wide range of applications. These applications range from music, banking to travel. These applications actually represent the ever increasing demands of the customers. The android platform by supporting these applications helps people to do a lot of work with just a few clicks on their screens. This helps the android smart phones to maximise customer satisfaction which is evident from its increase in sales. The blackberry phones though seem sophisticated are extremely complicated and fast customers cannot relate to it. The graph shows a very low market share of blackberry which is further declining. Thus it proves that lack of relatedness leads of loss of market of the product.
Figure 2. Graph showing increase of smart sales and market share
(Source: Statista 2017)
Conclusion:
The discussions on various topics at length show that the customers today are eager to experience consuming products. Their participation have become integral to the success of the companies as manufacturers and marketers of products. The rate of customer satisfaction decides the frequency at which products are used. High degree of customer satisfaction creates a loyal consumer base who keeps on consuming the products and generating revenue for the company. Today, the companies in order to enhance consumer satisfaction plan their marketing and product strategies. They want to relate to the customers and their feelings. They create products to which consumers can relate to and consume.
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