Master of Arts in Business (MA) · 2019-03-19 · 1.3 Data Collection and Analysis ... 3.2 Customer...

Understanding Customer Experience

in Congress Tourism

An Analysis of the HOFBURG Vienna

Master Thesis

submitted at the

IMC Fachhochschule Krems

(University of Applied Sciences)

Master-Programme

„Marketing and Sales“

by

Julia LOTTER

for the award of the academic degree

Master of Arts in Business (MA)

Thesis Coach: Mag Stephanie Tischler

Submitted on: 22.04.2016

I

Statutory Declaration

“I declare in lieu of an oath that I have written this master thesis myself and

that I have not used any sources or resources other than stated for its prepa-

ration. I further declare that I have clearly indicated all direct and indirect quo-

tations. This master thesis has not been submitted elsewhere for examination

purposes.”

Date: 22.04.2016

II

Clause of Confidentiality

III

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to identify the customer experience the HOFBURG Vienna

is delivering. Further, a special focus has been laid on the customer experience

congress attendees are actually undergoing. Lastly, the attendees’ needs were

closer analysed. As a consequence of this, the employees’ as well as the congress

participants’ perspectives on customer experience were taken into consideration. In

the course of this study three different research methods were applied. Initially, an

intense literature review provided the theoretical framework of the research. Subse-

quently, expert interviews with employees of the HOFBURG Vienna were conducted

in order to gather primary data. Lastly, the reflexive photography method was ap-

plied to be able to view the delivered customer experience through the eyes of the

congress attendees. As part of this research method attendees took photographs of

their undergone customer experience while attending a congress at the HOFBURG

Vienna.

Turning to the results of the study, it was found that the provided customer experi-

ence is entirely based on the guiding principle “Geht nicht gibt’s nicht!”. In addition,

giving their customers the feeling of “being a special guest that is enjoying a pre-

mium product in a luxurious surrounding” could have been identified as the core

sensation they would like to deliver. This study has further shown that employees and

likewise external suppliers have a significant impact on the delivered customer ex-

perience. Another major finding of this study is that the HOFBURG Vienna is clearly

delivering two different customer experiences at the same event: one is delivered

on a B2B level and equally important is the B2C customer experience transferred to

congress attendees. Referring to the experience congress attendees are actually

undergoing during a congress at the HOFBURG Vienna, the congress’ content, ca-

tering, networking and social aspects, opportunity costs as well as physical ele-

ments of the HOFBURG Vienna could have been identified as the most important

components of the customer experience.

Keywords: Customer Experience, Congress Tourism, Congress Attendees, Cus-

tomer Experience Measurement

IV

Table of Contents

Statutory Declaration ................................................................................................ I

Clause of Confidentiality ......................................................................................... II

Abstract .................................................................................................................. III

Table of Contents .................................................................................................. IV

List of Figures and Illustrations .............................................................................. VI

List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................. VII

1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Background and Problem Definition ........................................................... 1

1.2 Research Objectives and Research Questions .......................................... 3

1.3 Data Collection and Analysis ...................................................................... 4

1.4 Chapter Outline .......................................................................................... 6

2 Customer Experience.................................................................................... 7

2.1 Definition of Customer Experience ............................................................. 7

2.2 History of Customer Experience ................................................................. 9

2.3 Components of Customer Experience ...................................................... 10

2.4 Building and Managing Customer Experience .......................................... 16

3 Customer Experience in Different Settings ................................................. 21

3.1 Impact of Customer Experience on a Business ........................................ 21

3.2 Customer Experience in a B2B Context ................................................... 23

3.3 Customer Experience in a Service Setting and in Tourism ....................... 25

4 Measurement of Customer Experience ....................................................... 28

4.1 Challenges of Measuring Customer Experience ...................................... 28

4.2 Customer Touch Point Analysis ............................................................... 29

4.3 Experience Map by Molina ....................................................................... 31

4.4 Multidimensional Approach ...................................................................... 32

5 Business Tourism ....................................................................................... 34

5.1 Congress Tourism .................................................................................... 34

5.1.1 Congress Organiser ............................................................................... 35

5.1.2 Attendees ............................................................................................... 36

5.1.3 Technological Change ........................................................................... 41

6 Research Methodology ............................................................................... 43

6.1 Literature Review...................................................................................... 43

V

6.2 Expert Interviews ...................................................................................... 44

6.3 Reflexive Photography ............................................................................. 49

6.4 Ethics in Research.................................................................................... 55

7 Analysis and Findings ................................................................................. 56

7.1 Customer Experience HOFBURG Vienna ................................................ 56

7.1.1 Feelings delivered and Senses attracted by the Customer Experience . 58

7.1.2 Individual Employees as Components of Customer Experience ............ 60

7.1.3 External Suppliers as Components of Customer Experience................. 63

7.1.4 Customer Experience in a B2B & B2C Setting....................................... 65

7.2 Measurement of Customer Experience .................................................... 67

7.3 Congress Participants of the HOFBURG Vienna ..................................... 70

7.3.1 Participants’ Information Procurement on the HOFBURG Vienna ......... 71

7.3.2 Gender of Congress Participants ........................................................... 73

7.3.3 Age of Congress Participants ................................................................. 74

7.3.4 Expectations of Congress Participants .................................................. 77

7.4 Congress Participants’ Customer Experience .......................................... 79

7.4.1 Congress Content .................................................................................. 79

7.4.2 Catering ................................................................................................. 81

7.4.3 Networking and other Social Aspects .................................................... 83

7.4.4 Opportunity Cost .................................................................................... 85

7.4.5 Physical Elements of the HOFBURG Vienna ......................................... 86

7.4.6 Congress Location Vienna ..................................................................... 90

8 Conclusion and Recommendations ............................................................ 92

8.1 Summary .................................................................................................. 92

8.2 Practical Implications ................................................................................ 99

8.3 Contribution to the Literature .................................................................. 102

8.4 Limitation of the Research ...................................................................... 103

8.5 Further Research.................................................................................... 105

List of References ............................................................................................... 107

Annex .................................................................................................................. 118

VI

List of Figures and Illustrations

Figure 1: The Four Realms of an Experience........................................................ 10

Figure 2: Physical Categories that Form Part of a Great Customer Experience ... 12

Figure 3: Stages of Customer Experience ............................................................ 17

Figure 4: The Five Steps of the CEM Framework ................................................. 20

VII

List of Abbreviations

B2B Business-to-Business

B2C Business-to-Consumer

CEM Customer Experience Management

Introduction

1

1 Introduction

1.1 Background and Problem Definition

Nowadays companies need to face great challenges of permanently growing cus-

tomer demands, wishes as well as expectations. Therefore, it is recommended to

increase the focus on the concept of customer experience to create highly favoura-

bly experiences and to increase customer satisfaction at the same time (Gouthier,

Giese, & Bartl, 2012; Sultana, 2008). Literature demonstrated that many of today’s

organizations are struggling to manage and to understand customer experience.

More precisely, inadequate as well as vague definitions of customer experience are

used and incomplete approaches are applied to design it (Kamaladevi, 2010; Ritchie

& Hudson, 2009). What is more, existing literature does not cover what constitutes

customer experience. As a consequence of this, the determination of the aspects

that are part of a customer experience is highly required (Rageh, Melewar, &

Woodside, 2013, p. 127). Very similar to the concept of customer experience, also

the components and dimensions of a tourist experience remain unknown (Quan &

Wang, 2004, p. 297). What is more, there is still little understanding about how cus-

tomers’ minds work in reaction to a touristic experience (Walls, Okumus, Wang, &

Kwun, 2011, pp. 19-20). In addition, literature on customer experience in a business-

to-business setting scarcely exists (Payne, Storbacka, & Frow, 2008, p. 94). Com-

bining all these existing research gaps, it is worth mentioning that absolutely no

present knowledge about business tourism experience exists so far. Therefore, fur-

ther research is required to test the theoretical frameworks developed in a business-

to-consumer setting in a different market situation. In addition, it needs to be em-

phasised that Bruhn and Hadwich (2012, p. 28) state that in the past years customer

experience was predominately researched theoretically. In this matter, Ritchie and

Hudson (2009, p. 123) specifically point out the urgent need to identify and test new

research methods to study consumer-tourist experiences. Consequently, empirical

studies on that topic are urgently needed.

Introduction

2

Lee and Back (2005, p. 409) reviewed literature available on the topic of convention

and meeting management in the tourism and hospitality literature and found out that

in the past research has only been done on five specific topics: economic impact,

site selection, meeting participation processes, destination marketing and advances

in technology. Similar, Mair (2014, p. 123) points out the fact that recently consider-

able studies have already been conducted on ”the factors that motivate, assist or

indeed prevent delegates from attending conventions” but at the same time men-

tions that the field of congresses and conventions has been ignored by scientific

researchers for a tremendously long time. The researcher further elaborates this

research gap by stating that in this area of the event industry “research […] is in its

infancy”.

What is more, also Leach, Liu and Winsor (2008, p. 247) underline the fact that

attendees of congresses have been drastically under-researched in scholarly jour-

nals in the past. Indeed, there is a lack of studies dealing with demographic charac-

teristics, wants as well as organisational information of congress attendees (Mair,

ibid.). Mair specifically mentions the urgent need for a comprehensive understand-

ing of congress participants’ needs and expectations. As most of past studies deal-

ing with the business event industry have been done from the perspective of the

event planner, new directions towards the examination of the perceptions of at-

tendees should be undertaken. Consequently, there is a significant lack of studies

that are trying to fully understand the multiple dimensions used by congress partici-

pants to assess a business event. Moreover, greater insights into the attendee be-

haviour would be helpful to reach a better understanding of their needs (Severt,

Wang, Chen, & Breiter, 2007, pp. 399-400; p. 407). Therefore, further research

needs to be conducted to be able to purposefully influence the number of attendees

of future events. Consequently, attendees are definitely worthy of examination and

will thus be closer analysed in the course of this research.

Mair (ibid., p. 52) points out that several studies focusing solely on large convention

centres or the hotel industry have already been carried out in the past. Surprisingly,

what has been ignored so far are studies conducted on special venues. Therefore,

it is obvious that there is serious need for further research in that specific field of

congress tourism.

Introduction

3

Combining the areas of customer experience and congress tourism, major gaps in

research could have been identified. Overall, in the course of this research, cus-

tomer experience in congress tourism will be analysed in detail which will add new

perspectives to the existing body of knowledge. Examining the combination of these

two areas is highly relevant to fill existing research gaps. The resulting contribution

to the theory will include significant findings concerning the most important compo-

nents of attendees’ customer experiences, congress participants’ needs, expecta-

tions as well as demographic information. Furthermore, results will lead to important

findings with reference to the topic of customer experience in B2B as well as B2C

settings.

1.2 Research Objectives and Research Questions

The main objective of the master thesis is to find out what customer experience the

congress centre HOFBURG Vienna wants to deliver. As research on special con-

gress venues do not exist so far, this research aims at providing enlightening results

for the future convention literature in the area of customer experience (Mair, 2014,

p. 52). Additionally, as already mentioned before, congress attendees have been

drastically under-researched in the past. Therefore, this research also intends to

identify the customer experience congress participants actually undergo while a

congress is taking place at the HOFBURG Vienna. Consequently, this research pa-

per strives for filling the current research gap concerning congress participants’ ex-

pectations, wants as well as their individual congress behaviour (Leach et al., 2008;

Mair, 2014; Severt et al., 2007; Sultana, 2008). Thus, a special focus is laid on the

typical needs of congress participants that should be satisfied within the duration of

an event. Severt et al. (2007, p. 407) perfectly summarise the underlying idea of this

study by mentioning that a comparison between the perspective of attendees and

planners may be enormously helpful for the future body of knowledge. As a result

of this, the overall objective of this research is to answer the following research

questions:

Introduction

4

1. What customer experience does the congress centre HOFBURG Vienna want to

deliver?

2. What customer experience do congress participants actually undergo?

2.1 What are typical needs of B2B congress participants that should be sat-

isfied within the duration of the event?

2.2. What steps may be undertaken by the HOFBURG Vienna in order to

satisfy these needs?

1.3 Data Collection and Analysis

In order to provide answers to the research questions and to empirically investigate

the customer experience in its entirety, a three-step research approach was neces-

sary:

Initially, to find out more about the customer experience the HOFBURG Vienna

wants to deliver, expert interviews with ten employees of different departments of

the HOFBURG Vienna such as Marketing, Sales, Project Management, Technical

Operations and Engineering were conducted before the respective congresses ac-

tually took place.

In order to identify which components of the experience are most important to their

customers, direct contact with them is highly required (Lemke, Clark, & Wilson,

2006, p. 24). Therefore, as a second step, while the congresses were taking place,

five to ten congress participants were given disposable cameras and were asked to

take pictures that illustrate their personal impression of their customer experience

(Harrington & Lindy, 1998, pp. 7-8). The participants could individually decide on the

events or aspects, both positive and negative worthy photographing. The subse-

quent pictures then allowed the researcher to see through the eyes of the end cus-

tomer (Flick, 2009; Warren, 2008). Additionally, participants were requested to rec-

ord time and date of their taken photographs including what thoughts and feelings

arose when taking the shot in so-called photo diaries.

Introduction

5

Lastly, all photographs produced by the congress participants were printed and ini-

tially it was planned to use the pictures during photo elicitation interviews with

HOFBURG Vienna's employees. However, due to the relatively low quality of the

pictures taken by the participants, discussing the resulting photographs with em-

ployees of the HOFBURG Vienna could not have been realised by the researcher.

Indeed, the study has demonstrated that using disposable cameras in historic event

locations which do not provide sufficient light may not lead to satisfying photographs.

Unfortunately, a variety of photos was either overexposed or relatively dark. Conse-

quently, the researcher came to the conclusion that analysing these photographs in

the course of follow-up interviews would not result in enlightening discussions.

Nonetheless, due to the vast amount of detailed, explanatory and descriptive state-

ments written by the photographers in their photo diaries, an analysis of the taken

pictures could successfully be carried out by the researcher.

For the expert interviews with employees of the HOFBURG Vienna an interview

guideline including questions based on the topics covered in the theoretical part of

the study was developed. Indeed, the success of the conducted expert interviews

strongly depended on the highly challenging task of deriving all interview questions

from the discussed research problem (Kaiser, 2014, p. 56). Nonetheless, the pre-

pared interview guideline successfully ensured that all data collected from interviews

could have been systematically related to the research questions.

In order to guarantee ethical guidelines and to facilitate the analysis of the data all

conducted interviews were sound recorded. Consequently, all recorded material

was converted into text by the interviewer (King & Horrocks, 2010, pp. 142-3). The

data gathered in the course of the interviews was then systematically arranged.

Here, a coding system was used to group similar information together. For the sub-

sequent analysis of the data an interpretive model was applied. Each individual iden-

tified code is presented with a summary which is then supported with direct quota-

tions obtained from the interviews. Here, quotations that describe the nature of the

code at its best have been chosen (ibid., p. 165). In addition to that, an interpretation

is provided. Lastly, all findings are also strengthened with the content of reliable

books as well as journal articles (Veal, 2011, p. 117, p. 245).

Introduction

6

1.4 Chapter Outline

This master thesis consists of eight chapters whereas the first section serves as an

introduction providing the background of the study and the problem definition, the

research objectives and research questions. In addition, this chapter gives an insight

into the data collection and data analysis process and ends with a chapter outline.

Chapters two to five provide the theoretical framework of the study and look into

existing key concepts of customer experience. While section two deals with defini-

tion, history, components as well as building and managing customer experience,

chapter three describes customer experience in different settings. The subsequent

section deals with measurement of customer experience. Chapter five gives an in-

sight into the topic of business tourism with a special focus on congress tourism.

Theories dealing with congress organisers, attendees, technological as well as ex-

periential change are outlined.

The sixth chapter concentrates on the chosen methodologies of this study. Expla-

nations of the methods of literature review, expert interviews as well as reflexive

photography are provided.

The most important theoretical concepts as well as the most highlighting findings of

this study are summarised in the last chapter. The research questions are answered

and practical implications are given. The contribution to the literature is thoroughly

described and all areas beyond the scope of this paper are concluded as limitations

of the study. Lastly, specific recommendations for further research are presented.

Customer Experience

7

2 Customer Experience

Before concentrating on the term customer experience it is of utmost importance to

clarify the general concept of experience. Indeed, English dictionaries such as Mac-

millan Dictionary (Macmillan Dictionary, 2016) and Merriam Webster Dictionary

(Merriam-Webster, 2015) provide a broad variety of explanations to the term “expe-

rience”. Some of these are “knowledge, skill, wisdom”, “something that happens to

you”, an “event that affect or involves a person” and a “process of doing and seeing

things”. These diverse definitions demonstrate that the meaning of experience

strongly depends on the context and circumstances. This applies at least in the Eng-

lish language. Further, it is interesting to note that in German, experience has two

totally different meanings. On the one hand, experience may be seen as an event

assigned to the German word “Erlebnis”. However, on the other hand, experience

may also refer to skill or wisdom gained through activity or doing something which

should then be translated into the German word “Erfahrung”. These considerations

of the diversified meaning of experience may be seen as highly important for any

research done on this topic, especially in the German speaking market (Helkkula,

2011, p. 369).

2.1 Definition of Customer Experience

Despite the fact that the term “customer experience” is relatively new in the German

speaking literature, it needs to be pointed out that there is already research available

in the Anglo-American body of literature. Nonetheless, until now no agreement could

have been reached on a uniform or standardized definition of the construct of cus-

tomer experience. This fact might be traced back to the complexity of the nature of

customer experience (Gouthier et al., 2012, p. 66).

Verhoef et al. (2009, p. 31) draw the attention to the strong recognition of customer

experience in practice-oriented publications (Meyer & Schwager, 2007; Shaw &

Ivens, 2002). According to the authors, academic marketing literature about this

topic still scarcely exists (Lemke, Clark, & Wilson, 2011; Meyer & Schwager, 2007;

Customer Experience

8

Shaw & Ivens, 2002; Verhoef et al., 2009). Indeed, the present studies are predom-

inately focusing on managerial actions rather than dealing with the theories behind.

Verhoef et al. (2009, p. 31) as well as Johnston and Kong (2011, p. 5) totally agree

with Gouthier et al. (2012, p. 66) by stating that no commonly agreed definition of

customer experience could have been identified so far.

Similarly, Johnston and Kong (ibid.) point out the lagging research on customer ex-

perience compared to other service related topics. In addition, customer experience

is frequently wrongly assumed to be only important for entertainment-related com-

panies such as theme parks (Zomerdijk & Voss, 2010, p. 67).

However, the researchers Shaw and Ivens (2002, p. 21) came to the following defi-

nition: “The customer experience is a blend of a company’s physical performance

and the emotions evoked, intuitively measured against customer expectations

across all moments of contact”.

Gentile, Spiller and Noci (2007, p. 397) simply define the concept of customer ex-

perience as “an evolution of the concept of relationship between the company and

the customer”.

Similar, Meyer and Schwager (2007, p. 118) define customer experience as “the

internal and subjective response customers have to any direct or indirect contact

with a company”. Direct contact generally occurs in the course of the purchase, use

or service provision and is predominately initiated by the customer. On the opposite,

indirect contact occurs due to any unplanned encounter with the representation of

a product, word-of-mouth recommendations, reviews or criticism.

What is more, Sultana (2008, p. 60) draws the attention to negative customer expe-

riences. Truly, literature mainly focuses on particularly positive examples of cus-

tomer experience, whereas in practise companies are predominately placing all at-

tention towards the avoidance of negative ones.

Summarizing and concluding the definitions described above, the following newly

developed definition could have been identified as highly suitable for the research

on hand: Customer experience is multidimensional and purely personal. It com-

Customer Experience

9

prises cognitive, social, physical as well as emotional aspects that are strongly in-

fluenced by employees as well as external factors. Customer experience is instinc-

tively measured against initial expectations and should be measured before actual

service encounters occur. A differentiation between B2B and B2C customer experi-

ences is highly required.

2.2 History of Customer Experience

Despite the current popularity of the topic of customer experience, the origin of this

concept dates back to 1982, when Hirschman and Holbrook (1982, p. 100) pre-

sented a different point of view of consumer behaviour. Both argued that consump-

tion can no longer be seen as solely satisfying customers’ needs, but already the

consumption itself represents the customer experience. Consequently, a totally new

perspective of consumption was created, namely an experience-oriented. According

to Hirschman and Holbrook, special attention should be drawn on the multisensory,

fantasy and emotive aspects of the usage experience.

Nonetheless, Pine and Gilmore (1998, 2011) are called the pioneers of doing re-

search on customer experience. The researchers claim that service is more and

more commoditized and that today’s consumers demand more than good service.

Indeed, they are seeking experiences which stay in mind and which are memorable.

A company or so-called experience stager no longer offers goods or services alone,

but rather creates experiences full of sensations. The authors state that experiences

are fundamentally personal and occur within an individual who has been engaged

emotionally, physically, intellectually or on a spiritual level. As a consequence of

this, no experience can be the same (ibid., 2011, p. 13).

Further, Pine and Gilmore (2011, pp. 45-54) identified four realms of customer ex-

perience. The initial dimension represents participation ranging from passive partic-

ipation to active participation. The second dimension of experience represents the

connection or environmental relationship that combines the event with the customer.

Here, at one end absorption takes place, or in other words bringing the experience

into the mind from a distance. At the other end of the spectrum lies immersion, where

the customer becomes virtually part of the experience. As can be seen from figure

Customer Experience

10

1 below, the resulting four types of experiences are entertainment (passive/absorp-

tion), educational (active/absorption), escapist (active/immersion) and esthetic (pas-

sive/immersion).

Nonetheless, it needs to be pointed out, that there is a lack of tangible measurement

of Pine and Gilmore’s (ibid.) developed four dimensions. Oh, Fiore and Jeoung

(2007, p. 119) recognised this lack of research and empirically tested the re-

searcher’s model focusing on lodging experiences of bed-and-breakfasts.

2.3 Components of Customer Experience

In the past consumer experience could have been characterised as multidimen-

sional by a variety of researchers (Bruhn & Hadwich, 2012; Gentile et al., 2007; Pine

& Gilmore, 1998; Schmitt, 2003). According to the researchers, numerous factors or

dimensions contribute to a holistic view, although sometimes costumers are only

aware of them on a subconscious level. Nonetheless, no consensus about the exact

dimensions of the customer experience could have been found in the literature.

Bruhn and Hadwich (2012, p. 12) for instance, hold the opinion that any customer

experience consists of several experiential dimensions. Further, it is assumed that

Figure 1: The Four Realms of an Experience

Source: Pine & Gilmore (2011), p. 46

Customer Experience

11

a customer experience is undergone at different levels. The dimensions recognised

by the authors are sensory, emotional, cognitive, behavioural, lifestyle and social.

The sensory dimension of the customer experience is referring to the reception of

external stimuli. More in detail, this dimension shows how all senses of the cus-

tomer, including seeing, listening, touching, smelling and tasting are stimulated. At

the next, the emotional level customer experience generates emotions, feelings as

well as mood that are directly connected to customer service, the company or simply

the brand. In contrast, the cognitive dimension focuses on the intellectual capacity

of consumers. At this stage, cognitive components of an experience stimulate crea-

tivity as well as problem solving behaviour. Focusing on the behavioural dimension,

it needs to be said that here physical experiences are involved, including interac-

tions and strives for changing the customer’s long-term behaviour. On the lifestyle

dimension customers receive stimuli that may or may not confirm their inner values

and norms. The social dimension draws the attention to any social interactions that

may happen during the customer experience. The interaction with other customers

as well as targeted customer support initiated by the supplier will generate feelings

of affiliation and belonging (Bruhn & Hadwich, 2012, p. 12).

Very similar, Gentile et al. (2007, p. 398) state that customer experience is severely

personal and involves the customer at different levels. According to the authors,

customer experience consists of emotional, sensorial, relational, lifestyle, pragmatic

and cognitive components. Indeed, the components recognised by Gentile et al. are

almost identical with Bruhn and Hadwich’s (2012, p. 12) dimensions.

Verhoef et al. (2009, p. 32) claim that the construct of customer experience consists

of the customer’s cognitive, social, emotional and physical responses. In addition,

the authors emphasise the fact that an experience is not only created by factors that

the service provider can control, but also by elements that are located outside the

supplier’s sphere of influence, such as impact of others. Moreover, it needs to be

pointed out that the total customer experience consists of search, purchase, con-

sumption as well as after-sale phase.

Describing a significantly different approach, Shaw and Ivens (2002, p. 5) state that

customer experience consists of physical and emotional elements. As indicated in

Customer Experience

12

figure 2 below, the authors specified several physical aspects which contribute to a

highly positive customer experience. From their point of view, emotions are unfortu-

nately rarely discussed. Indeed, the researchers believe that instead of discussing

the price or lead time of a product, one should rather concentrate on the type of

emotions the product evokes in the customers. Shaw and Ivens (2002, p. 15) hold

the opinion that still too many companies wrongly see the physical customer expe-

rience as the entire experience. Clearly, physical aspects will continue to be im-

portant but what will be of even more importance are “the emotions that the physical

elements evoke” (ibid., p. 16).

Figure 2: Physical Categories that Form Part of a Great Customer Experience

Source: Shaw & Ivens (2002), p. 16

Again another perspective of looking at the components of customer experience is

to concentrate on employees. Indeed, transferring the right customer experience

requires an organisation to become oriented to customer experience in the entire

institution (Harris, 2007; Schmitt, 2003). The authors specifically draw the attention

to the important role employees play in delivering just the right customer experience.

Harris (ibid., p. 113) emphasises this idea by stating that the actions of employees

Customer Experience

13

nourish the experience delivered outside the company. Indeed, Schmitt (2003, p.

219) points out the fact that often businesses are trying to align human behaviour

with company values and missions that are purely abstract and focused on broad

objectives which are difficult to understand and therefore rarely lead to success. On

the other hand, Harris (2007, p. 113) considers “guiding principles [..] as a platform

to nurture desired behaviours in the organisation”.

According to Schmitt (ibid., pp. 220-1), a customer-focused step-by-step approach

is required to help and lead employees to deliver the optimal experience. The author

developed a five-step approach for aligning employee behaviour, whereby recruiting

the right people is defined as the first step. Potential future employees need to have

the right attitude to be able to fully focus on the customer experience the company

is providing. Secondly, Schmitt underlines the importance of on-the-job training for

the experience delivery. Training should not be wrongly associated with teaching

phrases. To the opposite, employees should rather understand their role and should

find ways of improving customer experience. Independently from their job position

employees should be trained to permanently think from their customers’ point of

view. In order to make sure that employees continuously maintain a customer-cen-

tric working style, rewards and incentives should be provided to acknowledge their

efforts. Moreover, employees’ performances need to be measured against a perfor-

mance parameter that focuses on customer experience. Consequently, feedback

should be given in order to improve future performances. Lastly, employees should

be involved in the interface designs to guarantee that employees can give custom-

ers the best experience. What is more, employees should be challenged at work as

bored or overloaded employees will never do their best.

Navarro (2012, p. 49) states that today’s companies rarely ask themselves whether

their employees are still happy to work for them. In addition, the researcher under-

lines the difficulty of constantly reassuring that employees are creating experiential

moments whenever they are in contact with a customer. Nonetheless, Navarro de-

veloped a five step approach towards the perfect employee.

As a result of this, it is doubtlessly clear that employees’ satisfaction and happiness

are directly linked to the successful delivery of a great customer experience (Mosley,

Customer Experience

14

2007; Naseem, Sheikh, & Malik, 2011; Schmitt, 2003). According to the authors,

employees should be seen as internal customers and companies should focus on

developing a highly rewarding employee experience. Finding out about the feelings,

thoughts, desires and wishes of a company’s own employees may be seen as a

good start towards a great working environment. Consequently, employees will get

involved and as soon as employees undergo a positive experience they will as well

provide an outstanding experience to their customers.

Palmer (2010, p. 204) draws the attention to today’s customer experience managers

that need to obey inter-functional skills and equally authority to be able to deliver

customer experience that surpasses customers’ needs and expectations. The re-

searcher even describes the employees of an organisation as “part-time relationship

builder with customers”. In fact, every employee of an organisation may possibly

contribute to the customer experience that is conveyed.

Focusing now on managers of organisations only, Klaus (2015, pp. 30-2) claims that

managers themselves often have severe difficulties in defining the reasons, objec-

tives, definitions and measurement techniques of their company’s customer experi-

ence programs. As a result of this study, he found out that articulating a precise

definition of customer experience seems to be highly challenging for managers. Of-

ten, definitions are broad, wide-ranging and vague and related mainly to customer

points of contact. In addition, customer experience management is often mistaken

with “storytelling” instead of processes, tactics and tools by managers. Interestingly,

according to the researcher’s study, managers have much less difficulties in defining

what poor customer experiences consist of. What is more, the author also draws the

attention towards training and development of their employees to be able to deliver

reliable and excellent service. Here, it the researcher mentions that people working

in different departments are sometimes difficult to be trained equally. Nonetheless,

managers should be aware of the fact that employees are the most crucial factor in

customer experience delivering.

Shaw and Ivens (2002, p. 13) even expand Klaus’ assumption by stating that not

only managers, but often rather a lot of employees are not able to describe the cus-

tomer experience they are trying to deliver. According to the authors, initially, a clear

Customer Experience

15

articulation of the customer experience is of utmost importance to subsequently be

able to tell employees how they can put it into practise. In case there is no clearly

defined customer experience at all, employees will do whatever they think is right to

do. Hence, different employees will deliver different customer experiences.

DiJulius (2011, p. 28) draws the attention to front-line employees and traces back

the problem of poor customer experience to their “lack of service aptitude and de-

clining people skills”. According to the researcher, employees’ idea of superior cus-

tomer service is simply based on their own experiences of superior service. As a

consequence of this, there is a huge gap between the manager’s and the employ-

ees’ vision of delivering great customer experience (ibid., p. 29). Wrongly, managers

assume that employees do already know how to deliver fantastic customer service.

As this is not the case, managers should teach their front-line employees as thor-

oughly as possible how they should treat customers in a superior way. What is more,

DiJulius also states that not only front-line employees should be trained. Indeed,

every employee including administrative, professional as well as managerial should

be confronted with people, skill, and so called customer experience training on a

regular basis. With reference to declining people skills, DiJulius mentions the current

trend of technology. Indeed, today’s young generation has underdeveloped people

skills. Interactions with people are now replaced by online activities. Obviously, to-

day’s young generation did not obtain people skills through human interactions.

Therefore, it is the company’s responsibility to improve their service aptitude (ibid.,

p. 33).

According to Klaus (2015, p. 36) attracting, managing and developing people that

are able to create fantastic customer experience is of utmost importance for today’s

managers. Klaus found out that people development should definitely be considered

as interactive and on-going. What is interesting to know is that companies with well-

defined customer experience management programs sometimes even spread this

development to the company’s suppliers’ employees which consequently result in

outstanding customer experience delivery.

Similar, Hauk and Schulz (2012, pp. 399-400) describe employees as the key to

success. In order to improve the employees’ performance they need to understand

Customer Experience

16

the company’s values, guidelines and they should be able to transfer the feeling of

trust. Further Hauk and Schulz suggest that all employees should have identical

information about existing customer touch points. In order to continuously

strengthen positive customer experiences a transparent communication between

employees and customers need to be guaranteed. In addition, success stories

should be communicated internally as well as externally. Frequently, employees are

the initial point of contact of a lot of customers and should therefore reflect the cor-

porate culture at its best.

2.4 Building and Managing Customer Experience

Shaw and Ivens (2002, p. 9) developed seven steps to build customer experience.

Initially, great customer experience should be seen as a competitive advantage, it

should further consistently exceed customers’ physical and emotional expectations

and should focus on creating planned emotions. In addition, good customer experi-

ence is only possible through inspirational leadership and an empowering culture.

Moreover, customer experience need to be designed outside in rather than inside

out, should be revenue generating and reducing costs. Lastly, great customer ex-

perience should be seen as the embodiment of the brand.

As it can be seen from figure 3 below, Shaw and Ivens (ibid., pp. 24-5) have devel-

oped five stages of customer experience in order to better understand the concept.

Clearly, the time frame of each step will vary significantly, depending on the type of

product or service. The simpler the product or service the shorter time will be re-

quired for each stage of the customer experience.

At the initial step, namely at the expectations setting, the concept of customer ex-

perience is sometimes even ignored. Here, customer experience has already been

set up through word-of-mouth, marketing activities, opinion of others and one’s own

past experiences in similar settings. The next stage is when pre-purchase interac-

tions happen. At this stage today’s customers frequently look for information online,

get details about the price or talk to others. As soon as future customers have de-

cided to buy a product, the phase of purchase interactions starts. This may be de-

scribed as the centre of any customer experience. The following stage, the product

Customer Experience

17

or service consumption occurs. Lastly, at the end of the customer experience the

performance will be measured against the expectations. Companies should defi-

nitely not forget customers after their purchase. At this stage customers specifically

like to be reassured that they made the right decision. According to the authors,

companies should be aware of their behaviour at each individual step. In addition,

companies should clarify which physical and emotional elements are more important

at which stage (Shaw & Ivens, 2002, pp. 24-5). Most significantly, companies indeed

are asked to understand their customers’ expectations in order to be able to satisfy

and ideally surpass them. Companies that are only satisfying their customers’ ex-

pectations, instead of surprising them by exceeding their anticipations, do not deliver

great customer experiences as they do not have a differentiator. In addition, the

authors underline the fact that exceeding customer experience is not necessarily

connected with spending a lot of money. To find out what is required to surpass

customers’ expectations, a company simply needs to understand the expectations

and specifically how they are set up (Shaw & Ivens, 2002, p. 26).

Figure 3: Stages of Customer Experience

Source: Shaw & Ivens (2002), p. 23

Customer Experience

18

Nonetheless, building customer experience is not always easy and trouble-free. In-

deed, three main challenges involved in customer experience could have been de-

tected (Klaus, 2015, pp. 40-1). These are the multi-faceted nature of customer ex-

perience, the difficult connection of customer experience and financial outcomes

and lastly, the urgent requirement to see customer experience as a long-term pro-

cess. Other reasons may be infrastructural drawbacks or complex processes which

are difficult to be optimized (Hauk & Schulz, 2012, p. 397). Focusing further on the

challenges of customer experience, Lemke et al. (2011, p. 869) summarise that ”un-

derstanding the customer’s space involves entering their world, which is processual,

relational, embedded in a rich network of peers and complementary suppliers, and

largely outside the firm’s direct control”.

Turning now to the management of customer experience, a clear definition of the

concept is required first. Schmitt (2003, p. 17) put it simply by defining customer

experience management (CEM) as “the process of strategically managing a cus-

tomer’s entire experience with a product or a company”. In addition, it needs to be

stated that customer experience management may not be used as an interchange-

able term for customer relationship management. Strictly speaking, customer rela-

tionship marketing focuses on recording transactions whereas customer experience

management tries to build close relationships with customers. This is in line with

Palmer (2010, p. 196) who states that “customer experience management may be

an integrating framework that overcomes the theoretical and practical limitations of

customer relationship management”.

Kamaladevi (2010, p. 38) also draws a connection between customer relationship

management and customer experience management by stating that both are “diffi-

cult to define”. The author supports the opinion that customer experience manage-

ment may be seen as a mirror of customer relationship management. The essence

of customer relationship management is that “every time a company and a customer

interact, the company learns something about the customer. Customer experience

management, however reflects the contrary. Here, it is the customer that learns

something about the company.

Customer Experience

19

According to Badgett, Moyce and Kleinberger (2007, p. 1), managing customer ex-

perience means closing the gap between what companies are delivering and what

customers are expecting. This can be done by “systematically integrating knowledge

of what their best customers want”.

Following Berry, Carbone, & Haeckel (2002, p. 85) “an organization’s first step to-

ward managing the total customer experience is recognizing the clues it is sending

to customers”.

Grewal, Levy and Kumar (2009, p. 1) rather keep it short and simple by defining

customer experience management as “a business strategy designed to manage the

customer experience”.

Schmitt (2003, p. 17) mentions that CEM cares about sales and brand preference,

but what is even more important, is delivering value to customers by providing ser-

vice, interaction and information which lead to favourable experiences. Thus, CEM

builds loyalty and creates additional value for the company. Schmitt further points

out that CEM may be described as a practical management tool which can indeed,

help a company to deliver experiential value and consequently create financial value

for the company (Schmitt, 2003, p. 21). In order to connect with your customer and

grow your business, Schmitt developed a five-step CEM framework as a response

of an urgent need for a practical approach. The researcher’s (ibid., pp. 25-30) model

may be applied to wide range of business challenges of all different kinds of indus-

tries. The five steps of the CEM framework are illustrated in figure 4 below.

Customer Experience

20

Figure 4: The Five Steps of the CEM Framework

Source: Referring to Schmitt (2003), p. 25

Concluding this chapter, it may be stated that this section provided an in-depth in-

sight into the definition, history, components as well as the management of customer

experience. According to the literature (Gouthier et al., 2012; Johnston & Kong,

2011; Verhoef et al., 2009), no uniform or standardized definition of the concept of

customer experience exists. Nevertheless, focusing on the history of customer

experience, Hirschman and Holbrook as well as Pine and Gilmore could certainly

be identified as the most important pioneers. What is more, according to a variety

of authors (Bruhn & Hadwich, 2012; Gentile et al., 2007; Shaw & Ivens, 2002;

Verhoef et al., 2009) customer experience consists of a relatively similar set of com-

ponents including sensory, emotional, cognitive, pragmatic, behavioural, lifestyle

and social aspects. However, other researchers (DiJulius, 2011; Harris, 2007;

Klaus, 2015; Navarro, 2012; Palmer, 2010) attach greater importance to employees

as a highly decisive component of a customer experience.

Step 1

•Analyzing the experiential world of the customer

Step 2•Building the experiential platform

Step 3•Designing the brand experience

Step 4•Structuring the customer interface

Step 5•Engaging in cintinuous innovation

Customer Experience in Different Settings

21

3 Customer Experience in Different Settings

Customers always have experiences, no matter in which context or industry they

are experienced. For companies it is most important to effectively manage the ex-

perience delivered. Berry et al. (2002, p. 89) are convinced that companies achieve

best results when functional and emotional benefits are combined in their offerings,

no matter of which industry they may are.

3.1 Impact of Customer Experience on a Business

Delivering outstanding customer experience seems to be one of the main objectives

of today’s companies. Many of them have already started to incorporate the concept

of customer experience management in their mission statements (Verhoef et al.,

2009, p. 31).

However, Dixon, Freeman and Toman (2010, p. 116) state that despite the fact that

today’s companies are aware of the high importance of customers, some are still

failing to provide positive customer experiences. In addition, Schmitt (2003, p. 4)

asked himself why many companies still do not treat customers the way they should

be treated. The answer is simple: those companies are focused on outdated mar-

keting and management approaches such as “marketing concept” or “customer re-

lationship management” that prevent them from connecting with the customer.

DiJulius (2011, p. 5) totally agrees with Schmitt, stating that sadly most companies

rank their customer experience far higher than their actual customers do. According

to the author, companies are simply unaware of the level of experience they are

actually delivering. Indeed, doing business today is harder than ever before, but the

author firmly believes that those companies that are obsessively trying to differenti-

ate themselves with customer experience will be the only ones that will survive on

the long term (ibid., p. 22).

Many managers may not directly deny the importance of customer experience but

some do not really appreciate what those tools can reveal. Often having spent al-

ready too much money on customer relationship management, executives do not


22

know how this data may be different to customer experience data. Indeed, the dif-

ference is substantial. Other managers may be afraid of the outcome of customer

experience management. In addition, findings of experience data may be much

more ambiguous than customer relationship management data (Meyer & Schwager,

2007, p. 121).

Rawson, Duncan and Jones (2013, p. 93) claim that companies that are perfectly

managing the entire customer experience will be rewarded with better customer sat-

isfaction, increased revenue, higher employee satisfaction as well as reduced churn.

Therefore, the authors suggest focusing on customer experience for gaining im-

provements and creating sustainable competitive advantage at the same time. In-

deed, sometimes narrowly concentrating on individual transactions and touch points

is not expedient and rather prevents understanding the whole interaction. Instead of

this, multiple experiences across different touch points should be managed over

time. Consequently, companies need to identify journeys which they want to excel.

Thereby, it is of utmost importance to understand the current performance to create

continuous improvement by building processes across functions.

Nowadays, customers are becoming more and more demanding and indeed, they

use several channels to interact with your organisation during their customer jour-

ney. Clearly, every customer undergoes a different experience with a company.

Therefore, it is specifically important to know what the customers’ individual needs

are. As a consequence of this, the supplier needs to listen to the customers when

their feelings and emotions are at the most raw and real. What is more, when com-

panies create unique experiences at every level of the customer interaction, cus-

tomers will be ready to pay a premium price (Sultana, 2008, p. 61).

DiJulius (2011, p. 28) share views with Sultana, claiming that B2B as well as B2C

customers are prepared to pay more as soon as a company puts its focus on build-

ing relationships. More precisely, according to DiJulius (ibid., p. 39) a company can

either compete on price or on experience. If you decide to compete on experience

the majority of competition vanishes immediately. Additionally, the company should

then start finding a way to create “world-class culture” internally and to deliver “a

world-class experience” to external customers.


23

3.2 Customer Experience in a B2B Context

What is special about the customer experience in a B2B setting is that only scarce

literature dealing with this specific field of research exists. Nonetheless, customer

experience has gained much more importance for B2B companies in the last years.

However, creating and delivering just the right customer experience on a B2B level

is not easy in today’s world. More specifically, delivering efficient as well as effective

results in a B2B context requires time, effort as well as money. Nonetheless, supe-

rior customer experience can lead to significantly higher revenues (Accenture, 2014,

p. 14).

Meyer and Schwager (2007, p. 119) describe a business customer experience as

“a matter of functioning”. Indeed, a successful B2B company tries to fulfil the per-

sonal needs of its customers just as any effective B2C company. In addition, the

authors state that a good B2B experience is not always exciting but it is above all

trouble-free.

As can be seen from table 1 below, there are significant differences in customer

experience management requirements between B2C and B2B markets. The order

of the factors may be seen according to their importance. By way of illustration, this

means that in a B2C environment the factor “helpfulness” for example is more sig-

nificant than “accessibility” (Lemke et al., 2006, p. 22).

Table 1: Influencing Factors of Customer Experience: B2C versus B2B

Influencing Factors of B2C Customer Experience

Influencing Factors of B2B Customer Experience

Helpfulness Extend of Personal Contact

Value for Time Flexibility

Customer Recognition Implicit Understanding of Customer Needs

Promise Fulfilment Pro-activity in Eliciting Customer’s Objectives

Problem Solving Pro-activity in Checking that Everything is OK

Personalisation Promise Fulfilment

Competence Knowledge

Accessibility

Source: Referring to Lemke et al. (2006), p. 22

Concentrating only on the B2B context, the following factors could have been de-

tected as highly influencing ones. Firstly, the extent to which a company personally

deals with customers may vary significantly from company to company. Some attach

great importance to personal contact whereas web-based companies for instance


24

clearly do not have any personal contact with their customers at all. Additionally,

flexibility plays an important role in the business context. This factor describes the

ability and willingness of a company to respond to individual requirements and

wishes. Another important factor is the implicit understanding of customers’ needs.

Some companies have a clear understanding of the needs of their customers,

whereas others do not make an effort to comprehend their customers’ wants. Pro-

activity in eliciting customer’s objective is another highly influencing component. Ad-

ditionally, it also needs to be stated that the pro-activity of checking that everything

is OK, definitely makes a B2B customer experience more special. For a good B2B

customer experience it is also important to keep the promises made to the customer.

Lastly, what is likewise significant is the knowledge of adding value to the customer

(Lemke et al., 2006, p. 22).

Voeth and Loos (2012, p. 371) state that B2B services should be seen as individual

business solutions where factors such as trust and experience are the most decisive

ones. Thus, B2B customers are more likely to be interested in long-term relation-

ships. As a consequence of this, the provided customer experience needs to be

managed as professionally as possible in order to fulfil their requirements in the long

term. Further, the researchers draw the attention to the fact that B2B customer ex-

perience management contains other tools and different points of focus than are

needed in the B2C market. As an illustration, an example may be that in a B2B

setting, one single customer does not exist. Here, buying decisions are rather taken

by a group of people that represents the buying centre. Another example may be

the complexity of interactions with clients in a business setting.

Hollyoake (2009, pp. 132-3) agrees with Voeth and Loos by stating that B2B rela-

tionships are indeed fewer and more complex. Concentrating only on the B2B cus-

tomers, it needs to be stated that expectations may be higher in comparison to B2C

customers. Hollyoake further states that a successful B2B customer experience is

all about “reliability, consistency, dependability, problem resolution, appropriate con-

tact, choice and flexibility”. According to the author, a B2B customer experience

contains much more touch points and involves persons of different functions. Con-

cluding, Hollyoake (2009, pp. 134-5) states that B2B companies now finally start


25

realizing the importance of customer experience management and lastly consider

the concept as a potential key differentiator and as possible competitive advantage.

3.3 Customer Experience in a Service Setting and in Tourism

Focusing only on the service industry, it needs to be stated that more and more

companies are now trying to increase customer satisfaction as well as customer

loyalty by evoking emotional enthusiasm, or in other words emotional excitement.

Indeed, the intangibility, heterogeneity as well as integrity of services make provid-

ing excellent services even more difficult. However, the system of “service excel-

lence” systematically supports the evocation of such moments of enthusiasm

(Gouthier et al., 2012, pp. 65-6).

With reference to the approach of customer experience in a service setting, Grove

and Fisk (1997, p. 64) claim that service products offered by hotels, restaurants or

airlines are usually provided to customers sharing the same setting. As a conse-

quence of this, the researchers found out that the presence of others has a signifi-

cant impact on one owns experience. Indeed, the researchers examined that cus-

tomers frequently experience critical incidents caused by other customers. In fact,

customers would for instance, generally enjoy a better experience in a service envi-

ronment when others behave friendly.

Furthermore, it needs to be stated that service provision may be described from the

perspective of the service provider or from the viewpoint of the customer. The re-

searchers Nasution and Mavondo (2008, p. 204) closer investigated these diverse

perceptions and suggest that the perspectives are expected to differ. The decisive

reasons behind this assumption are that managers are trying to deliver a business

product, whereas customers are experiencing a service (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, &

Berry, 1985, 1988).

Supporting a totally different point of view, Dixon et al. (2010, p. 116) concisely de-

scribe the construct of customer experience in a service setting by stating that de-

livering high levels of service on the basic promises is far more important than

providing a stunning service experience around the service.


26

The question whether physical elements matter to service customers was closer

analysed by Wakefield and Blodgett (1999, p. 68) in the course of their research.

Both found out that the physical environment and the overall perceived quality to-

gether influence the customers’ service experience. Service managers who dedi-

cate their resources mainly to maintaining and improving intangible service quality

may let physical aspects deteriorate. As a result of their study, Wakefield and

Blodgett strongly recommend to accurately monitor customers’ perceptions of the

physical environment due to its severe impact on the experienced service quality.

Although the model of experience economy was developed in the business field, it

has already entered the field of tourism, which could have even been identified as

a pioneer industry of the experience economy (Quan & Wang, 2004, p. 297).

Tourism is a service industry which contains a variety of complexities. Indeed, a

tourist’s customer experience depends on multiple factors including several stake-

holders such as airport officials, taxi drivers, hotel receptionist,…In order to guaran-

tee a high value customer experience for tourists, a framework for stakeholder col-

laboration is required (Gopalan & Narayan, 2010, p. 100). In the course of their study

Gopalan and Narayan developed a classification of extrinsic and intrinsic compo-

nents of customer experience. Extrinsic components are factors that are controlled

by the government and other external stakeholders, whereas intrinsic components

are manageable by any service provider (ibid., p. 109).

Furthermore, tourism is an industry that strongly depends on the customers’ assess-

ment of the quality of their service experiences. Consequently, managing high levels

of service quality is a crucial factor in the tourism industry. In the past, tourism pro-

viders have already tried a variety of improvement methods, but nonetheless, the

ultimate success of any service provider depends on the consumers’ satisfaction,

which is solely determined by the customers’ undergone experiences (Zehrer, 2009,

p. 332).

The authors Walls et al. (2011, pp. 19-20) describe the tourism customer experience

as a composition of a variety of physical as well as human aspects that stimulate

reactions to the consumption of services and goods. It is assumed that the tourism


27

customer experience vary from consumer to consumer, strongly depending on phys-

ical and human elements, situational factors as well as individual characteristics.

Each of these influencing factors may have a modest or significant impact on the

tourist customer experience, making each customer’s experience unique. As a con-

sequence of this, the authors describe customer experiences as “multidimensional

and unique for each situation and consumer”. This viewpoint supports the idea that

businesses can rather only orchestrate the opportunity for a great experience. From

their point of view, an organisation cannot grant a certain experience, but companies

can rather only create the environment and the circumstances in which the end cus-

tomers may have an outstanding experience (Walls, Okumus, Wang, & Kwun, 2011,

pp. 19-20).

In summary, this chapter has demonstrated that customer experience is important,

no matter in which context or industry it is provided. However, literature (DiJulius,

2011; Dixon et al., 2010; Meyer & Schwager, 2007; Schmitt, 2003) has proved that

some of today’s companies are still applying outdated marketing concepts or simply

do not appreciate the benefits customer experience management has to offer.

Therefore, advantages and approaches how to apply customer experience man-

agement were outlined more in detail (DiJulius, 2011; Rawson et al., 2013; Sultana,

2008). Concentrating on B2B and B2C markets, a wide range of authors (Hollyoake,

2009; Lemke et al., 2006; Meyer & Schwager, 2007; Voeth & Loos, 2012) detected

significant differences in customer experience management requirements. Lastly, a

closer look has been taken at the delivery and the specific features of customer

experience in a service setting and in tourism (Gouthier et al., 2012; Nasution &

Mavondo, 2008; Wakefield & Blodgett, 1999; Zehrer, 2009).

Measurement of Customer Experience

28

4 Measurement of Customer Experience

Despite the fact that today’s companies are increasingly competing on the basis of

customer experience, no commonly agreed measurement techniques are known so

far (Maklan & Klaus, 2011, p. 774). However, Palmer (2010, p. 202) assumes that

if the pattern of the model of relationship marketing is followed, academic research-

ers will soon start trying to find a measurement tool for customer experience. He

further states that some researchers may only acknowledge the construct of cus-

tomer experience as far as it can be measured.

4.1 Challenges of Measuring Customer Experience

Shaw and Ivens (2002, p. 7) found out that companies indeed have strategic plans

for customer experience, but unfortunately they rather infrequently show commit-

ment to achieve them. The existing strategies regarding customer experience are

often neither measured nor controlled.

Molina (2012, p. 37) shortly claims that “measuring customer experience has thus

become one of the biggest challenges that businesses face.” Still, what is already

known is that customer experience measurement can significantly save money, pro-

tect customers from annoying solicitations and permit a direct comparison of cus-

tomers (Meyer & Schwager, 2007, pp. 121-2).

Maklan and Klaus (ibid.) mention that measuring service quality solely is definitely

neither enough to discuss nor to improve customer experience. Instead, it is sug-

gested to extend the concept of quality to be finally able to measure customer ex-

perience. Consequently, the researchers (ibid., p. 777) emphasise the need for a

measurement of customer experience that considers the customers’ cognitive as

well as emotional assessment of value, is based on the value-in-use of the com-

pany’s offer, evaluates the functional delivery of an organisation’s promise and the

subsequent emotional responses caused. In addition, sufficient time before and af-

ter the service delivery should be taken into consideration. Lastly, it should be vali-

dated against behavioural and attitudinal factors.


29

Indeed, customers strongly think that they have had an experience with a company,

even before any service encounter has been taken place. Generally, these beliefs

are developed through promotion, word-of-mouth as well as advertising. Therefore,

customer experience needs to be measured even before any service encounters.

Hereby, direct as well as indirect influences should be taken into account. Clearly,

it is important to mention that this fact leads to enormous practical challenges for

market researchers (Berry et al., 2002; Payne et al., 2008).

Palmer (2010, p. 202) underlines the multifaceted difficulties that might be involved

in the development of a measurement scale for customer experience. In fact, cus-

tomer experience strongly depends on context specific variables such as differences

between individuals, differences over time and differences of an individual’s emo-

tional state.

Similar, Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2003, p. 14) state that “value creation is defined

by the experience of a specific consumer, at a specific point in time and location, in

the context of a specific event”. According to them, it is doubtlessly clear that the

same event causes different experiences and consequently also different value to

different customers. Therefore, it needs to be pointed out that any measurement

technique developed for customer experience need to take these moderating fac-

tors into consideration (Palmer, 2010, pp. 202-3). The author further emphasises

the practical difficulties involved in developing and implementing a measurement

scale for customer experience that considers contextual differences but states that

“qualitative research techniques are the only way to really understand experience

from the perspective of the consumer”.

4.2 Customer Touch Point Analysis

Bruhn and Hadwich (2012, pp. 30-1) suggest the customer touch point analysis as

a measurement instrument for customer experience. The researchers underline that

the customer touch point analysis is an urgent prerequisite of successful customer

experience management. A customer touch point is clearly defined as any encoun-

ter between supplier and customer. Herby, one needs to differentiate between direct


30

customer touch points including personal interactions, for example with any employ-

ees. Contrary, indirect customer touch points do not involve any direct employee

contact. Direct customer touch points may be any personal counselling interview at

a bank whereas any website visit of a company would represent indirect customer

touch points. Additionally, there are customer-driven as well as company-driven cus-

tomer touch points.

In comparison, Payne et al. (2008, p. 90) describe the encounter process as two-

way interactions and transactions which take place between the supplier and the

customer. So called encounters, touch points or simply contacts occur due to the

customer side via orders, complaints, inquiries, or on the initiative of the company

through telephone calls, invoicing or direct mailings. Encounter processes involve

many cross functional departments and may be considered as exchange of re-

sources of the parties. More specifically, three types of encounters were identified.

These are communication encounters, usage encounters and service encounters.

Communication encounters occur while connecting with customers, promoting and

enacting dialogues, whereas usage encounters refer to using a product or experi-

encing a service. Lastly, service encounters relate to customer interactions with cus-

tomer service personnel or applications.

Similar, Meyer and Schwager (2007, p. 119) state that whether it is a business or a

customer‘s experience that is studied, data is collected at touch points. The re-

searchers define a series of touch points as customer corridor. Without doubt,

meaningful touch points change over the course of a customer’s life and not all of

them are of equal value. At each touch point the gap between customer expecta-

tions and the actual experience draws the attention to the difference between cus-

tomer delight and something less joyful. Customers’ expectations are based on pre-

vious experiences with the company but may also depend on market conditions,

competition and the customers’ personal situation. Without any intention, customers

instinctively compare each new experience with previous ones.


31

4.3 Experience Map by Molina

Molina (2012, p. 38) describes the concept of customer experience as an entirely

abstract idea. Nonetheless, the researcher suggests that in order to enable a con-

crete measuring, the customer experience needs to be broken down into tangible

components. Contrary to Bruhn and Hadwich (2012, pp. 30-1), Molina (2012, p. 38)

states that not all interactions between customer and the company are of im-

portance. Indeed, some contacts are simply not suitable for creating memorable and

at the same time surprising experiences. Molina presents a technique to measure

customer experience called experience map. Hereby, customers’ expectations are

compared to the perceived experience. In order to apply this method, following steps

need to be taken: initially, the lifecycle of the relationship needs to be examined and

main points of contact should be presented. Then, a survey needs to be designed

to gather data at each identified touch point. A question that could be asked to find

out more about customers’ importance of a contact point may be “What are your

expectations of the company at that specific moment of the relationship?”. Subse-

quently, to measure satisfaction, a potential question may be “How did the actual

interaction with the company turn out?”. After the individual contact points are as-

signed to indicators, the experience map can be drawn graphically. Based on the

outcome, companies may specifically concentrate on points of contact where actual

experience is low as well as where expectations are the highest. The points of con-

tact at which the customer’s expectations are very high may also be seen as so-

called moments of truth. Moments of truth are extremely valuable contact points

where memorable experience can easily be created. This measuring technique is

sometimes also described as customer pathway or customer journey.

Further, Molina (ibid., p. 39) totally agrees with Shaw and Ivens (2002, p. 5) by

claiming that customer experience consists of physical elements as well as emo-

tional variables. Physical variables may be temperature, functionality, cleanliness,

and environment. According to Molina, emotional parts of the customer experience

are mainly influenced by other persons involved in the perceived customer experi-

ence. Molina underlines the fact that customer experience may not be measurable

by concentrating on physical elements only.


32

4.4 Multidimensional Approach

Several researchers suggest a variety of research methods to measure customer

experience (Bruhn & Hadwich, 2012; Klaus, 2015; Maklan & Klaus, 2011; Molina,

2012, Palmer, 2010). However, there is an urgent need for a method that releases

new knowledge about customers’ thoughts, feelings and behaviours related to a

company’s product or service.

Following this idea, Klaus (2015, p. 38) states that surveys are still the most used

method of doing research on customer experience, but according to the researcher,

some companies are currently adapting their customer surveys to include more ex-

periential elements.

According to Coulter and Zaltman (1995, p. 36), “important opportunities to learn

from consumers are missed by ignoring nonverbal channels of communication as

part of the research”. Although, as early as in 1995, the authors were already aware

of the missing studies on customer experience using nonverbal research methods,

surprisingly, such studies still scarcely exist today.

Prosser (2011, p. 488) indicates that using the reflexive photography method may

be a very suitable way of measuring customer experience. He emphasises that pic-

tures can describe and evoke emotions, involve stories and are very powerful

means of expression. What is more, pictures allow researchers to imagine what

experience the customer has undergone.

Likewise, Mason (2006, p. 10) draws the attention to the fact that „social experience

and lived realities are multi-dimensional“. That is why it might be insufficient to do

research on customer experience only on one single dimension. Mixing qualitative

methods truly encourage researchers to see things from a totally new perspective.

Using innovative and creative methods offer fantastic opportunities for exploring

new dimensions of an experience.

Similar, Guillemin (2004, p. 273) also claims that a mixed approach including both

visual and word-based research leads to the great possibility of exploring the multi-

plicity as well as the complexity of human experience.


33

Schulze (2007, p. 539) further strengthens this approach by mentioning that pictures

taken in the course of the reflexive photography method clearly represent the re-

search participants’ individual understanding of the environment.

Giving a brief summary of the preceding chapter, various challenges involved in

measuring customer experience have been closer analysed. Some of the described

difficulties include the consideration of context specific aspects (Palmer, 2010; Pra-

halad & Ramaswamy, 2003), the involvement of sufficient time before and after the

service delivery (Berry et al., 2002; Maklan & Klaus, 2011; Payne et al., 2008) as

well as no commitment for measurement at all (Shaw & Ivens, 2002). Further, an

emphasis was laid on the customer touch point analysis as one of the main tools for

measuring customer experience (Bruhn & Hadwich, 2012; Meyer & Schwager,

2007; Payne et al., 2008). In addition to that, another measurement instrument,

namely the experience map developed by Molina (2012, p. 38) was described.

Lastly, a tighter focus was placed on the need for a multidimensional approach in-

cluding measuring customers’ thoughts, feelings and behaviours related to a com-

pany’s product or service. As a result of this, creative possible measurement tools

were put forward by a variety of researchers (Coulter & Zaltman, 1995; Guillemin,

2004; Klaus, 2015; Mason, 2006; Prosser, 2011).

Business Tourism

34

5 Business Tourism

As the tourism value of business events such as meetings, exhibitions, conventions

and congresses enormously increased in the last decades, almost all major cities

invested in exhibition facilities. Together with agencies they strive for selling the

space and bidding on major events (Getz, 2008, p. 411).

What specifically characterises business event tourism is the existence and strong

dominance of extrinsic motivators. Clearly, business event tourism is highly con-

nected to business, to the aim of advancing one’s career, or occasionally it is even

required by one’s job. But sometimes, business and pleasure travel mix (Davidson,

2003, p. 29).

Surprisingly, there is scarcely research available on the size and value of the meet-

ing industry due to the lack of a properly defined, standardized terminology. The

term “business tourism” or “B2B tourism” including conferences, exhibitions and in-

centive travel is still under discussion. Nonetheless, “business tourism” is widely

known as an accepted generic term, at least in Europe. In addition, terms like “con-

ference”, “congress”, “convention” and “meeting” are often used as synonyms and

consequently cause confusion (Rogers, 2003, p. 15). Mair (2014, p. 8) also draws

the attention to these diverse designations of what is essentially the same thing.

According to Mair, conference, congress, symposium, seminar as well as congress

can all be equally described as a gathering of like-minded people for a common

purpose. The only difference that Mair recognizes is size and scale of the business

event.

5.1 Congress Tourism

As this paper will only focus on congresses taking place at the HOFBURG Vienna,

the term congress will be described more in detail. Rogers (ibid., p. 16) defines the

term as a “regular coming together of several hundred, even thousands of individu-

als on a representational basis belonging to one professional […] sphere […]”. A

congress often takes place with the aim of discussing a particular subject, whereby

the presentation and discussion of the subject are produced only by the members

Business Tourism

35

of the associative group. A congress often lasts for more than one day and includes

several sessions. Whether it is an annual or pluri-annual congress is already estab-

lished in the implementation stage. As a rule, national congresses take place annu-

ally whereas, world congresses are of the later type (Rogers, 2003, p. 17).

5.1.1 Congress Organiser

Clearly, the organisation of a congress or any other business event urgently requires

a strategic approach. Right at the beginning, objectives should be set, the budget

needs to be established and a venue should be selected. Organising conferences

and congresses may be highly stressful and is indeed, a high-pressure activity.

Therefore, organisational skills, attention to detail and willingnesss to work long are

urgely required characteristics of a congress organiser. However, in addition to work

hard and attention to detail, business events also need creativity to deliver

memorable experiences to their attendees. Such events should definitely provide

the right flair to indirectly stimulate informal networking, doing business and

socializing (Rogers, 2003, p. 142). In general, there are two different types of

business events. In some cases congresses will run similar lines year after year,

whereas others are entirely new events where neither an organisational history nor

event traditions exit. An annual held conference for example may work trouble-free

just with some fine tuning. However, here the major danger is to fail achieving its

real potential, having become predictable. Sometimes a fresh approach may be

needed in order to revolutionise the conference. On the other side, where no

previous event has been taken place, the organiser has much more freedom to

creatively design a memorable event. Indeed, in that case there is no rigid set of

doing things, there are no established contacts and there is no preferred venue that

is booked year after year (ibid., pp. 142-3).

Special attention should be drawn to the pre-phase of a congress which defines the

foundation for success. Mistakes that happen at this stage may not be modifiable at

any later phase. Here, the broad objectives of the business event need to be set.

Objectives may be measurable and what is more, it is also important not to have too

many objectives which may lead to confusion. The broadly defined objectives should

Business Tourism

36

then be narrowed down by providing answers to the questions of who, what, when,

where, why and how a business event should take place (Rogers, 2003, pp. 142-4).

Without doubt, the organiser should be aware who the delegates or congress

participants will be and how many are expected to attend. Questions that may arise

are: “Is a translator required? Are the delegates travelling with their spouses? Will

there be a special guest?”. At this point it should also be clarified who the organising

team will be. The more complex the event will be, the more attention should be

drawn on mapping out the sequence of events within a realistic timeframe. As a next

step, it needs to be clarified what type of event it is going to be and what message

the event wants to convey. Indeed, the organiser may do not have any control over

this factor but nonetheless, it is of major importance that it is clearly understood by

the organiser (ibid.).

5.1.2 Attendees

This part of the paper aims for a better understanding of the key players of the con-

ference and convention industry. In the following, a special focus is laid on at-

tendees. Hereby, attendees of congresses or conventions will primarily be described

as consumers of products and services. Without any doubt, market research needs

to be undertaken to understand the needs and wants of customers and conse-

quently, to know why customers buy and like certain products (Clarke 2001, as cited

in Mair, 2014; Mair, 2014). Nonetheless, specifically talking about conferences and

conventions, market research seems to be lagging behind all other sectors of the

tourism industry (Mair, 2012, as cited in Mair, 2014, p. 15). Despite the fact that

attendees of conferences and congresses are one of the most important compo-

nents of this industry, they have been drastically under-researched in scholarly jour-

nals. As a consequence of this, attendees are definitely worthy of examination

(Leach et al., 2008, p. 247).

Indubitably, without attendees business events would not be financially sustainable

in the future. Therefore, planners continuously need to adjust their events according

to the different types of attendees and their constantly changing needs and wants

(Ramirez, Laing, & Mair, 2013, p. 166). More specifically, congress organisers

Business Tourism

37

should have particular good knowledge of the socio-demographic and psycho-

graphic characteristics of their customers, the attendees. Without doubt, this is

highly necessary for organising and planning successful business events. However,

congress organisers often seem to totally rely on their “gut feeling” regarding their

target group instead of doing empirical research on their needs and wants (Mair,

2014, p. 16).

Indeed, only scarce research has already been conducted taking the demographic

characteristics of attendees into account. However, taking three different genera-

tions into consideration, Severt, Fjelstul and Breiter (2009, p. 105) examined the

factors that inhibit and motivate potential participants to attend a congress. The

overall aim of the research was to examine the characteristics, needs and wants of

these three generations and moreover, to find out more about the resulting influence

on congress attendance. Other than existing literature would suggest, the research-

ers figured out that there seem to be no significant differences between Generation

X, younger Baby Boomers and older Baby Boomers.

Mair (2014, pp. 128-9) further draws the attention towards the currently changing

generations and social trends of the population. Indeed, with the aim of being con-

tinuously successful in this sector, congress centres also need to be innovative to

keep pace with these changing trends. As more and more women are successful in

business these days, the attendees’ demographic characteristics are obviously sig-

nificantly changing. Thus, women clearly have other needs and wants than male

participants when attending a congress or convention. Consequently, it is of utmost

importance that congress organisers take these changes into consideration. In ad-

dition, Generation Y is now entering the business market. Generation Y may be

described as all people born between 1970 and 1997. This generation again shows

different attitudes and from their point of view, totally new requirements need to be

satisfied when attending a business congress. For all these reasons, it is doubtlessly

clear, that today’s congress organisers need to react accordingly to these changes

to successfully fulfil and possibly even surpass future attendees’ expectations.

Business Tourism

38

5.1.2.1 Attendees’ Attendance Motivation

Clearly, what is even more important is attracting future attendees. Not surprisingly,

recent economic downturns put enormous pressure on the industry of congresses

and conventions. Due to the fact that attendees can decide themselves whether to

attend an event or not, congress centres such as the HOFBURG Vienna should

definitely intensively focus on delivering an outstanding customer experience to en-

sure the organisation of future events and even more important to guarantee the

attendance of future participants (Yoo & Zhao, 2010, pp. 179-80). In order to further

boost their attendance, an organisation must try to find out why participants chose

to attend a specific congress and what the driving motivators behind are. In the

course of their study, Yoo and Zhao empirically examined the factors influencing

convention participation intention. The researchers identified networking, destina-

tion, travelability as well as education as the most influencing ones. Travelability

may be seen as situational factors such as personal financial situation and the

amount of time needed to travel to the destination. In general, it is worth noting, that

convention participation can definitely be described as a high-involvement decision

as potential participants need to invest considerable time and money (ibid., p. 181).

Besides Yoo and Zhao, also other researchers have already conducted research on

future delegate’s attendance motivation. The factors widely acknowledged by sev-

eral researchers are networking, personal or professional development, education,

cost, location, time, convenience, health and well-being. Other aspects have only

been mentioned by a few researchers and are therefore not generalizable (Mair &

Thompson, 2009, p. 406).

Without doubt, networking is mentioned most frequently as an important factor

whether to attend a congress or not. This factor can clearly be described as part of

the social aspects of attending a business event. As today’s business people are

constantly in a hurry and have less and less time for socialising, at congresses at-

tendees profit from welcome receptions, dinners as well as tea and coffee breaks.

These time slots represent highly needed opportunities to network, meet old friends

and make new acquaintances (Jago & Deery, 2005, p. 34).

Business Tourism

39

Further, Mair (2014, p. 20) draws the attention towards the factor of professional

development and education. Although some authors (Oppermann & Chon, 1997;

Severt et al., 2009; Witt, Sykes, & Dartus, 1995) have the opinion that professional

development, education, career enhancement, keeping up with changes in one’s

business field and learning new skills may not all be summarised as one single as-

pect, Mair states that “these things are very closely linked”.

In addition to networking and professional development, also location definitely may

be described as a key driver in attendance motivation. It seems to be doubtlessly

clear that the location of any business event needs to be attractive and likewise

accessible. Accessibility refers to the ease of access by train, air or road. Attractive-

ness on the other hand refers to the availability of sights, shopping possibilities,

recreation or entertainment (Mair, 2014, p. 20).

Another factor that influences most delegates is cost. This factor is predominately

important for business events that require attendees to pay for their participation.

Witt et al. (1995, p. 569) underline the fact that the aspect of cost does not only

include conference or congress fees but what is more, also the cost of accommo-

dation, travel cost and other expenses. Zhang, Leung and Qu (2007, p. 1126) spe-

cifically draw the attention to opportunity cost. Indeed, any potential attendee needs

to offer up free time as well as work duties.

What is more, the factor of health, security and safety may also not be underesti-

mated (Mair & Thompson, 2009, p. 409). For a long time related mainly to female

participants, safety concerns have increased over the last years (Jago & Deery,

2005, pp. 37-8). The potential attendees’ perception of his or her safety for example

with respect to terrorism, political problems, epidemics or natural disasters like vol-

canos or earthquakes at the location of the congress has a significant impact on the

decision whether to attend or not.

Business Tourism

40

5.1.2.2 Attendees’ Evaluation

Turning to the attendee’s evaluation of a congress, it is worth noting that in fact there

are several possibilities to assess a business event. From an event planner’s per-

spective it may be to break even, whereas talking from an attendee’s point of view

it is most likely whether he or she was satisfied or not.

A study conducted by Lee (2009, as cited in Mair, 2014, p. 52) was focusing mainly

on the problems that attendees named when evaluating a congress. Untrained as

well as unexperienced staff, lack of centralised management, low standard of tech-

nical equipment, overcrowded parking facilities and likewise lack of staff during the

event were issues that were identified in the course of the study. The outcome of

this research specifically demonstrates the importance of dedicated staff on site for

the entire duration of the event.

In the course of another study, Breiter and Milman (2006, pp. 1369-70) found out

that the attendees’ level of satisfaction strongly depends on parking prices and es-

pecially on the quality of available food. What is more, directional signage could also

be identified as a highly important aspect. Here, it is essential to mention that some

of the recognised factors cannot directly be changed by the congress centre, but

nonetheless, are of high importance for satisfying the attendees’ needs. As a con-

sequence of this, it could have been found out that the attendees’ satisfaction is

highly influenced by aspects beyond the borders of the venue. Indeed, factors like

the destination, other service providers as well as local retail appear to play an im-

portant role when hosting a successful congress event.

Even more interesting for the research on hand is a similar study undertaken by

Ryan, Crotts and Litvin (2008, as cited in Mair, 2014, p. 52) dealing with the factors

that are under the control of a congress centre, factors that can only be controlled

indirectly and lastly, all factors that are outside the sphere of influence of a conven-

tion location and consequently, cannot be controlled. Without doubt, factors of all

three categories have an influence on attendees’ overall impression and satisfac-

tion. Results of the study have shown that cleanliness and signposting are the most

decisive factors that can be controlled by the convention location. In the second

category, consisting of factors that may only be controlled indirectly, friendliness of

Business Tourism

41

the staff as well as service quality was mentioned most frequently. Lastly, attractive-

ness of the destination and easy access to attractions in the city were highly rated

in the last category.

Focusing further on the last category, the attractiveness of the congress destination

Vienna needs to be emphasised. Wien Tourismus (2015, pp. 55-7) recently pre-

sented the city’s future tourism strategy, which highlights the trend “PREMIUM Vi-

enna 2020”. This is a strategy that represents Vienna as a high class, exclusive

destination where extraordinary service culture is embedded in a business travel

experience. Specifically concentrating on business travellers, Vienna aims at stand-

ing for the “good way of life” of “the good old Europe” where a city centre full of

history and tradition that offers unforgettable sightseeing experience is close. Con-

sequently, Vienna may proudly be described as a city where premium business

travel standard is provided. Following this strategy, Vienna is definitely fulfilling the

factor of attractiveness of a destination, which highly influences potential attendees’

future attendance (Mair, 2014, p. 20).

5.1.3 Technological Change

The technological revolution that arose through the development of the Internet

enormously changed the market conditions of business tourism organisations. In-

deed, especially information and communication technologies provide constantly

new tools for tourism marketing and management. Congress locations may use

these new technologies to support the interactions with their customers. Today’s

tourism companies are required to ensure that newly developed technologies are

early detected, thoroughly analysed and turned to the advantage of the tourism or-

ganisation by enhancing their competitiveness (Buhalis & Law, 2008, pp. 609-10).

The industry of congresses is a highly competitive market where competing compa-

nies are constantly investing in new offers and infrastructure. In order to continue

being up to date congress venues need to continuously expand the available tech-

nological infrastructure to deliver unexpected spectacular business events (Wien

Tourismus, 2015, p. 35).

Business Tourism

42

Further also Mair (2014, p. 130) specifically draws the attention to new technologies.

According to the researcher, incorporating and optimising new technologies for the

conference and convention industry will definitely be one of the key issues in future

years. Due to the rapid development it is doubtlessly clear that academic research

is currently lagging behind the times. Indeed, videoconferences as well as confer-

ence calls are not new anymore, but research is still required to find out how and to

which extent new technologies change the conference and convention industry.

Traditionally, conferences, congresses as well as conventions were all about meet-

ing people to discuss current issues of mutual importance and to learn new things.

However, despite the fact that plenty of new technologies have been invented in the

last years, face-to-face conferences and congresses will still continue to take place.

Here, major attention should be drawn to the importance of the congress experience

itself that keeps people attending the business event in person (Mair, 2014, p. 104).

In conclusion, it needs to be stated that this section provided a detailed overview of

the industry of business tourism. More specifically, the terminology of congress tour-

ism has been discussed and the responsibilities as well as the sphere of influence

of congress organisers have been identified (Rogers, 2003, pp. 16-17). Another em-

phasis was put on attendees, their attendance motivation (Jago & Deery, 2005;

Mair, 2014; Mair & Thompson, 2009; Yoo & Zhao, 2010; Zhang et al., 2007) and

their evaluation of a business event (Breiter & Milman, 2006; Mair, 2014). Addition-

ally, the technological change of the conference and convention industry was briefly

mentioned (Mair, 2014; Wien Tourismus, 2015).

Research Methodology

43

6 Research Methodology

The research methodology applied, consists of a multi-step approach. Initially, in-

tense literature review was conducted for the collection of reliable background infor-

mation on the topic of the study. Next, expert interviews with employees of the

HOFBURG Vienna were carried out to gather more information on the customer

experience the congress centre wants to deliver. As a following step, while the con-

gresses were taking place, five to ten congress participants were given disposable

cameras to capture the impressions of their personal customer experience. Conse-

quently, these photos were printed and as a last step, it was planned to discuss

them during follow-up interviews with employees of the HOFBURG Vienna. How-

ever, as the photos did not achieve the desired level of quality, no follow-up inter-

views were conducted. Without having access to the notes and descriptive state-

ments of the congress attendees, an interpretation or further discussion of the pho-

tographs would not have been possible. However, as the researcher had access to

the notes written in the photo diaries of the congress attendees, a thorough analysis

as well as interpretation of the pictures was successfully undertaken without any

additional support from the experts.

6.1 Literature Review

Generally, it needs to be stated that the research on hand is based on a qualitative

research technique. As Block and Block (2005, p. 179) claim, business-to-business

marketers understand their customers but without doubt, they could know a lot more

with the help of qualitative research approaches. A profound literature review was

used as the entire basis for the research to gather relevant information and to

demonstrate familiarity with the existing body of knowledge. The purpose of a liter-

ature review is to identify and summarise what is already known and to show paths

of previously conducted research (Neuman, 1997, p. 89). The existing literature is

read critically and creatively and investigated as thoroughly as possible by using

books, journals as well as the internet (Veal, 2011, pp. 55-60). Collins (2010, p. 108)

states the most important reasons for a literature review and emphasises the deliv-

ery of background information for a better understanding of the research project.


44

Further, a literature review increases the author’s knowledge about other research-

ers dealing with the same topic. Moreover, as much information as available can be

investigated to recognise opposing views. Besides that, an intense literature review

reveals currently discussed theories and models, controversial opinions and in ad-

dition, draws the attention to research gaps and spheres of the topic which have not

been researched so far (Flick, 2009, p. 49).

6.2 Expert Interviews

In order to understand the customer experience the HOFBURG Vienna wants to

deliver, expert interviews with several employees of the HOFBURG Vienna served

as main method of investigation. As no one else plays a more important role in de-

livering customer experience, the employees have been recognised as the most

valuable experts for the research on hand. More precisely, employees of the

HOFBURG Vienna may be the only experts in this specific field. The research

method of expert interviews offered the opportunity of interviewing each expert indi-

vidually. As a matter of fact, this type of research method is often applied in order to

gather inputs from personal perceptions of the interviewees (Hennink, Hutter, &

Bailey, 2011, p. 110). As a consequence of this, the researcher could see through

the eyes of the individual employees when describing their duties as experience

stager.

Veal (2011, p. 239) described expert interviews as a form of semi-structured inter-

views which are conducted with a relatively small number of subjects. Generally,

expert interviews are guided by a checklist of topics and as a rule, are tape-rec-

orded. What is difficult to clarify concerning expert interviews is how “experts” are

defined. However, mostly expert interviews are conducted with members of an or-

ganisation or company with a specific function and professional experience. Clearly,

it needs to be pointed out that the information to be obtained is here much more

restricted to a specific number of interviewees than in any other type of interview

(Flick, 2009, pp. 165-6). Similar, Meuser and Nagel (2005, p. 443) also defined “ex-

perts” by stating that whether someone can be called an expert may depend on the

research interest that exists. More precisely, the status or title of being an expert


45

may sometimes only be given by the researcher and may be severely restricted to

a certain scientific research problem. An expert may be any person that has privi-

leged access to any kind of information. Hereby, it needs to be emphasised that

sometimes it does not have to be the general manager of an organisation that pro-

vides the most helpful information. Instead, it may be any other person that pos-

sesses even more detailed knowledge relevant to the research problem (Meuser &

Nagel, 2005, p. 443).

Due to the fact that expert interviews are stronger information-based than any other

type of interview, an interview guideline is urgently required. In fact, an interview

guideline has not only a significant structuring, but as well a guiding function. More

specifically, the thematic structure of an interview guideline is of utmost importance

to confront the experts with a comprehensible sequence of questions. Generally, it

is advisable to start asking general questions in the beginning and to finish the in-

terview focusing on sophisticated aspects of the research topic. On the one hand,

interview guidelines may only be checklists of topics that need to be covered, but

on the other hand they may also be very detailed and consequently, lead the inter-

view much stronger. No matter which type of interview guideline used, all questions

should be open-ended and narrative-generating (Kruse, 2015, pp. 53-4; 203-4). In

addition, Kruse (ibid., pp. 219-21) suggests to use a variety of different types of

questions such as warming up, open, maintaining, direct, indirect, preparing, pro-

vocative, hypothetic, suggestive, confronting, as well as circular questions. How-

ever, the exact questions will be shaped by the interviewer according to the circum-

stances of every single interview. Despite the fact, that topics will arise in different

orders and in different ways, the interviewer needs to strictly ensure that all relevant

topics are covered throughout the interview. In addition, the interview guideline also

allows the range of topics to further evolve during the interviewing process (Veal,

2011, p. 241).

Throughout an expert interview sometimes very specific questions need to be asked

to be provided with professional knowledge about a certain field of expertise. Con-

sequently, expert interviews may occasionally even be described as expert discus-

sions (Kruse, 2015, p. 166). Flick (2009, p. 168) supports a very similar point of view


46

by stating that interviewers need to have high levels of expertise to be able to un-

derstand relevant and often also complex topics that are discussed during an expert

interview. Indeed, the complexity of the questions included in the interview guideline

demonstrates how deeply the researcher has been dealing with the topic prior to the

interview (Kruse, 2015, pp. 53-4). Furthermore, expert interviews require great flex-

ibility as rigid schedules will not lead to successful interviews. As a matter of fact,

the amount spent discussing each question will definitely vary from interview to in-

terview (Block & Block, 2005; Ritchie, Lewis, Nicholls, & Ormston, 2013).

By making use of the criterion sampling strategy, individuals were selected on the

basis of two criteria, namely being an employee of the HOFBURG Vienna and hav-

ing either a direct or indirect influence on the customer experience the congress

centre is transferring (Veal, 2011, p. 370). Consequently, ten employees of the

HOFBURG Vienna were asked to participate in an expert interview. All participants

are working in different departments and hence, have a different point of view on

the customer experience they are delivering. In addition, all participants have di-

verse educational background and represent a combination of males and females.

The following experts have been identified as highly valuable potential interviewees

due to their diverse job positions and professional backgrounds:

Table 2: Expert Interviewees Interviewee Position Date Length Location Abbrevi-

ation

Alexandra Kaszay

Managing Director 05/02/2016 47 minutes Office Ms. Kaszay

AK

Monika Scheinost

Head of Marketing and Sales

03/02/2016 45 minutes Office Ms. Scheinost

MS

Cosima Lenauer Office Management 14/10/2015 41 minutes Freiraum CL

Ursula Schuster Senior Project Manager 25/11/2015 40 minutes Freiraum and Burgraum

US

Christian Koprolin

Senior Project Manager 30/09/2015 32 minutes Freiraum CK

Nadine Schulz Sales and Marketing Man-ager

04/12/2015 40 minutes Freiraum NS

Magdalena Gurtner

Senior Manager Sales and Business Development

22/01/2016 30 minutes Freiraum MS

Christian Jöchl Head of Technical Service 20/01/2016 37 minutes Interpretation booth Festsaal

CJ

Peter Schwarzmayer

Head of Maintenance Service, Security Officer

12/01/2016 35 minutes Burgraum PS

Andreas Schmiedl

Head of Operations & Engi-neering

01/10/2015 41 minutes Office Mr. Schmiedl

AS

Source: by the author


47

The interviews were conducted either in the individual offices of the employees or

in the internal meeting rooms “Freiraum” or “Burgraum” of the HOFBURG Vienna.

As an exception, one of the interviews took place in the interpretation booth of the

“Festsaal”. All these rooms represented a quiet and calm location which could ide-

ally be used for audio-recording the interview (Cassell, 2015, p. 41). The expert

interviews were conducted between September 2015 and January 2016 and lasted

between 30 and 50 minutes. As soon as the individual interviews started the mod-

erator introduced herself, the topic of the research project as well as the method of

investigation. Subsequently, all participants were asked for the consent of taping

and using their names as well as the information given during the interview. Addi-

tionally, the moderator informed the participants about their involvement in the study

and about the way data will be used. Generally, the expert interviews covered the

topics of customer experience at the example of the HOFBURG Vienna, compo-

nents of the customer experience such as, senses, emotions, employees, suppliers

as well as measurement of customer experience and congress participants.

The interview guideline consists of initial warm-up questions, followed by a variety

of open-ended questions that are based on the theoretical framework described in

previous chapters of this study. The theoretical basis of the interview guideline is

therefore, composed of theories, ideas and models described by a variety of authors

(Bruhn & Hadwich, 2012; Klaus, 2015; Lemke, et.al, 2006; Mair, 2014; Palmer,

2010; Rawson et al., 2013; Rogers, 2003; Schmitt, 2003; Shaw, & Ivens, 2002; Sul-

tana, 2008). The initial questions are mainly dealing with positive customer experi-

ence, the combination of customer experience and money and negative customer

experience, before stronger focusing on the example of the HOFBURG Vienna. The

following questions are then based on the topics of B2B and B2C customer experi-

ence, senses and emotions involved in the delivery of customer experience, meas-

urement of customer experience and congress participants. Additionally, more

questions were developed being relevant only for employees of specific depart-

ments. However, the detailed interview guideline can be found in Annex 2.

As indicated before, all expert interviews were sound recorded, although in some

cases this may hindered the respondent of feeling entirely comfortable. After the


48

interview has been taken place complete verbatim transcripts were immediately pro-

duced by the interviewer. The resulting transcripts were then used for the analysis

of the results. Word by word transcripts enabled the researcher a much more me-

thodical and complete analysis than would have been possible with notes only (Veal,

2011, p. 245).

In addition to verbatim information, emotions as well as body language were taken

into consideration for the analysis. All primary data obtained from the interviews was

then systematically arranged according to a coding system as illustrated in Annex

1. A coding tree was developed, grouping similar information together to facilitate

the analysis of the data. These grouped passages of the expert interviews were

paraphrased and statements that did not involve any meaningful content were in-

tentionally left out. This approach may easily be related to the first step of Mayring’s

(2007, p. 61) summarising content analysis. In order to present the outcome of the

findings of the analysis the interpretive model was used. Each identified code is

presented with a descriptive summary. These are then strengthened with actual

quotations excerpted from the conducted interviews to make them come alive in a

way that quantitative data would never can (Block & Block, 2005, p. 177). State-

ments with the same meanings were purposefully avoided. Due to the fact that all

expert interviews were conducted in German, all supportive statements are subject

to translation bias. After the quotations, an interpretation is given. This interpretation

focuses on similarities and differences mentioned by the experts. In addition, ex-

treme opinions and contradictions are specifically emphasised. Lastly, all findings

are supported by trustworthy literature and the content of reliable journal articles

(Veal, 2011, p. 117).

Indeed, what needs to be pointed out is that the analysis of expert interviews relies

to a great extent on the subjective judgment and interpretation of the researcher.

The open-ended and flexible nature of such interviews is its biggest advantage as

well as disadvantage (Block & Block, 2005, p. 176).


49

6.3 Reflexive Photography

Bagnoli (2009, p. 547) claimed that interviews are unambiguously the standard

method of data collection when undertaking qualitative research. The researcher

further mentioned that as a rule, interviews are exclusively based on language as

communication creator. Nonetheless, Bagnoli drew the attention to the fact that ex-

periences are made on a variety of dimensions, including the sensory and visual.

Without doubt, these dimensions are worthy of further research but however, cannot

always easily be translated into words since “knowledge or understanding is not

always reducible to language“ (Eisner, 2008, p. 5).

Although visual research methods such as photography are not new in the areas of

anthropology, ethnography and sociology, the use of such methods in the field of

tourism remains uncovered so far (Rakic & Chambers, 2010, p. 379). Nonetheless,

publications within and outside the area of tourism show that visual research has

recently gained increasing importance (Jenkins, Woodward, & Winter, 2008;

Matteucci, 2012). Mason and Davies (2009, p. 588) even recognised a noticeable

rise of enthusiasm for visual methods across and between areas of research. The

increasing popularity of visual research can be recognised by the number of recently

established scholarly journals such as Visual Studies, Visual Anthropology and Vis-

ual Anthropology Review (Pauwels, 2011, p. 3).

Indeed, using non-linguistic methods facilitate the access to other levels of an ex-

perience. Mason (2006, p. 9) underlined this idea by mentioning that “mixing meth-

ods helps us to think creatively and outside the box”. Similar, Guillemin (2004, p.

273) suggested that an integrative approach, including both visual and word-based

research leads to the unique opportunity of exploring the multiplicity as well as the

complexity of human experience. Following Harper's (2002, pp. 13-23) point of view,

a variety of approaches using photographs arise.

Undeniably, visual researchers have strongly focused on camera-based techniques

in the past. An underlying reason may be the fact that producing a permanent record

is often highly useful and necessary for the interpretation and the following analysis

(Pauwels, 2011, p. 10). Mead (1963, as cited in Flick, 2009, p. 241) underlines that


50

the main reason for using cameras in social research is that pictures provide not

only a comprehensive as well as holistic presentation, but also a detailed recording

of facts. Furthermore, the researcher states that pictures can catch facts that would

be too complex or too fast for the human eye. In addition, pictures clearly also pro-

vide the opportunity of any reanalysis undertaken by others. Prosser (2011, p. 488)

also emphasises the strengths of visual research and mentions the capacity to con-

nect the participants’ as well as the researcher’s creativity. In addition, the re-

searcher stated that visual research requires more imagination and thoughts than

other research methods. He further argues that pictures can comprise contradiction

and unlike verbal answers do not need to be linear. Pictures can describe and evoke

emotions, involve stories and are very powerful means of expression. What is more,

pictures allow researchers to imagine the experience the participant has undergone.

Indeed, in reflexive photography photographs are seen as symbols that illustrate the

participants’ subjective meaning of their environment (Schulze, 2007, p. 539). Flick

(2009, p. 243) states that photos have iconic quality and stimulate people to make

statements about situations which may appear complex at the first time. Similar,

Warren (2008, p. 573) points out, that photographs can convey information that

might be invisible for the researcher but visible as well as important for the partici-

pant.

As in any other type of research, theory needs to be used as a guideline for visual

data production and analysis. Whether producing new visual data or analysing ex-

isting ones, a solid and broad theoretical grounding is of utmost importance. Without

a theoretical understanding, the visual cannot be interpreted and the researcher re-

mains blind. Due to the fact that visual methods involving cameras may lead to a

large amount of data, theory is also required to give scientific research a certain

direction. Consequently, issues that may not be of importance at the first sight can

reveal significant research information when looking from a specific research stance

(Pauwels, 2011, p. 13).

According to Pullman and Robson (2007, p. 124), “images are important in com-

municating impressions of the physical world” and therefore, reflexive photography

may be seen as a highly valuable approach when evaluating the customer experi-

ence of congress participants. Evidently, scarcely research has already been done


51

on customer experience in congress centres including image-based research meth-

ods. As many of the key aspects of a congress are of intangible nature, asking at-

tendees to take photographs is a highly suitable way to transform intangible aspects

into tangible ones (Lee & Back, 2008, p. 331). As early as in 1986 Berry (1986, p.

6) already claimed that the formula for success in service marketing is to “tangibilize

the intangible”.

For all these reasons, six to ten congress participants were provided with disposable

cameras and were asked to take photos that illustrate their personal impression of

their customer experience in the HOFBURG Vienna (Harrington & Lindy, 1998, pp.

7-8). The participants could freely decide on the objects, both positive and negative

worthy photographing. However, as sufficient time before and after the service de-

livery should also be taken into consideration when doing research on customer

experience, congress participants were asked to fill out some questions before as

well as after service encounter took place (Berry et al., 2002; Maklan & Klaus, 2011;

Payne et al., 2008). These questions needed to be filled out by the participants

themselves. In the course of this brief survey, they were asked to note whether there

were any impressions that they could not capture visually in a photograph (Harring-

ton, & Lindy, ibid.). Pullman and Robson (2007, p. 125) described this method as

photo journaling which is familiar from travellers who put together a scrapbook from

a holiday. “Customers take pictures […] of their experience and create a journal that

records what or who they observed, why they took a specific image, and what the

image meant to them.” Visual methods should not be used solely, as the context in

which it was produced is important for research purposes. Without an explanation

of the image it may happen that it does not make any sense for the researcher (Frith,

Riley, Archer, & Gleeson, 2005; Radley & Taylor, 2003). As experience is very per-

sonal and happens only to an individual him-or herself, it cannot be easily accessed

by a researcher (Carù & Cova, 2008, p. 168). Consequently, researchers need to

rely on customers’ stories and notes. Schwartz (2007, p. 319) supported this idea

by claiming that pictures are ambiguous and therefore explanations are necessary

to be able to fully understand the meaning and ideas behind.


52

Primary data was obtained from congress attendees participating in the following

congresses taking place at the HOFBURG Vienna:

Deutscher Steuerberatertag on 6 October 2015

13. Österreichischer IT/Beratertag on 26 November 2015

These congresses could have been identified as highly suitable for the research on

hand due to several reasons. Firstly, these events were conveniently timed in au-

tumn 2015 when the researcher has already started working for the HOFBURG Vi-

enna as an intern. In addition, these two congresses can be seen as typical business

events that the HOFBURG Vienna is organising in the business tourism market.

What is more, between 400 to1000 congress participants were expected to attend

these events which built an ideal base to ask five to ten attendees of each congress

to illustrate their customer experience with disposable cameras. Lastly, the organis-

ers of these two congresses showed a highly cooperative and understanding atti-

tude towards the implementation of scholarly, empirical research on site.

By making use of the criterion sampling strategy, 16 congress attendees were se-

lected on the basis of being a congress participant at the HOFBURG Vienna. As

can be seen from Annex 4, 5 and table 3 below, the attendees represented a bal-

anced number of female and male congress participants and the majority was be-

tween 31 and 40 years old. In addition, the number of participants being between

41 and 50 years old are also worth mentioning. Six congress participants were se-

lected during the “Deutscher Steuerberatertag” on 6 October 2015, whereas ten

congress attendees of the “13. Österreichischer IT/Beratertag” were willing to be

part of the researcher’s study on 26 November 2015. Here, it needs to be pointed

out that, ten and respectively twelve cameras were distributed to congress at-

tendees, but unfortunately, were not returned in its entire number. As a conse-

quence of this, the number of distributed cameras was accordingly increased for the

second congress.


53

Table 3: Congress Participants Congress Name Abbreviation

Deutscher Steuerberatertag

Gesine Mandrosch GM

Dirk Müller DM

Sigune Vabnauer SV

Anna-Lisa Kienen ALK

Renate Böttner RB

Renate Decker RD

13. Österreichischer IT/Beratertag

Ruth Scheurer RS

Conny Exß CE

Thomas Kopica TK

Gerald Göd GG

Christoph Klaritsch CK

Marianne Fuster MF

Enikö Balint EB

Emanuel Schattauer ES

Markus Baumgartner MB

Anton Würrer AW


As all participants were asked to actively “do” something, clear differences in their

motivation could have been detected. In general, when asking congress attendees

to illustrate their personal customer experience with a disposable camera, the at-

mosphere of the conversation has clearly been identified as tensed and uncomfort-

able for the potential participant. Without any exceptions, attendees needed some

time to think about the request before agreeing on their participation. Clearly, this is

due to the fact that undergoing a customer experience is purely personal. Addition-

ally, participants needed to consent the researcher to enter their personal world in

which their customer experience is embedded (Lemke et al., 2011, p. 869). Speak-

ing of the number of pictures taken by the participants, major differences, ranging

from six to 18 taken pictures, could have been revealed. On average, however,

eleven pictures were taken.

Different from numeric survey data, visual research needs to be analysed on content

based analytical methodologies. Descriptive labels were developed for the elements

visualised on the photographs. Therefore, all elements photographed were catego-

rized into seven codes. The codes were initially based on literature (Breiter & Mil-

man, 2006; Bruhn & Hadwich, 2012; Gentile et al., 2007; Jago & Deery, 2005; Mair,

2014; Mair & Thompson, 2009; Shaw & Ivens, 2002; Verhoef et al., 2009; Yoo &

Zhao, 2010; Zhang et al., 2007) and were then supplemented by other important


54

aspects that derived from the taken photographs. All code categories are compre-

hensive, mutually exclusive and enlightening (Collier & Collier, 1986, as cited in

Pullman & Robson, 2007, p. 126). This development of certain codes enabled the

researcher to organise, classify and systematically reduce the material obtained.

The identified codes include catering, social aspects, content, physical aspects,

technical equipment, opportunity costs as well as event related items. A detailed

coding of all elements photographed can be found in Annex 4. All these codes are

supported with notes written in the congress participants’ photo journal. Without

doubt, at this stage the researcher’s interpretation strongly depends on the photog-

raphers’ notes, as only the person who took the photograph knows why the image

was shot. These notes included the photographers’ personal feelings and moods

when taking a picture as well as the time of making the shot. Furthermore, these

taken records indicate the central motif of the picture, the reason for taking a photo-

graph as well as the emotions and thoughts the photographer attached to the photo.

Initially, it was planned to involve some of the pictures obtained from the reflexive

photography method in follow-up expert interviews. Pink (2015, p. 88) clearly de-

scribes the research method of asking participants to describe other people’s expe-

riences represented on photos as an opportunity that shows whether people are

able to interpret other people’s sensory experiences. Consequently, showing pho-

tographs illustrating the customer experience of congress participants to employees

of the HOFBURG Vienna could have been identified as a highly suitable method for

the research on hand. However, due to the unexpectedly low quality of the resulted

photographs, employees could not have been confronted with the participants’ taken

pictures. In fact, a variety of pictures could not even have been developed which

lead to a loss of very important data. What is more, those pictures that could have

been developed are partly very dark and to some extend overexposed. Showing

these pictures to the experts would neither have resulted in enlightening discussions

nor would have demonstrated whether employees are able to interpret congress

attendees’ individual experiences. However, as the researcher had access to all

notes and explanatory as well as descriptive statements written by the congress

attendees in their photo diaries, an interpretation and analysis of the resulting pic-

tures could successfully be concluded.


55

6.4 Ethics in Research

Whenever doing research, participants may neither be harmed physically nor psy-

chologically. Researchers must protect the participants’ rights, their privacy and con-

fidentiality and they are required to protect them from deception. What is more, in-

formed consent needs to be given to make sure that the potential research partici-

pants are sufficiently informed about the subsequent research. All participants may

decide themselves whether they want to participate or not. In addition, participants

need to be informed about their right to withdraw from the study at any time. What

is more, the researcher needs to respect the amount of information participants want

to share about themselves (Aguinis & Henle, 2002, pp. 38-40). For further ethical

concerns, results must not be falsified or manipulated by the author. Positive, as

well as negative results and limits of the research need to be stated by the author.

This information can be highly useful for further research (Veal, 2011, p. 117).

Specifically focusing on visual research methods it needs to be pointed out that de-

spite the fact that visual researchers always try to do research ethically, a majority

of them is actually unsure whether this can be achieved in practise. Indeed, positive

examples of ethical visual research scarcely exist so far. Without doubt, this leads

to a relatively negative connotation of visual research (Wiles, Clark, & Prosser,

2011, pp. 685-6). Therefore, Spencer (2011, p. 65) specifically underlines the im-

portance of seeking permission of the participants as soon as the process of taking

images is involved in the research. Pink (2015, p. 68) suggests making the research

project as cooperative as possible. It is of utmost importance to collaborate with the

participants to find out more about their behaviour and thoughts instead of viewing

them as objects of an experiment.

In order to guarantee an ethical approach of the research on hand , all participants

involved in the study needed give informed consent with their signature on the photo

journal given to them. In addition, the congress organiser informed all congress par-

ticipants about the research project and the fact that photographs will be taken of

and by congress participants before the respective congress took place. This infor-

mation was either shared on the website of the respective event, and or on printed

materials.

Analysis and Findings

56

7 Analysis and Findings

7.1 Customer Experience HOFBURG Vienna

The following section provides a better insight into the customer experience the

HOFBURG Vienna is trying to convey. A definition of the customer experience, the

feelings involved and senses attracted are discussed more in detail. What is more,

individual employees as well as external suppliers as components of the customer

experience are thoroughly analysed. Initially, focusing on the customer experience

the HOFBURG Vienna is transferring, a variety of views were brought forward by

the employees. Some of the experts have the opinion that the HOFBURG Vienna’s

customer experience strategy is written down and exists at least somewhere. The

majority of the interviewees even gave an insight into the strategy by further describ-

ing its content. With reference to the content, a diversity of broad and vague de-

scriptions were given. Nonetheless, a certain trend could have been identified: the

guiding principle “Geht nicht, gibt’s nicht” was described as so-called HOFBURG

virus by a variety of employees. According to them, this virus is reflected by deeply

anchored attitudes to work such as “always giving the best” and “trying to make

everything possible for the customer”. To the contrary, two of the experts clearly

claimed that a manual including a definition of a customer experience does not exist.

However, according to them, there is no need for a written version of the customer

experience as the values are known by all anyway.

Such guidelines exist somewhere (AS).

There is a handbook stating what values the company reflects (US).

It does not have to be written down. We always want to do our best (PS).

The principle that we want to make everything possible is definitely an-chored deeply in all employees (MS).

Focusing on the findings described above, similar point of views could have been

detected between the employees and the researcher Klaus (2015, pp. 30-2), who

holds the opinion that articulating precise definitions of customer experience is chal-

lenging, especially for managers. The managing director, Ms. Kaszay states that the

customer experience the HOFBURG Vienna is conveying is based on the unwritten

guiding principle “Geht nicht gibt’s nicht”. This perspective is totally in line with Klaus


57

(2015, pp. 30-2), who mentions that definitions are often broad, wide-ranging and

vague. Shaw and Ivens (2002, p. 13) further elaborated Klaus’ point of view and

state that not only the manager, but often rather a multitude of employees is not able

to describe the customer experience they are trying to deliver. Analysing the state-

ments given by the remaining experts, this can only partially be related to the

HOFBURG Vienna’s employees. Indeed, some of the employees showed problems

in articulating a definition of the customer experience, but others were prepared to

easily find an answer. Truly, the described customer experiences slightly differed

from one another. This is exactly the reason why Shaw and Ivens (ibid.) strongly

underline the enormous importance of a clearly articulated customer experience.

According to them, only if there is a clearly defined customer experience, all em-

ployees are able to put it into practise. Otherwise, all employees will transfer what

they assume to be the company’s customer experience. As a result of this, different

employees will deliver different customer experiences.

The experts’ views on the customer experience the HOFBURG Vienna is conveying

unambiguously do not reflect Zomerdijk and Voss’ (2010, p. 67) opinion, who are

claiming that customer experience is frequently wrongly assumed to be only im-

portant for entertainment-related companies. Obviously, the team of the HOFBURG

Vienna does not support this wrong assumption.

Focusing closer on the definition of the customer experience of the HOFBURG Vi-

enna, it is noteworthy to emphasise the fact that none of the interviewees showed

difficulties in expressing aspects they definitely do not want to deliver. Indeed, an-

swers were given without any doubts and hesitation. For some of the employees the

feeling of not being welcome is least desirable, whereas others attached greater

importance to the behaviour of people involved in the customer experience. High

soft skills and personal customer service is greatly valued and referred to as another

crucial factor. During the discussion of this topic, special reference was made to

high expectations that cannot be fulfilled. These unfulfilled expectations lead to high

disappointments and consequently, to a negative customer experience that stays in

one’s mind.


58

Not transferring the feeling of being welcome (AK).

The entire service experience depends on the people involved (US).

High expectations lead to high disappointments (AS).

When you are working in the service sector one is definitely more sensitive than others regarding negative customer experiences (MS).

Despite the fact that Sultana (2008, p. 60) has the opinion that too less focus is

drawn on negative customer experiences, it is evident that all employees of the

HOFBURG Vienna are very precise about their idea of a negative customer experi-

ence. The present findings can definitely also be traced back to the fact that all

employees of the HOFBURG Vienna are part of the service sector themselves and

try to deliver outstanding customer experience on a daily basis. Consequently, they

are simply sensitive and possibly even sceptical with reference to negative customer

experiences. Evaluating the findings it can be understood that employees of the

HOFBURG Vienna clearly know what they do not want to deliver.

7.1.1 Feelings delivered and Senses attracted by the Customer Experience

Experts commented on feelings they want to deliver to end customers during any

customer experience and came up with the following conclusions. Here, comparing

the answers provided by the technical department with those given by the manage-

rial, administrative department lead to enlightening results. Specifically putting a fo-

cus on the employees of the technical department, it is of utmost importance to

highlight the most frequently mentioned feelings of security, familiarity, keeping calm

as well as the feeling of being in safe hands. On the other side, employees of the

administrative department rather concentrated on understanding, fulfilling or even

surpassing customers’ needs. Furthermore, the feeling of luxury, of a premium prod-

uct and of being a special guest were also mentioned by several employees. In

addition to that, feelings were described as an important factor to create an experi-

ence to remember. Here, Ms. Kaszay for example, specifically focuses on the feel-

ing of enthusiasm that should be created by the end customer.

The technical team needs to transfer security and familiarity (AS).

The customer should be happier than expected (CK).

The feeling of understanding his or her needs (NS).

It is the feeling of luxury and the feeling of being something special (CL).


59

These findings are consistent with previous research undertaken. In accordance with

present results, Shaw and Ivens (2002, p. 9) indicate that good customer experience

should exceed customers’ physical and emotional expectations and should focus

on creating planned emotions. Current research seems to validate this view. The

authors further support the opinion that emotions in general and specifically the type

of emotions a product evokes in customers are simply too rarely discussed (ibid., p.

5). Shaw and Ivens (ibid., p. 15) state that too many companies see the physical

experience as the entire experience. However, the data gathered from the study

proofs the contrary. The team of the HOFBURG Vienna is obviously aware of the

influential role emotions play in delivering an outstanding customer experience.

However, the emotions employees would like to deliver do not seem to derive from

a standardized written manual, but employees rather give the impression of relying

on their gut feeling.

This is also in line with Gouthier et al. (2012, pp. 65-6) who state that more and more

companies are now evoking emotional enthusiasm, or in other words emotional ex-

citement. Ms. Scheinost specifically draws the attention towards the importance of

emotions for creating memorable experiences and consequently shares opinion

with the pioneers Pine and Gilmore (1998, 2011) who voice similar views. Current

research appears to also validate the view of Bruhn and Hadwich (2012, p. 12), who

spread the opinion that a customer experience consists of an emotional dimension,

among others. According to the authors, this level of the customer experience gen-

erates emotions, feelings as well as moods that are directly connected to customer

service, the company or simply the brand.

The following is concerned with customers’ senses that are attracted by the cus-

tomer experience of the HOFBURG Vienna. Here, the data gathered in the study

shows a variety of opinions. However, the consensus view seems to be that seeing

and listening are the most dominant senses. This assumption is further emphasised

by Ms. Gurtner, who even excludes all other senses. With reference to smell, two

opposing arguments have been put forward by the experts. One of the interviewees

even considered all senses of major importance. Nevertheless, Ms. Schulz shows

a totally different idea by stating that “the senses attracted depend on the mentality

and origin of the clients”.


60

Seeing, listening and definitely the smell of the house. It is the smell of old wooden floor, the musty smell and the creaking floor (AS).

All senses are intensively appealed (US).

Only the seeing (MG).

The feeling of high quality but seeing is most important (MS).

Considering all opinions given by the experts, the sense of tasting has not been

mentioned by any employee. This may be due to the fact that catering is always

provided by an external partner. Contrary to the expectations, employees seem to

clearly do not include the caterer’s performance in the customer experience the

HOFBURG Vienna is conveying. Thus, end customers cannot differentiate between

the team of the HOFBURG Vienna, external partners, an agency or the catering

partner. Presumably, the end customer does not even know that there are different

stakeholders involved.

With reference to Pine and Gilmore (1998, 2011), today’s companies do not only

provide services alone but rather creates experiences full of sensations. Based on

the findings described above, a clear connection can be drawn to Pine and

Gilmore’s point of view. The findings of the study also illustrate Bruhn and Hadwich’s

(2012, p. 12) sensory dimension of a customer experience. This level refers to the

reception of external stimuli and shows how customers’ senses are stimulated.

7.1.2 Individual Employees as Components of Customer Experience

When discussing the experts’ influence on the customer experience the HOFBURG

Vienna is conveying, different spheres of influence were described. Employees that

are part of the technical department highlighted the importance of their presence

during site inspections. Furthermore, the employees‘ reactions to unforeseen trou-

bles has been mentioned by several experts. Besides that, it could have been clearly

identified that the employees’ personal contact with customers represent an im-

portant and very influential part of their work. Further evidence supporting this as-

sumption is provided by several experts who clearly emphasised their advisory func-

tion. Other than the rest, Ms. Scheinost considers herself as a creator of expecta-

tions of future end customers. Interestingly, only two out of ten interviewed employ-

ees described their individual influence on the customer experience the HOFBURG

Vienna is transferring as insignificant or even invisible. The general manager Ms.


61

Kaszay points out the connection between staff well-being and customers’ satisfac-

tion.

In case of any difficulties they rely on my competence (CK).

It is personal contact that increases the level of customer experience (NS).

I am giving the future customer an idea of what can be expected (MS).

I see my influence on the customer experience inconsiderable (CL).

I can influence the buying decision and in the end we have sold more than without a technician (AS).

The experts’ statements clearly underline Palmer’s (2010, p. 204) assumption that

employees of an organisation may be described as “part-time relationship builder

with customers”. Further following the findings outlined above, the presence of a

technician during site inspections seems to be highly important in order to create

greater profits by offering additional products related to the main technical ideas.

Obviously, customers do in fact have problems in communicating their wants or

simply do not know what they want. In that case, a technician can suggest diversified

versions of a product and make suggestions as well as recommendations. These

findings show that the presence of a technician during site inspections should defi-

nitely not be underestimated.

The fact that two employees evaluated their personal influence on the customer

experience their company is conveying as rather low, may be traced back to their

scarce contact with customers. Indeed, both interviewees do not have direct contact

with clients and end customers on a regular basis. Subsequently, this may be the

reason for considering their influence insignificant. However, this finding is not in

line with Palmer (2010, p. 204), who claims that every employee of an organisation

contribute to the customer experience that is transferred. In contrast, all other inter-

viewed experts clearly presented their sphere of influence without indicating hesita-

tion or doubt. Consequently, it is evident that these experts are aware of their indi-

vidual contribution to the delivery of outstanding customer experience.

Considering the influence of Ms. Scheinost’s work, head of the marketing depart-

ment, it is doubtlessly clear that her influence goes beyond the scope of internal

matters but rather ranges outside the company. Indeed, she sets the beginning of

any customer experience agencies as well as congress participants have with the

HOFBURG Vienna. In addition, it is her work to create the images one has in mind


62

when thinking about the congress venue prior to any visit. This phenomenon has

already been described by several researchers as the fact that customers truly think

they have had an experience with a company even before any service encounter

has been taken place (Berry et al., 2002; Payne et al., 2008). In addition, this finding

is totally in line with Meyer and Schwager’s (2007, p. 118) definition of customer

experience. By stating that customer experience is “the internal and subjective re-

sponse customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a company”, Ms.

Scheinost is evidently responsible for the latter part. As suggested by the authors,

indirect contact happens due to unplanned encounter with the presentation of a

product or reviews. Furthermore, Ms. Scheinost’s influence clearly represents

Schmitt’s (2003, pp. 27-8) second stage of the author’s developed customer expe-

rience management framework, where experiential messages and imagery for ad-

vertising are designing the brand experience.

The general manager of the HOFBURG Vienna, Ms. Kaszay is evidently aware of

the urgent need of content and happy employees in order to be able to transfer

successful customer experience. According to her, employees’ happiness is often

negatively influenced by extrinsic factors such as the law, authorities or the com-

pany’s shareholders, which is often not fully understood and accepted by the em-

ployees. This result is clearly contrary to Navarro’s (2012, p. 49) point of view, who

states that today’s companies rarely ask themselves whether their employees are

still happy to work for them. Ms. Kaszay’s opinion is very much in line with Hauk and

Schulz (2012, pp. 399-400) who consider employees as the key to success, as they

represent the initial point of contact for the majority of customers. According to the

authors, they should reflect the company at its best. Consequently, employees’ hap-

piness and satisfaction can directly be linked to the delivery of a positive customer

experience (Mosley, 2007; Schmitt, 2003). Therefore, Schmitt (ibid., pp. 227-8) sug-

gests seeing employees as internal customers. Following this idea, Ms. Kaszay

should try to ensure a highly positive employee experience. Fulfilling the employees’

wishes may be seen as the initial step towards a motivating working environment.

As soon as employers will enjoy a great experience at work they will as well give

their best to provide a great experience to their customers. Similar, Klaus (2015, p.


63

36) defines today’s managers’ duty as attracting, managing and developing people

that are able to create fantastic customer experience.

7.1.3 External Suppliers as Components of Customer Experience

Although some employees of the HOFBURG Vienna seem to consider external sup-

pliers as a high risk involved in the delivery of outstanding customer experience, the

congress centre is nonetheless, working with a noteworthy high number of external

suppliers on a regular basis. As a consequence of this, ensuring the delivering of

one specific customer experience was described as an ongoing challenge by sev-

eral employees. Notwithstanding, according to the experts, the HOFBURG Vienna

tries to compensate any deviations by trusting in long-term preferred partners.

These partners know the congress venue and without doubt can be described as

professional experts. At this point, also the enormous trust and confidence in these

partners were mentioned and specifically underlined by several interviewees. One

of the employees, Ms. Schuster even further emphasises their significant im-

portance by stating that these suppliers only have been working with the HOFBURG

Vienna for a long time because they are successfully fulfilling the high standards

that are required.

However, other interviewees have focused more on the negative influence external

suppliers have on the customer experience the HOFBURG Vienna is conveying.

Even tough regular meetings are held with long term clients, for example with refer-

ence to the catering partners, a significantly high staff turnover prevents perfectly-

briefed partners. Furthermore, some of the experts mentioned the problem of brief-

ing external suppliers by intermediaries instead of employees of the HOFBURG Vi-

enna. Here, specific recommendations to better train their staff were given by some

of the interviewed experts. However, sometimes the problem seems to be caused

even at an earlier point, when an external supplier has been chosen by the cus-

tomer. According to Mr. Schmiedl, external technical partners are for example often

considered as an easy cost-saving opportunity which subsequently results in un-

qualified suppliers with poor equipment.


64

Long-time partners know the venue by hard (NS).

We have regular feedback sessions, but staff is changing frequently (MS).

External suppliers should better train their staff (PS).

They are briefed by the client (CK).

Following these findings above, it is doubtlessly clear, that no consensus between

the opinions of the employees of the HOFBURG Vienna could have been found. On

the one hand side, some employees describe their external suppliers as experi-

enced and long-term trained, however, on the other side, regularly changing staff,

lack of adequate briefings and the absence of chances to influence briefings were

stated by other interviewees. All negative aspects mentioned by the experts evi-

dently lead to unprofessional service that is delivered directly to end clients at the

front end. Obviously, this leads to disappointed guests that entered the event with

high expectations. As a result of these opposing views of the experts, no clear rela-

tion can be drawn to Klaus (2015, p. 36) who claims that if a company spreads its

values to the company’s suppliers, outstanding customer experience is delivered.

Evaluating the findings, it can be understood that scarcely trained front-line employ-

ees occasionally negatively influence the customer experience the HOFBURG Vi-

enna is delivering (DiJulius, 2011, p. 28). DiJulius indicates that employees simply

base their idea of superior customer experience on their own personal experiences.

Consequently, there is an enormous gap between the manager’s and the front-end

employees’ understanding of delivering a memorable experience (ibid., p. 29). Ac-

cording to the researcher not only front-line employees but rather all types of em-

ployees should be provided with people, skill, and so called customer experience

training on a regular basis.

In addition, the results described above can easily be linked to Gopalan and Nara-

yan’s (2010, p. 100) point of view. According to them, tourism is an industry that

contains numerous complexities. A tourism customer experience depends on a va-

riety of external factors. The authors state that a close stakeholder collaboration is

required to be able to deliver high class customer experience. From this, it can be

deduced that the intangibility, heterogeneity as well as integrity of services makes

providing excellent customer experience significantly more challenging (Gouthier et

al., 2012, pp. 65-6). Further, Gopalan and Narayan (2010, p. 109) divide the tourism

related customer experience in extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Extrinsic factors are


65

regulated by factors outside the HOFBURG Vienna’s employees. In accordance

with this view, external suppliers can be described as extrinsic factors that cannot

be influenced by the experts. This assumption would mean that employees of the

HOFBURG Vienna need to accept the nonexistence of their influence in external

partners and should rather focus on intrinsic factors that can be affected. Similar to

this, Verhoef et al. (2009, p. 32) underline that the construct of customer experience

is not only created by factors that the service provider can control, but also by ele-

ments that are located outside the service provider’s sphere of influence.

7.1.4 Customer Experience in a B2B & B2C Setting

Due to the fact that the HOFBURG Vienna is not only working with end customers,

but with professional intermediaries as well, both customer experiences delivered

to the end client, but also provided to agencies need to be taken into consideration.

Analysing these two versions of the customer experience of the HOFBURG Vienna,

significant differences could have been detected.

Most employees interviewed stated that providing an excellent customer experience

to agencies on a B2B level requires less administrative correspondence and conse-

quently less effort. Further evidence supporting this finding is provided by several

participants who indicated that agencies are professionals, they work quickly and

they know what the venue has to offer. Additionally, the interviewees mentioned that

describing the historical background of the venue to create certain emotions is

simply not part of the B2B customer experience they are delivering. On the other

side, private customers enjoy an experience involving a much higher level of assis-

tance. This type of customer experience is intentionally built on the historical back-

ground that the venue has to offer, with the aim of getting private end customers

into a highly pleasing mood. Due to the fact that, private customers are clearly more

price sensitive than companies or agencies, employees need to flexibly as well as

skilfully adapt the delivery of customer experience with reference to this specific

matter. Interestingly, all employees of the technical department are not aware of the

different types of customer experiences, as it simply does not make a difference for

the kind of work they are executing. According to the technicians of the HOFBURG

Vienna, the same experience is provided, independently of the type of the end client.


66

As an exception, Mr. Schmiedl, head of the technical department is the only inter-

viewee that clearly expressed his preference for private customers as here, the cus-

tomer experience needs to be transferred only to one single point of contact. Oppo-

site to all statements, Ms. Scheinost focuses on the risks involved in delivering just

the right customer experience to agencies.

Working with agencies requires less administrative correspondence (US).

Agencies know the venue, no specific emotions need to be created (NS).

For my work, the type of customer does not make a difference (PS).

The private customer is easier, here only one person is responsible (AS).

Working with agencies means that we lose part of our control which can be described as a danger (MS).

Resulting from the findings above, it can be stated that a business customer expe-

rience at the HOFBURG Vienna is clearly “a matter of functioning” (Meyer &

Schwager, 2007, p. 119). The results from the study further support Meyer and

Schwager’s point of view by describing a good B2B experience not always as excit-

ing but at least trouble-free. On the other side, these findings also indicate, that

when dealing with private customers, employees of the sales department can be

described as experience creators that are trying to transfer positive emotions to gen-

erate unforgettable impressions during site inspections. However the finding, stating

that B2C customers are more price sensitive than agencies clearly does not support

DiJulius’ (2011, p. 28) point of view, who indicates that B2B as well as B2C custom-

ers would pay more if a company makes an effort in building relationships.

Without doubt, most of HOFBURG Vienna’s employees positively outlined the B2B

customer experience as they seem to be shorter, more efficient and overall, simply

easier to deliver. These results are entirely in line with Hollyoake’s (2009, p. 132)

description of a B2B customer experience. The author as well as the interviewees

share the opinion that it is all about “reliability, consistency, dependability, problem

resolution, appropriate contact, choice and flexibility”. The statement given by Ms.

Gurtner who mentioned that “agencies are professionals” underline the aspect of “a

reliable cooperation”. Another result of this study, indicating that B2B customer ex-

periences require less administrative duties, is noticeably reflected in Hollyoake’s

factor of “appropriate contact”. Other statements, such as “agencies know our

house” and “some agencies have been working with us for years” can easily be


67

related to the aspects of “reliability” and “consistency”. However, contrary to the

findings above, in summary Hollyoake (2009, p. 132) claims that B2B relationships

are more complex than B2C ones.

Ms. Scheinost specifically draws the attention towards the high risks involved in a

B2B customer experience and highlights the dependency on B2B customers. As

outlined above, according to her, providing an unsatisfying customer experience to

agencies may lead to loss of control. In case an agency decides that the congress

venue is not suitable or appropriate for the occasion, the HOFBURG Vienna may

do not even get the opportunity to present what it has to offer. As a consequence of

this, Ms. Scheinost emphasises the importance of a close cooperation with agencies

and the delivery of a highly professional and pleasing customer experience to rein-

force confidence and cohesion in order to continuously get recommended and sug-

gested by external B2B partners. This finding is totally in line with Voeth and Loos

(2012, p. 371) who describe trust and experience as the most decisive factors in

B2B business solutions.

Mr. Schmiedl mentions his preference for private customers, as the customer expe-

rience is only delivered to one single person. According to him, an agency always

involves too many contact persons which lead to confusion and the direct line of

communication gets scattered. This is exactly in line with what was found in litera-

ture. Mr. Schmiedl’s point of view is totally reflecting Voeth and Loos’ (2012, p. 371)

description of a B2B relationship indicating that in a B2B situation buying decisions

are often taken by several people that build the buying centre. Mr. Schmiedl’s state-

ment is further supported by Hollyoake (2009, p. 133) claiming that a B2B customer

experience involves several persons of different functions.

7.2 Measurement of Customer Experience

The respondents described the measurement tool the HOFBURG Vienna is using

for customer experience in detail. All of them referred to a questionnaire that is sent

to clients after an event has been taken place. This questionnaire covers a variety

of aspects that are related to the organisation of the event. The evaluation is based


68

on a school grade system where grades range from one to five. In general, the re-

sults show that every third to fourth customer fill out the questionnaire and sends it

back to the team of the HOFBURG Vienna. In case of a grade below two, it is the

project management teams’ duty to ask the client for closer feedback. Although most

of the employees are satisfied with this measurement tool, some of them also put

an emphasis on the related disadvantages. As a matter of fact, customers often

cannot differentiate between services offered by the HOFBURG Vienna and others

provided by external partners. Consequently, this leads to a predominately negative

distortion of the overall results. Furthermore, some customers are simply not filling

out and returning the questionnaire which directly leads to loss of valuable feedback.

In addition, several employees also pointed out the measurement method of a per-

sonal conversation between the project manager and the event organiser after an

event has been taken place. However, following the results of this study, unfortu-

nately, such conversations are often simply not possible due to time constraints.

Thus, this often leads to delayed or even forgotten feedback discussions where im-

pressions and memories are already faded. In addition, other employees involved

in the event seem to not get contacted as long as the results are positive.

The questionnaire is our main tool besides personal feedback (MS).

Most of all points of criticism are beyond our scope of influence (US).

Unfortunately, not all customers do fill it out and send it back (CK).

I only get contacted if the customer was not pleased with our performance (CJ).

Following these findings, it is evident, that the HOFBURG Vienna is definitely trying

to measure the customer experience they are delivering. This is contrary to Shaw

and Ivens (2002, p. 7), who claim that customer experience is often neither meas-

ured nor controlled by companies. Nevertheless, the method the HOFBURG Vienna

is using to measure its customer experience is totally in line with Klaus (2015, p. 38)

who states that surveys are still the most used method of doing research on cus-

tomer experience. However, the minor indications of dissatisfaction and doubt re-

lated to the measurement tool, may be interpreted as an indirect request for a new,

improved method.

Analysing the disadvantages of the measurement tool in use, Ms. Kaszay empha-

sises “the difficulty of choosing the right type of measurement technique as in the


69

end, results are always tremendously subjective“. This finding is consistent with the

pioneers of customer experience, Pine and Gilmore (2011, p. 13) who hold the

opinion that experiences are fundamentally personal and occur within an individual.

Consequently, no experience can be the same. Palmer (2010, p. 202) supports a

very similar viewpoint and highlighted the context specific variables such as differ-

ences between individuals, differences over time and differences of an individual’s

emotional state. This is similarly reflected in Prahalad and Ramaswamy’s research

(2003, p. 14). Following these researchers, it is doubtlessly clear, that the same

event causes different experiences to different customers. Additionally, the finding

outlined above is also entirely in line with Klaus (2015, pp. 30-2) who indicates that

managers themselves often have difficulties in defining the measurement tech-

niques of their company’s customer experience programs. However, it is worth men-

tioning that Ms. Kasazy is definitely not afraid of the outcome of customer experi-

ence management and consequently, does not support Mayer and Schwager’s

(2007, p. 121) point of view. The difficulties connected to the measurement of cus-

tomer experience mentioned by the experts are totally in line with Molina (2012, p.

37) who shortly states that “measuring customer experience has thus become one

of the biggest challenges that businesses face”. Likewise, Maklan and Klaus (2011,

p. 774) state that no commonly agreed measurement techniques are known so far.

Due to the fact that the project managers of the HOFBURG Vienna are sending out

the questionnaire and Ms. Lenauer, the office manager is receiving and analysing

the results, certain other employees involved in an event seem to do not get closer

insights into the findings. More precisely, according to the outcomes, employees do

not receive any feedback as long as their performance and provided service have

been satisfying. In fact, they only get contacted as soon as negative grades were

given. However, some of the employees specifically pointed out their positive results

in the past which lead to proudness within certain departments. Therefore, com-

municating, especially also positive results of the questionnaire to all individual de-

partments on a regular basis may be an effective motivational method. This is totally

in line with Schmitt (ibid., pp. 220-1) who supports the opinion that feedback should

be provided to employees in order to improve future performances. Similar, also


70

Hauk and Schulz (2012, pp. 399-400) claim that success stories should definitely

be communicated within the company.

Following the findings outlined above, customers often unintentionally and unknow-

ingly grade and also relate services provided by external suppliers to the HOFBURG

Vienna. This may be due to the fact that exactly the same questionnaire is sent to

B2B as well as B2C customers, although private customers are presumably lacking

knowledge of the complex tourism industry. As a consequence of this finding, two

different versions of the questionnaire and probably even a final exploratory indica-

tion of all in house services may be developed in order to avoid any similar misun-

derstandings in the future. Furthermore, following the results described above, it is

obvious that the currently utilized measurement technique does not involve end cus-

tomers at all. This is in contrast with Sultana (2008, p. 61) who concludes that de-

livering unique engaging and memorable experience requires to listen to the cus-

tomer when feelings and emotions are at the most raw and real. As a consequence

of this, an adopted version of the questionnaire may also be developed for end cus-

tomers such as congress attendees.

7.3 Congress Participants of the HOFBURG Vienna

Putting an emphasis on congress participants attending an event at the HOFBURG

Vienna, different information seems to be relevant to the experts involved in the

organisation. Target group, age, information on disabled participants and the num-

ber of participants attending were mentioned most frequently as the most important

factors to know by the employees of the HOFBURG Vienna. Some respondents

clearly indicated their wish and desire to know more about the participants. Accord-

ing to Ms. Scheinost, factors such as culture should definitely get greater attention

and should closer be discussed prior to the organisation of a congress. Another

employee points out, that the more details the team of the HOFBURG Vienna

knows, the better the congress can be planned and executed. Other employees,

however, have the opinion that enough information is provided to do a good job.

According to them, closer details are simply not needed in order to fulfil their indi-

vidual duties successfully.


71

I want to know their age and information about people with disabilities (AS).

We know the target group and the number of people attending (AK).

I know the number of the participants and sometimes their industry. Closer details are not communicated and also not needed (CK).

The idea of thinking that enough information is provided might result from their indi-

vidual amount of influence on the event. It is assumed that the less influence an

employee has on the execution of the event, the less information is needed. How-

ever, the present results do not strengthen this assumption. These findings com-

pletely support Mair’s (2014, p. 16) theory, stating that employees seem to rather

rely on their “gut feeling”. According to the author, HOFBURG Vienna’s B2B cus-

tomers, such as congress organisers should have detailed knowledge of the socio-

demographic and psychographic characteristics of their customers. However, draw-

ing conclusions from the respondents’ answers lead to the fact that congress organ-

isers either do not have any closer information about their attendees, or simply do

not want to share their knowledge with the congress venue’s employees. Neverthe-

less, according to Mair (2014, p. 16) this information exchange would be highly nec-

essary for planning and organising successful congresses.

Based on Mair’s (2014, p. 16) idea, specific demographic information of the con-

gress participants could have been obtained from the photo diaries handed over to

congress attendees taking part of this research. Consequently, the following con-

clusions about sources of previous knowledge of the venue, gender, age, expecta-

tions and needs, can be drawn. As a result of this, congress attendees’ data pro-

vided in the short survey included in the photo diaries as well as viewpoints of em-

ployees are compared as well as contrasted in the following section.

7.3.1 Participants’ Information Procurement on the HOFBURG Vienna

With relation to the main sources of information of preceding knowledge of the con-

gress venue, previous congresses as well as the internet were reported most fre-

quently by the congress attendees. Besides that, the sources of other colleagues,

previously attended balls as well as newspapers were only mentioned by individual

participants. The source of information of previous congresses is totally reflecting

the employees’ viewpoints. Indeed, all employees are entirely aware of the fact that


72

the business events taking place at the HOFBURG Vienna are specifically attracting

repeat visitors.

About 70% are repeat customers (AS).

The organised congresses are definitely similar (NS).

The events are similar (US).

The majority of the events is similar (AK).

These findings are consistent with results of past studies by Rogers (2003, pp. 142-

3) which describe two types of business events. Some are, at least to a certain

extend, the same year after year, whereas others are entirely new. The business

events taking place in the HOFBURG Vienna are predominately of the second type.

Following the author’s opinion, events are based on an organisational history and

event traditions. In addition, the author (2003, pp. 142-3) describes repeated events

as trouble-free that require the venue only to focus on minor details that change.

Nonetheless, Rogers also emphasises the danger of becoming predictable for the

attendees.

Moreover, concentrating further on the internet as a highly important source of

knowledge of the congress attendees, it is worth mentioning that predominately fe-

male attendees referred to online research as main source of information. A com-

parison of the obtained results demonstrates that not only attendees, but also em-

ployees of the HOFBURG Vienna are aware of the influential power of the internet.

Employees describe the internet as a platform of transferring information and

pointed out the importance of keeping all online information up-to-date. In this con-

text, some of the employees also mentioned that the team of the HOFBURG Vienna

does not consist of any social media expert at the moment.

The internet and especially Facebook have become a highly important way of transferring information (US).

Today’s generation is permanently online. However, the HOFBURG Vienna will never only do marketing via social media (AK).

No social media expert exists at the moment (NS).

A clear relation may be drawn between the findings described above and the study

undertaken by Shaw and Ivens (2002, pp. 24-5) who developed a multi-step model

of the customer experience concept. The authors clearly describe the important role

the internet plays at the second step of their model. This stage is dominating as


73

soon as pre-purchase interactions happen. Here, today’s customers predominately

inform themselves online on a website. Similar, this result is also reflected by the

findings of Bruhn and Hadwich (2012, pp. 30-1) who consider the customer touch

point analysis as an ideal measurement instrument for customer experience. The

authors put an emphasis on the power of the internet by describing any website visit

as an indirect customer touchpoint. Additionally, the outcome of the study is also in

line with Mair (2014, p. 130) who describes the internet in a more general way by

drawing the attention towards the massive technological change in the congress

tourism industry. Concentrating on the fact, that a significantly superior number of

females actively gathered information online, women should specifically be targeted

in the HOFBURG Vienna’s online marketing strategy prior to any business event.

7.3.2 Gender of Congress Participants

Further analysing the information of congress participants attending an event at the

HOFBURG Vienna, in the following an emphasis is laid on the differences between

female and male attendees. Here, a variety of answers were given by the employ-

ees. Generally, the majority of all employees interviewed neglected the importance

of being informed about the gender of the participants. According to them, this spe-

cific information would not result in any alteration of the outcome, the congress.

However, one of the employees working in the technical department underlined the

importance of this information as soon as they appear in high numbers. Contrary to

all other experts, Ms. Scheinost is convinced of the significantly different behaviour

of female and male congress participants.

Female participants have very similar requirements to male ones when at-tending a congress. Making any differences is not necessary (AK).

There are no differences between female and male participants (AS).

There are significant differences (MS).

These findings clearly deviate from Mair’s (2014, pp. 128-9) opinion of the currently

changing generations and population. The author claims that nowadays more and

more women are taking part in congresses and these women have, at least accord-

ing to the author, considerably different needs than male congress participants.

Consequently, it is surprising to note that the employees of the congress venue


74

HOFBURG Vienna did not recognise a growing number of female congress at-

tendees at all. Additionally, it is also worth mentioning that congress organisers

working together with the HOFBURG Vienna on a continuous basis have not com-

municated any information about this recent development either. The reason behind

may be that this trend is simply not significant enough to cause any impacts on the

Viennese congress industry. Another explanation may be that neither the congress

centre nor the congress organisers have yet recognised this recent development.

Despite prior evidence (Mair, 2014, pp. 128-9), the findings obtained from the study

on hand, resulting from two congresses that took place at the HOFBURG Vienna,

also clearly represent a balanced number of female and male congress participants.

7.3.3 Age of Congress Participants

According to the photo diaries, the average participants of the respective two con-

gresses at the HOFBURG Vienna were between 31 and 40 years old and conse-

quently, clearly represent the Generation Y. However, the number of participants

being between 41 and 50 years old may also not be underestimated. Interestingly,

the experts interviewed are clearly aware of this new generation, which has already

entered their market. Indeed, following the employees of the HOFBURG Vienna,

significant changes that are related to the Generation Y have already been detected.

Customers, as well as speakers and agency employees that are part of this gener-

ation were described as refreshing, full of new ideas, focused on new media, flexi-

ble, active on social media platforms, self-confident and convinced that they can

change the industry. What is more, the Generation Y seems to be taking specific

aspects of the industry for granted. Additionally, Ms. Gurtner claims that this gener-

ation has changed the way of communication. Instead of calling, employees are

simply writing short messages to err on the side of caution and to avoid disturbing

the other. According to Ms. Kaszay, the “black tie” generation has definitely been

replaced by jute-bag carrier. Their attitudes are definitely more relaxed and their

outfits are more comfortable. This is also in line with another employee’s opinion,

who is claiming that the Generation Y is taking congresses less seriously. They

toughly select specific parts of the event which are of high interest to the attendee

and intentionally leave out others in order to save time and effort.


75

This group of people are used to all types of new media (CK).

They do not have any experience but they think they are experienced (CJ).

They caused changing workflows (MG).

The “black tie” generation is definitely gone (AK).

They are fast-moving and goal oriented (MS).

As outlined above, it seems obvious that there is a strong connection between the

Generation Y and the use of all different types of new media. Indeed, the employees

of the HOFBURG Vienna recognised this interrelationship by describing it as the

pressure of keeping track of all technical changes. In fact, one of their main duties

is to be up to date. Without doubt, this may be one of the greatest challenges a

historical event location, such as the HOFBURG Vienna has to face. Clearly, the

customer experience that is conveyed needs to be contemporary and modern but

at the same time should be equally authentic. As some of the employees described

the Generation Y as challenging, self-confident and alleged experienced, conclu-

sions can be drawn, stating that the experts are commonly aware of the power of

this new generation. Although the generation was at the same time described as

refreshing and inspiring, employees of the HOFBURG Vienna seem to treat them

with care. These results are totally representing Mair’s (2014, pp. 128-9) findings,

drawing the attention towards the currently changing generations and social trends

of the population. The author further emphasised the need of being continuously

innovative and to keep pace with changing trends in order to continuously represent

a successful congress centre. Moreover, the finding indicating the change of com-

munication is totally in line with DiJulius’ (2011, p. 33) perception of the Generation

Y. According to the author, today’s young generation shows a considerable lack in

people skills. Indeed, interactions with people are avoided, whereas online activities

are clearly preferred.

Diving even deeper into this topic, attention is drawn to the future development and

involvement of the Generation Y. By concentrating more on the actions the

HOFBURG Vienna will take in order to be attractive for this new generation, the

employees kept their answers rather general. Keeping track of new trends and keep-

ing eyes and ears open were mentioned several times. Predominately experts from

the technical department indicated the importance of dealing with members of this

generation wisely as well as carefully. According to them, acting cooperatively and


76

trying to find a solution together is highly required. However, only two employees

provided concrete recommendations for being better prepared for the Generation Y

in the upcoming years. On the one hand, the establishment of a new department

dealing exclusively with social media, GoogleAdwords and email marketing was

suggested. What is more, the development of an in-house App was proposed as

another possibility of enhancement.

There is definitely room for developments such as in-house Apps and more usage of GoogleAdwords (CL).

Up until now there is no social media team existing (NS).

We definitely need to keep track of the current trends (US).

We always keep our eyes and ears open for new developments (AK).

Following these results, it is obvious that the Generation Y has already entered the

industry of congress tourism in Vienna. Concentrating on the rapid technical devel-

opment these days, it seems apparent that interactions between employees of the

technical department and the Generation Y will gain more and more importance in

the future. Consequently, it is assumed that the employees of the technical depart-

ment will rise in importance already in the planning process of a congress. The

above findings are consistent with the study presented by Mair (2014, p. 130) who

examined the idea that incorporating and optimising new technologies will definitely

be one of the key issues in future years. The reason behind the scarce number of

concrete suggestions may be due to the enormously rapid development of new tech-

nical possibilities. Making the decision to purchase and use certain technologies is

closely linked with huge investments and therefore, requires convincing arguments

and clear advantages for the company. Nonetheless, a study undertaken by Wien

Tourismus (2015, p. 35) shows that congress venues need to expand the available

technological infrastructure on a continuous basis in order to deliver outstanding

business events. Whereas the findings of the study suggest rather general recom-

mendations to keep pace with the changing population, Mair (2014, pp. 128-9)

clearly points out that congress venues need to take specific measures to actively

respond to the current changes to be able to successfully surpass future congress

participants’ expectations.


77

7.3.4 Expectations of Congress Participants

Closer analysing the expectations congress participants may have from the

HOFBURG Vienna, a variety of ideas were given by the employees. Special histor-

ical atmosphere, central location, high-class service, a professional team and a

smoothly running event were mentioned most frequently by the experts. Concerning

the expectation of a trouble-free event, specific reference to the functionality of the

entire technical equipment has been made several times. Furthermore, high

knowledge exchange was mentioned by one of the respondents. In addition, deli-

cious catering as well as special furnishings have both also been mentioned only

once. In contrast to all other interviewees, Mr. Jöchl supports the opinion that in

case it is the attendees’ first visit, they do not have special expectations as they

have never seen the imperial venue before.

They expect a special flair, a historical and central location in the city (CL).

High level of exchange of knowledge. A highly professional service with ref-erence to the technical parts involved as well as with catering (US).

Functionality and a certain ambience as well as furnishing that one expects from the Hofburg (MS).

Following these results, all interviewees obviously had a clear idea of potential con-

gress participants’ expectations. Without hesitation or any feelings of doubt almost

all employees could put themselves into the participants’ positions. The results ob-

tained from the study lead to the assumption that employees working at the

HOFBURG Vienna are undoubtedly caring about the end-customers’ expectations.

These findings can easily be related to Shaw and Ivens (2002, pp. 24-6) who delved

deeply into this matter by stating that companies need to understand their custom-

ers’ expectations in order to be able to satisfy and ideally surpass them. The authors

claim that companies that are only satisfying their customers’ expectations do not

deliver a great customer experience as they do not have a differentiator. In order to

find out what is required to surpass customers’ expectations, a company simply

needs to understand the expectations (ibid., p. 26).This is totally in line with Palmer

(2010, p. 204) who states that having a comprehensive understanding of potential

congress participants’ needs, wants as well as expectations is highly required to be

able to surpass them with exceptional customer experience. Consequently, Mr.

Jöchl’s point of view evidently seems to be an exception. By all appearances, it


78

seems that all employees of the HOFBURG Vienna are entirely aware of potential

congress attendees’ expectations. Nonetheless, the difficulty for all employees of

the HOFBURG Vienna definitely lies in the knowledge of the end-customers’ expec-

tations instead of the agency’s assumptions when working on a B2B level.

In order to be able to further discuss the actual congress participants’ expectations,

attendees themselves were asked to give indications about their expectations of the

congress and specifically, of the congress venue in the course of the brief survey

included in the photo diary. While analysing the general expectations of the con-

gress event, only two aspects were mentioned by all attendees. The transfer of

highly valuable and recent content, including current trends, new business impulses

as well as innovative point of views were greatly expected. Secondly, adequate time

scheduled for networking and meeting new as well as former business partners was

anticipated by most of the congress participants. Turning to the expectations con-

gress attendees had of the congress location HOFBURG Vienna, a wide variety of

anticipations were revealed. Most of the attendees agreed on the expected aspect

of a fitting ambience, a pleasant framework and surrounding, beautiful impressions

as well as a good atmosphere. In addition to that, reference was made to tempered

rooms, access to a variety of rooms and enough space for big business events.

Further, this study also suggests that a certain cultural context, where immersing

oneself in the past is easily possible, was expected by the attendees. These findings

from the present study agree relatively well with the ideas from Meyer and Schwager

(2007, p. 119) who argue that customers’ expectations are based on previous ex-

periences but are also dependent on market conditions, competition and the con-

gress participant’s personal situation. Similar, Shaw and Ivens (2002, pp. 24-5) de-

scribe expectations prior to the consumption as a customer experience that has

already been set up through marketing activities, opinion of others, past experiences

and similar settings. According to the author, these expectations may be seen as

visions customers have of what is about to going to happen in the congress centre

HOFBURG Vienna. As a consequence of this, it is doubtlessly clear that the team

of the HOFBURG Vienna definitely needs to deal with their customers’ initial expec-

tations to be able to deliver outstanding customer experience on a continuous basis

(Shaw & Ivens, 2002, pp. 24-5).


79

Comparing the congress participants’ expectations and reasons for attending a con-

gress leads to very similar findings. Indeed, looking closer at the reasons behind

attending the congress, “networking” as well as “professional interest” were men-

tioned most frequently in the course of the brief survey involved in the prepared

photo journal. On the whole, being informed and specifically expanding on the at-

tendee’s motivating factors is highly important to further increase their attendance

(Yoo & Zhao, 2010, pp. 179-80).

7.4 Congress Participants’ Customer Experience

Within the course of this research congress participants were asked to take pictures

of their personal customer experience at the HOFBURG Vienna. For further consid-

erations of the congress participants’ customer experience, the most frequently pho-

tographed elements are discussed in the following sections. These elements may

be seen as the most important dimensions of their individual customer experience.

Thus, these dimensions seem to be of utmost importance in order to assess a busi-

ness event from a customer’s perspective. Therefore, by analysing the most mean-

ingful and informative photographs, the following sections provide insight into the

undergone customer experience of congress participants. As an illustration, sample

photographs are provided. Additionally, samples of descriptive as well as explana-

tory statements of the attendees’ photo journals may also help to visualise the un-

dergone customer experience by trying to see through the eyes of the attendees.

Lastly, in case some of the employees also referred to one of these individual as-

pects, their opinions are likewise indicated.

7.4.1 Congress Content

The aspect of the congress’ content is one of the main findings that could have been

obtained through this research. Although one would assume that taking a picture of

the content of speeches may lead to difficulties, the participants of the study proved

the contrary. Hardly to believe, but the intangible element of the content of the con-

gress was photographed most frequently in the course of this study. Twelve out of


80

16 participants captured this highly important aspect at least in one picture. Inter-

estingly, different approaches were used with the same intention. Participants di-

rected their disposable cameras towards the projector, screens, speakers and

stages to get the right pictures. Providing even closer insights, these photographs

were accompanied by detailed descriptions of the content, recorded in their individ-

ual photo diaries. There, information on speaker, topic and level of usability of the

content was outlined most frequently and specifically highlighted by the participants

with statements such as the following.

Photo 1: Lecturer

Source: Exß’s photo

Photo 2: Lecture

Source: Klaritsch’s photo

This is a good discussion with new ideas and impulses (RS).

The programme offers a choice of interesting topics this year (SV).

The topic after the break is highly important (KD).

Mag. Klaus Hübner, an expert of the industry (RB).

Additionally, following the information given during the expert interviews, it is worth

mentioning that the employees of the HOFBURG Vienna are obviously totally aware

of this important aspect.

It is all about the transfer of high-quality know-how (MG).

A lot depends on the speakers, the content transferred and the content of the conversations (US).

Following these results, it may be stated that the content of a business-related event

is obviously the most valuable aspect of a congress. This result perfectly illustrates

the dependency of the HOFBURG Vienna on any intermediary that is responsible

for the organisation and definition of all content related parts of an event. In fact, the

team of the HOFBURG Vienna has not even any opportunity to influence the most

important aspect of a business event. The findings obtained from the taken pictures


81

are entirely in line with what was found in literature. However, some authors (Op-

permann & Chon, 1997; Severt et al., 2009; Witt et al., 1995) consider the aspects

of professional development, new skills as well as keeping up with changes in one’s

business field as individual motivational factors that may not be summarised to one.

Nonetheless, the results of this study are used according to Mair (2014, p. 20) who

supports the opinion that “these things are very closely linked” and therefore, no

distinctions are made. The results obtained from the study totally reflect Davidson’s

(2003, p. 29) point of view who indicates that business events are strongly related

to business and the aim of advancing one’s career. The present findings can also

be related to Bruhn and Hadwich (2012, p. 12) who present a comprehensive review

of all dimensions of the customer experience. Among others, the researchers put

an emphasis on the cognitive dimension that focuses on the intellectual capacity of

customers. This dimension stimulates not only creativity but also problem solving

behaviour. In addition, this reflects also the findings of Gentile et al. (2007, p. 398)

who share similar views. Interestingly, this is also in line with a study conducted by

Molina (2012, p. 38). Indeed, these outcomes are consistent with findings of the

researcher’s past studies, which reveal that in order to measure customer experi-

ence, it needs to be broken down into tangible elements. In fact, asking congress

attendees to take pictures of their customer experience obviously seems to be a

highly successful way to transform intangible elements into tangible ones (Lee &

Back, 2008, p. 331).

7.4.2 Catering

Analysing the content of all photos taken by the participants, it needs to be under-

lined that external partners, specifically the catering partner was frequently illus-

trated. Catering, including breakfast, coffee breaks as well as lunch seems to play

a major role when attending a congress. Indeed, eleven out of 16 congress partici-

pants emphasised their culinary experience at the HOFBURG Vienna. The majority

of all participants that put an emphasis on food, underlined negative experiences.

In fact, long queues, too small plates, low quality, as well as the location of the ca-

tering area have predominately been criticised. As shown below in photo 3, one of


82

the participants even illustrated his anger by taking a photo of the red carpet. Fol-

lowing the participant’s notes from the photo diary, the red element should be seen

as a warning signal for his negative experience. In addition, it is worth mentioning

that even if the participants did neither criticize nor praise the served food, they

mentioned it without comment. As can be seen from the statements provided below,

it is obvious that congress participants want to refer to their culinary experience,

even if they do not have a clear opinion about it. Furthermore, with relation to the

discussed aspect, no differences between female and male participants could have

been identified. Thus, the aspect of good food seems to be equally important to both

gender.

Photo 3: Red Carpet

Source: Müller’s photo

Photo 4: Buffet

Source: Göd’s photo

Breakfast is important for a good start (GG).

Too long queues (MB).

Good lunch buffet as always (MF).

Not enough space to eat (RS).

At this point it is significant to indicate that the team of the HOFBURG Vienna is

totally aware of the enormous potential risks related to the involvement of external

partners, but considers catering as a factor that lies beyond their scope of influence.

What is more, the employees are also aware of all wrong assumptions and conclu-

sions connected to the aspect of catering, that are drawn by the participants.


83

In case there is bad food, it is the Hofburg’s fault and not the caterer’s (MS).

Food and drinks are still one of the most important aspects of an event (US).

It is the caterer’s staff that has direct influence, but it is the Hofburg’s em-ployees that gain negative reputation (PS).

The results of this study can easily be compared with the findings of Breiter and

Milman (2006, pp. 1369-70) who support the opinion that congress attendees’ sat-

isfaction strongly depends on the quality of food. The authors specifically emphasise

the fact that the attendees’ satisfaction is indeed highly influenced by aspects that

lie beyond the influential scope of the congress venue. Furthermore, these findings

clearly represent the complexities involved in the tourism industry. The end custom-

ers’ experiences indeed depend on multiple factors, including stakeholders that lie

outside the sphere of influence of the team of the HOFBURG Vienna (Gopalan &

Narayan, 2010, p. 100). The authors Gopalan and Narayan developed a classifica-

tion of intrinsic as well as extrinsic factors. Clearly, the team of the HOFBURG Vi-

enna considers catering as an extrinsic factor. Nonetheless, following the results, it

is evident that the end customer cannot make a difference between the services

offered by the HOFBURG Vienna and by the catering partner. The above outlined

finding is also consistent with the study by Ryan et al. (2008, as cited in Mair, 2014,

p. 52). Similarly, the authors examined factors that are under control of a congress

centre, factors that can only partially be influenced by the congress centre and lastly,

factors that cannot be controlled.

7.4.3 Networking and other Social Aspects

Further focusing on the aspects photographed by the congress participants, a strong

emphasis was laid on interactions with colleagues and friends as well as the oppor-

tunities of getting in touch with interesting people to build new connections for the

company. Several participants specifically underlined the time windows intentionally

scheduled for networking. The findings demonstrate that half of all participants of

the study creatively illustrated different kinds of social aspects on their taken pic-

tures. More precisely, participants took photographs of co-workers, other attendees,

employees, suppliers as well high tables and coffee cups representing coffee


84

breaks. These photographs were further supported by statements written in the at-

tendees’ photo diaries. By way of illustration some of the descriptive notes are pro-

vided.

Photo 5: Networking

Source: Decker’s photo

Photo 6: Colleague

Source: Würrer’s photo

Interesting talks with colleagues (RB).

Good opportunity for networking with other colleagues (AW).

A colleague from Sachsen trigger a sense of home (KD).

The findings that resulted from the study on hand are perfectly in line with Grove

and Fisk’s (1997, p. 64) point of view who demonstrate the significant effect, others

have on one owns experience. Furthermore, the results entirely reflect the identified

motivational factors of attending a congress of Yoo and Zhao (2010, p. 181). In

addition to Yoo and Zhao, also other researchers, such as Jago and Deery (2005,

p. 34) consider networking as the most important factor whether to attend a con-

gress or not. Following their point of view, networking represents a highly valuable

social aspect of a business event. In today’s stressful times, attendees enjoy wel-

come receptions, coffee breaks and lunches that allow social interactions. In addi-

tion to that, the result of the study shows a significant similarity to the social dimen-

sion identified by Bruhn and Hadwich (2012, p. 12). The researchers argue that any

customer experience consists of several dimensions. The dimensions recognised

by the authors are sensory, emotional, cognitive, behavioural, lifestyle and social.

The social aspects photographed in the course of this study are totally consistent

with the social dimension of Bruhn and Hadwich. According to the authors, this di-

mension draws the attention towards any social interactions that occur during the

customer experience. More precisely, any interactions with customers as well as


85

with suppliers will generate feelings of belonging. In another study, Ryan et al.

(2008, as cited in Mair, 2014, p. 52) put an emphasis on the restricted influence of

a congress venue on all social interactions that occur during an event. They found

out that friendliness of the staff as well as service quality are the most important

factors that may only be controlled indirectly by the congress centre. The results

from the study are further supported by Rogers (2003, p. 142) who put forward a

reccomendation for congress venues by claiming that business events should

always try to provide the right atmosphere to stimulate networking and socialising

while doing business.

7.4.4 Opportunity Cost

Although existing literature describes the factor of cost specifically important for

business events that require attendees to pay for their participation, unexpectedly,

none of the attendees of this study represented this aspect on their taken pictures,

nor mentioned it in their photo diaries (Mair, 2014; Witt et al., 1995). The reason

behind not referring to the costs related to the attendance of a congress may be due

the fact that money is still considered to be a sensitive issue. However, further ana-

lysing the pictures taken by the participants, more and more references to oppor-

tunity costs could have been identified. Indeed, to present an example, a mobile

phone was photographed, representing the participant’s office that was constantly

calling. Another participant shot a picture of his feet and simultaneously indicated in

his photo diary the pain that grew with his attendance. These results are totally cor-

responding with Zhang et al.’s (2007, p. 1126) understanding of opportunity costs.

According to these researchers, any potential attendee needs to sacrifice work du-

ties and spare time to participate in a business event.


86

Photo 7: Hurting Feet

Source: Kienen’s photo

7.4.5 Physical Elements of the HOFBURG Vienna

Within the course of this research, a diversity of physical elements of the congress

venue HOFBURG Vienna was illustrated on the taken photographs. Following Shaw

and Ivens (2002, p. 16), it is of utmost importance to not only discuss the physical

elements of a customer experience, but what is even more significant, is focusing

on the type of emotions the product induces in the end customer. Therefore, in the

following, the most frequently named physical elements as well as the evoked emo-

tions are closer analysed (Shaw & Ivens, 2002, p. 16).

The “Grand Staircase” was photographed by a majority of participants representing

the entrance and simultaneously the beginning of the business event. Following the

information given in the photo journals, the feelings connected to the entrance of the

HOFBURG Vienna can easily be related to the emotions of pride and anticipation.

Here, it is also worth mentioning that all pictures representing the opening of the

event were of positive character.

Due to the fact, that the research is based on two congresses that took place at the

HOFBURG Vienna, the attendees had thus access to different combinations of

rooms. Consequently, it is worth highlighting that the “Dachfoyer” was the most fre-

quently illustrated room, despite the fact that only the attendees of the “13. Öster-

reichischer IT/Beratertag” were allowed access to this room. The ball installation of

the “Dachfoyer” was put into the focus of the attendees’ cameras most frequently.

Without doubt, here it was the emotion of astonishment that was evoked by the


87

modern character of the room. More specifically, one of the attendees even de-

scribed the installation as “multifaceted as life is”. Moreover, participants indicated

the feeling of lust and desire to experience something new when taking pictures of

the great view, which was associated with “James Bond adventures”. In summary,

it can be stated that all physical elements photographed in the “Dachfoyer” were

purely positive.

Additionally, several other rooms were illustrated on pictures taken by the partici-

pants. Interestingly, in this matter several participants referred to previous experi-

ences at the HOFBURG Vienna and drew comparisons. Here, the emotion of antic-

ipation of the upcoming event could clearly be identified. For one of the participants,

the “Gartensaal” instinctively generated associations of a garden including flowers

and plants. However, as these expectations could not have been fulfilled, negative

feelings of disappointment were created. The “Forum” was related with a modern

atmosphere multiple times. On the whole, the interlacing character of the rooms

were captured on a variety of pictures. Here, predominately negative emotions were

noted in the photo journals, complaining about the misleading signage. This is totally

reflected by Breiter and Milman (2006, pp. 1369-70) who claim that the congress

attendees’ level of satisfaction partly depends on directional signage. Similarly, the

authors Ryan et al. (2008, as cited in Mair, 2014, p. 52) declare signposting as one

of the most important factors that can be controlled by a congress venue. Illustrative

statements that reflect the emotions derived from the physical aspects are provided

below.


88

Photo 8: View from Dachfoyer

Source: Klaritsch’s photo

Photo 9: Dachfoyer

Source: Schattauer’s photo

Photo 10: Signage

Source: Scheurer’s photo

Stylistic inconsistency, well done and nice view (CK).

The ball installation of the Dachfoyer causes beautiful reflections (TK).

Why is the Gartensaal a room with low ceilings and without windows (ALK)?

The rooms are interlaced which lead to disorientation (RS).

With reference to the interior of the HOFBURG Vienna, a focus was laid on the

ceiling painting, mural painting, historical decorative aspects as well as the red car-

pet. In this case, consistently emotions of cultural enthusiasm were evoked. A mi-

nority of the attendees dedicated their photographs to the seating arrangement.

Here, negative emotions such as irritation, anger and disappointment were clearly

dominating. According to the attendees, tables were missing and a narrow theatre


89

style was criticised. Contrary, several participants positively outlined the light instal-

lations as well as the luxurious chandeliers with their taken pictures. The induced

emotions that could have been identified were amazement as well as astonishment.

A selection of notes provided by the participants are given in order to exemplify the

evoked cultural enthusiasm.

Photo 11: Ceiling decoration


Photo 12:Historical elements


Historical ceiling painting is consistent with the topic of inheritance tax (ALK).

Beautiful, colourful wall paintings in a historical building (RS).

Seats should be better arranged. I do not see the stage (TK).

Moreover, reference was also made to the technical equipment visible to the partic-

ipants in the rooms. In this context, contrary point of views were visualised. Some

participants emphasised the well-hidden equipment. Others positively highlighted

the existence of extremely modern technologies, whereas some participants how-

ever, criticised the unattractive combination of old and new. The feelings, these

physical elements evoked were obviously of different natures. These diverse view-

points could only be identified with the help of explanatory statements such as the

following.

The technical aspects are well-hidden, like in the opera (RS).

The loudspeaker installations disturb the atmosphere of the room (ES).

A congress requires its solid technical equipment (GG).


90

Lastly, it is also interesting to mention, that three pictures were taken from the out-

side of the HOFBURG Vienna which may also be related to the physical elements

of the venue. Here the impressive building as well as smoking areas were captured

in the pictures. As demonstrated below, the emotions indicated in the photo journals

were enthusiasm and excitement about the massive building and likewise relaxation

and recreation. These findings demonstrate, that the customer experience the

HOFBURG Vienna is conveying can definitely not be limited to the physical venue

itself. Indeed, the participants’ customer experience go beyond the venue’s physical

borders.

Photo 13: Outside of Building

Source: Vabnauer’s photo

Photo 14: Cigarette Break

Source: Vabnauer’s photo

Time for a cigarette break and time to relax (SV).

Impressive sight, this is the first thing I saw in the morning (GM).

7.4.6 Congress Location Vienna

As it can be seen from Annex 4 “location” is also an influential driver that stimulates

professionals to attend a congress at the HOFBURG Vienna. Exclusively concen-

trating on the “Deutscher Steuerberatertag”, half of all participants mentioned “loca-

tion” at least among others as the reason for attending the business event. The

reason behind this result may be due to the international character of this event. In

contrast, concentrating on the “13. Österreichischer IT/Beratertag” no specific refer-

ence was made to the location as a reason to attend. Further analysing the results

of the survey, it needs to be highlighted that the HOFBURG Vienna was described

by the participants as a premium location. Indeed, nine out of twelve participants

totally agreed with the statement “The HOFBURG Vienna is a premium location”.


91

The results obtained from the survey of the present study also suggest that Vienna

as a congress destination is associated with culture, tradition, internationally high

quality, good food, as well as medical congresses. Minor negative associations were

only mentioned by one of the participants.

These findings incorporate the ideas of Mair (2014, p. 20) who holds the opinion

that in addition to networking and professional development, location is another key

motivator of attending a congress. Breiter and Milman (2006, pp. 1369-70) share

similar views by stating that the attendees’ satisfaction strongly depend on factors

such as the destination, that lie beyond the borders of the congress venue. The

authors Ryan et al. (2008, as cited in Mair, 2014, p. 52) provide an in-depth analysis

of factors that can be controlled by a congress venue, factors that may only be par-

tially influenced and others that lie beyond the sphere of influence of a congress

venue. Specifically focusing on the factors that cannot be controlled, attractiveness

of the destination and easy access to attractions in the city were mentioned most

frequently. The findings outlined above are also consistent with results recently pub-

lished by Wien Tourismus (2015, pp. 55-7) that are representing the trend of “PRE-

MIUM Vienna 2020” in detail. The findings obtained from the study on hand are

perfectly reflecting the strategy Vienna is currently pursuing. What is more, the as-

sociations the participants mentioned are totally in line with the values Wien Tour-

ismus is professionally spreading. Following Wien Tourismus, Vienna shall be de-

scribed as a city where premium business standard is provided, and according to

the results of the study, it is indeed, already guaranteed now. Looking even closer

at this trend, Vienna aims at representing “the good old Europe” where a city centre

full of history and tradition is close. Analysing the results, it can be concluded that

on the whole, Vienna’s vision is definitely in good agreement with the results of the

present study. In addition to that, the findings derived from the study also support

Mair (2014, p. 20) who emphasises the influence of the attractiveness of a destina-

tion on any attendee’s future repeated participation in congresses in Vienna.

Conclusion and Recommendations

92

8 Conclusion and Recommendations

Under the consideration of the research questions presented in chapter one, the

final section summarises the theoretical framework and likewise the most important

findings of this study. Furthermore, practical implications as well as contribution to

the literature are presented in detail. Finally, concluding remarks on research limi-

tations and suggestions and recommendations for further research are provided.

8.1 Summary

In order to conclude of the findings of the study, a summary of the theoretical frame-

work is required first. The theory discussed in the course of this research provided

an in-depth insight into the definition, history, components as well as the manage-

ment of customer experience. According to the literature (Gouthier et al., 2012;

Johnston & Kong, 2011; Verhoef et al., 2009), no uniform or standardized definition

of the concept of customer experience exists. Nevertheless, Hirschman and

Holbrook as well as Pine and Gilmore could certainly been identified as the most

important pioneers of the history of customer experience. Concentrating on the com-

ponents of customer experience, various authors (Bruhn & Hadwich, 2012; Gentile

et al., 2007; Shaw & Ivens, 2002; Verhoef et al., 2009), share similar views by at-

taching importance to sensory, emotional, cognitive, pragmatic, behavioural, life-

style and social aspects. However, other researchers (DiJulius, 2011; Harris, 2007;

Klaus, 2015; Navarro, 2012; Palmer, 2010) consider employees as crucial compo-

nents of a customer experience.

However, literature (DiJulius, 2011; Dixon et al., 2010; Meyer & Schwager, 2007;

Schmitt, 2003) has shown that some of today’s companies are still applying out-

dated marketing concepts or simply do not appreciate the benefits customer expe-

rience management has to offer. Therefore, advantages and approaches how to

apply customer experience management were outlined more in detail (DiJulius,

2011; Rawson et al., 2013; Sultana, 2008). Concentrating on B2B and B2C markets,

several authors (Hollyoake, 2009; Lemke et al., 2006; Meyer & Schwager, 2007;

Voeth & Loos, 2012) discovered noteworthy differences in customer experience


93

management requirements. In addition, the customer experience delivery and its

specific characteristics in a service setting and in tourism has also been highlighted

(Gouthier et al., 2012; Nasution & Mavondo, 2008; Wakefield & Blodgett, 1999;

Zehrer, 2009).

Additional theory on challenges involved in measuring customer experience have

been closer analysed. Some of the indicated difficulties include the consideration of

context specific aspects (Palmer, 2010; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2003), the in-

volvement of sufficient time before and after the service delivery (Berry et al., 2002;

Maklan & Klaus, 2011; Payne et al., 2008) as well as no commitment for measure-

ment at all (Shaw & Ivens, 2002). Furthermore, the customer touch point analysis

was described as one of the main tools for measuring customer experience (Bruhn

& Hadwich, 2012; Meyer & Schwager, 2007; Payne et al., 2008). In addition to that,

reference was made to another measurement instrument, namely the experience

map developed by Molina (2012, p. 38). Lastly, the need for a multidimensional ap-

proach including customers’ thoughts, feelings and behaviours related to a com-

pany’s product or service was thoroughly discussed. Consequently, creative possi-

ble measurement tools were suggested by a variety of researchers (Coulter & Zalt-

man, 1995; Guillemin, 2004; Klaus, 2015; Mason, 2006; Prosser, 2011).

Concluding the theoretical framework, a detailed overview of the industry of busi-

ness tourism was outlined. More specifically, the terminology of congress tourism

has been discussed and the responsibilities as well as the sphere of influence of

congress organisers have been defined (Rogers, 2003, pp. 16-17). This section at-

tached greater importance to attendees, their attendance motivation (Jago & Deery,

2005; Mair, 2014; Mair & Thompson, 2009; Yoo & Zhao, 2010; Zhang et al., 2007)

as well as their evaluation of a business event (Breiter & Milman, 2006; Mair, 2014).

Additionally, a short insight was given into the technological change of the confer-

ence and convention industry (Mair, 2014; Wien Tourismus, 2015).


94

The fundamental research question of this study focuses on the customer experi-

ence the HOFBURG Vienna wants to deliver. In the course of this research it was

discovered that currently no explicitly formulated customer experience exists. In-

stead, the provided customer experience is entirely based on the guiding principle

“Geht nicht gibt’s nicht!”. An unpredicted finding of this study is that employees of

different departments clearly would like to transfer diverse feelings by means of cus-

tomer experience delivery. Indeed, employees of the technical department focus on

feelings of security, familiarity, keeping calm as well as the delivery of the feeling of

being in safe hands. Contrary, employees of the administrative, managerial depart-

ment rather concentrate on the slightly vague aim of understanding, fulfilling and

surpassing customers’ needs. In addition, giving the customer the feeling of “being

a special guest that is enjoying a premium product in a luxurious surrounding” was

identified as a more concrete sensation they would like to deliver. Additionally, this

study has found that employees of the congress venue have a significant impact on

the customer experience that is delivered. The results of this study demonstrated

that personal interactions with customers including giving professional advice as

well as actively reacting to problems significantly contribute to the customer experi-

ence the HOFBURG Vienna is delivering.

Surprisingly, the evidence from this study suggests that employees are also very

precise about the aspects they definitely do not want to deliver. The main factors

they try to avoid are transferring the feeling of not being welcome, missing soft skills

of people involved in the customer experience as well as lack of personal customer

service. Besides that, it was found out that the customer experience the HOFBURG

Vienna is delivering does not only strongly depend on internal factors but to a great

extend also on external suppliers. Although the HOFBURG Vienna would like to

deliver one uniform outstanding customer experience, it was detected that working

together with external partners inevitably results in deviations of quality of the deliv-

ered customer experience.

Another major finding of this study is that the HOFBURG Vienna is clearly delivering

two different customer experiences at the same event. Indeed, one is delivered on

a B2B level to the agency or any other intermediary responsible for the organisation

of the business event. However, equally important is the B2C customer experience


95

transferred to the end customer, the congress attendees. Here, the results of the

investigation show that the customer experience the HOFBURG Vienna is delivering

on a B2B level is more of a professional character, requires less administrative cor-

respondence, involves less emotional aspects and is consequently simply easier to

deliver. Opposite to this, any customer experience delivered to congress partici-

pants on a B2C level is intentionally built on the historical background the venue has

to offer and consequently, includes much more planned emotions. In addition, more

organisational assistance on site is required.

With reference to the second research question, the customer experience congress

attendees are actually undergoing at a congress at the HOFBURG Vienna, was

investigated in detail. One of the more significant findings to emerge from this study

is that the measurement of individual customer experiences of congress attendees

is relatively difficult. It was shown that asking attendees to take pictures of their per-

sonal customer experience sometimes resulted in an uncomfortable situation of ten-

sion for the potential participant. It is important to mention that some participants

simply did not want to share such personal information with the researcher.

Nonetheless, the participants’ customer experience seems to focus in particular on

the aspect of the congress’ content. Surprisingly, the intangible element was photo-

graphed most frequently by the participants. Information on speaker, topic and level

of usability of the content was outlined repeatedly in the accompanying photo dia-

ries.

In addition to the content of the congress, external suppliers, specifically the catering

partner plays an important role. Following the findings of this study, the participants’

customer experiences strongly depend on the quality of the available food. Even if

it was neither praised, nor criticised it was at least photographed and mentioned in

the photo diary in a neutral way. Here, no differences between males and females

could have been detected, as the availability of tasty food is obviously equally im-

portant to both gender. However, it needs to be mentioned that in this specific mat-

ter, attendees cannot differentiate between services offered by the HOFBURG Vi-

enna and by external partners. The congress participants’ customer experience is

rather undergone as a self-contained unit instead of a collection of individual service


96

experiences. This finding perfectly demonstrates the dependency of the HOFBURG

Vienna on external suppliers and at the same time reveals the high risks involved in

such a close cooperation.

Furthermore, this study has shown that social aspects, including networking and

getting to know new business contacts are one of the most important elements of a

congress participant’s customer experience. Indeed, participants enthusiastically il-

lustrated their interactions with other colleagues, friends as well as working staff on

site by means of their taken pictures. It was also shown that all different kinds of

social aspects positively contributed to their personal customer experience.

Not surprising is the finding that physical elements also strongly contribute to a con-

gress participant’s customer experience at the HOFBURG Vienna. However, con-

trary to the assumption that the well-known historical “Festsaal” will be the most

frequently illustrated room of the venue, surprisingly, the “Dachfoyer” impressed the

participants even more. As not only the physical elements were analysed, but rather

also the emotions these aspects evoked in the congress attendees, here the atten-

tion needs to be drawn towards the feelings of astonishment and excitement. None-

theless, in contrast to the modern “Dachfoyer”, a multitude of photographs were also

taken of wall paintings, ceiling paintings, luxurious chandeliers and other artistic el-

ements arising the emotion of cultural enthusiasm. In addition to that, this study has

demonstrated that the “Grand Staircase” doubtlessly can be seen as an extremely

positive metaphor of the beginning of a business event taking place at the

HOFBURG Vienna. Interestingly, here emotions of pride and anticipation could have

been detected.

Furthermore, enormously contradicting opinions could have been detected with re-

gards to the technical aspects of the customer experience. Some congress at-

tendees highlighted the inappropriate combination of old and new elements,

whereas others expressed their enthusiasm for the extremely modern equipment.

Regarding the determination of the edges of the customer experience of congress

participants at the HOFBURG Vienna, the findings of this study demonstrate that

the experience is definitely not limited to the interior of the congress venue. Indeed,


97

pictures have also been taken from the outside of the congress location and conse-

quently, the participants’ customer experience go beyond the venue’s physical bor-

ders.

Turning to the next research question dealing with typical needs of congress partic-

ipants the following points emerged from the present investigation:

Clearly, the results of this study have shown that whenever attending a congress,

the content of the business event is the most decisive factor for the participants.

Without doubt, satisfying the need for new knowledge and the transfer of current

trends is of highest priority. However, also the relevance of delicious food is sup-

ported by current findings. Following the results, during a congress, physiological

needs such as food seem to be almost equally important as the need for cognitive

challenges.

Further, it could have been found out that congress attendees of these times make

high demands with reference to technically advanced equipment. In this context, a

certain standard is even taken for granted. In addition, due to the congress partici-

pants’ daily use all different types of the new media, participants expect highly

meaningful, easily accessible as well as helpful information on the business event

and also the location on the Internet, prior to their participation.

Today’s congress participants highly request flexible event structures as well as rel-

atively short and self-contained conference lectures that allow attendees to join as

well as to leave an event according to his or her personal preferences. With further

reference to the attendance of such business events, congress attendees jaunty ask

for an unformal, more casual dress code.

According to the findings outlined above, it is clear that customers definitely require

enough time scheduled for networking. The social need for interactions, conversa-

tions and knowledge exchange seems to be of major importance for congress par-

ticipants. Clearly, due to today’s enormously stressful daily work routines, congress

participants are constantly striving for the next scheduled break full of hope of new

promising business acquaintances. Indeed, because of the fact that most of today’s


98

conversations happen in written form, congress participants enjoy assuaging their

thirst for social interactions at any congress taking place at the HOFBURG Vienna.

The last research question focuses on potential steps that may be undertaken by

the HOFBURG Vienna with the aim of satisfying their congress attendees’ needs.

In the course of this research it was discovered that in fact some needs may possibly

be fulfilled by taking the right actions. However, other needs entirely rely on factors

that are beyond the scope of influence of the HOFBURG Vienna.

Concentrating for example on the attendees’ need for new knowledge and the trans-

fer of current trends, the HOFBURG Vienna is entirely dependent on any intermedi-

ary that is responsible for the organisation and definition of all content transferred in

the course of the business event. Specifically focusing on the participants’ need for

a flexible event structure and self-contained conference lectures, the congress

venue HOFBURG Vienna has absolutely no influence on the event program but can

rather only make recommendations based on the findings of this research.

As another finding of this study revealed that congress participants expect highly

meaningful and easily accessible information on the business event and also the

location on the Internet prior to their participation, the HOFBURG Vienna may

strengthen its online presence. This may be done in order to reach, inform and

possibly even influence their potential congress participants before their actual

congress attendance. This result may further encourage the management team of

the congress venue to invest more effort and money in online marketing activities.

More specifically, this may include a continuous use of search engine advertising,

for instance GoogleAdwords and paid listings as well as search engine marketing

and search engine optimization. As suggested by some of the employees

interviewed, a social media expert may be hired in order to professionally and

appropraitely respond to the current marketing trend and to keep potential

organisers as well as end customers informed about the congress venue on a

continuous basis.

In response to the high demands of today’s congress attendees regarding techni-

cally advanced equipment, the involvement of a technician right from the start of the

event planning phase may be highly recommended. It has been found out that the


99

presence of a technician during site inspections is extremely helpful by offering ad-

ditional technical possibilities to fulfil the high standards of their congress partici-

pants’ needs.

Turning to the attendees’ need for networking, the HOFBURG Vienna may only

have a restricted influence on all social interactions that occur during the event.

However, the congress venue may always try to provide the ideal atmosphere to

stimulate networking and socialising. Concerning the time intentionally scheduled

for networking, the HOFBURG Vienna entirely depends on the congress organiser’s

provisions but may use the results of this study to give guiding recommendations.

8.2 Practical Implications

In the following section further practical implications of the findings of the study are

presented:

The finding that the customer experience of the HOFBURG Vienna is mainly based

on the guiding principle “Geht nicht, gibt’s nicht” unambiguously demonstrates that

a clear, precise definition is missing. In order to avoid individual interpretations of

the guiding principle, a well-defined customer experience should be prepared. As

this basic principle is deeply anchored in several employees, it should definitely be

kept as a basis also in the future. However, a closer description, practical processes,

tactics and tools based on the prevalent values may be provided in addition. There-

fore, a customer experience strategy should be developed, written down and made

public to all people of the organisation. The content of the customer strategy may

be developed by a dedicated team consisting of the managing director as well as all

head of the departments. The head of the marketing department, Ms. Scheinost for

instance may not only represent the group but may also be responsible to compose

the customer experience strategy. The content of the strategy may derive from eval-

uating and analysing the findings of this study. This may be especially helpful for

new employees becoming part of the HOFBURG Vienna’s team.

The findings related to the current measurement technique of the HOFBURG Vi-

enna might easily be used to slightly change the questionnaire that is send to all


100

B2B clients. By using the information obtained through the study, any confusions

concerning external and internal services should be avoided in the future. Conse-

quently, this would definitely lead to a reduced distortion of the results. Furthermore,

another adapted version of the feedback questionnaire may be developed for the

end customer such as the congress attendee, as the measurement of their customer

experience seems to be disregarded at the moment. Here, aspects relevant for any

B2B partner may be excluded and a stronger focus is put on the end customers’

view. What is more, questions asked may be formulated more costumer friendly and

easy to understand. Potential questions to ask may be: How would you like us to

behave? How well are we doing? What works well? What would make your experi-

ence outstanding? Here, no differentiation between internal and external service

providers is given, as this differentiation may not be understood by end customers.

These feedback questionnaires may be handed over to the congress attendees dur-

ing any coffee break or lunch time by the intern of the HOFBURG Vienna. Working

with two versions of the feedback questionnaire may lead to much more accurate

results. In addition, this would lead to the fact that employees may also see their

services from their end customer’s point of view. As a consequence of this, employ-

ees of the HOFBURG Vienna may understand the exact causes of the current per-

formance.

In addition, the results have shown that communicating especially also positive re-

sults of the questionnaire to all employees involved in an event, would highly be

appreciated by all persons concerned. Providing positive feedback more frequently

would make employees feel proud on a continuous basis, resulting in an increased

motivation to deliver outstanding customer experience. Consequently, spreading

positive results may be used as an effective motivational method. Further, small

incentives and rewards, not necessarily of monetary nature, may be introduced to

make sure that employees continuously maintain a customer-centric working style.

Focusing more on classical, above-the-line marketing activities, the marketing and

sales team of the HOFBURG Vienna may specifically make use of the most

important identified components of the customer experience including the attached

values. These aspects may be incorporated in the main means of communication

such as marketing leaflets and advertorials. Marketing material explicitly targeting


101

congress tourism may also be adapted acccording to the findings of the study. Ad-

ditionally, the same elements may be embedded in sales actions undertaken by the

HOFBURG Vienna.

The findings of this study also indicate that maintaining close cooperation with all

external suppliers is highly recommended due to their significant impact on the cus-

tomer experience the HOFBURG Vienna is delivering. In order to strengthen the

relationship, to keep them informed about the congress centre and with the aim of

showing appreciation for their work, exclusive events may be organised for suppliers

on a regular basis.

Evaluating the findings, it can be understood that, not only front-end employees but,

all employees including administrative, technical as well as managerial should be

provided with people, skill, and so called customer experience training on a regular

basis. Customer experience training is offered by a variety of consultancy compa-

nies and include defining the brand proposition, the customers’ expectations, the

desired customer experience and then continuous customer experience training

brings all of this in real life. The context of these trainings is adapted according to

the experience the company wish to deliver. Some workshops may be organised for

those who are responsible for defining and sustaining the customer experience. Fur-

ther training may be provided to team leaders only in order to give them a clear

understanding of what it means to deliver a memorable customer experience and to

emphasise their roles in enabling their team members to deliver it as well. They will

learn to align their team with the company’s customer experience strategy. Cus-

tomer experience training may also be provided to frontline employees to equip

them with skills and specific knowledge to deliver just the right customer experience.

Furthermore, it might be effective to share the findings detected in the course of this

research with the venue’s contractors who also have a vested interest in the contin-

ued success of the HOFBURG Vienna. The results may not only be helpful for des-

tination management companies who market congress centres but also to external

suppliers such as technical or catering partners. With this information, a better un-

derstanding of congress participants might be facilitated.


102

More generally speaking, the results of this study may be used for any further market

research on the topic of customer experience. Indeed, the findings of this study have

demonstrated that doing research on costumer experience should always include a

multidimensional approach and if possible even also make use of a visual method

as this will certainly lead to enlightening results.

8.3 Contribution to the Literature

What is new about the study on hand is the non-verbal research method, namely

the reflexive photography method that has been applied in the course of this re-

search. Although visual research methods are not new in the fields of anthropology,

ethnography and sociology, the use of this method in the field of tourism, definitely

leads to new contributions to the existing body of literature. The method was applied

during two congresses taking place at the HOFBURG Vienna, which resulted in new

knowledge about the advantages as well as disadvantages of reflexive photography

in historic event locations.

Due to the fact that surveys are still the most used method of doing research on

customer experience, using a non-verbal approach to find out more about an under-

gone customer experience can also be described as an innovation for the existing

body of literature. Additionally, as customer experience has predominately been in-

vestigated theoretically in the past, the empirical study that has been undertaken in

the course of this research was urgently required to add new perspectives to the

existing body of knowledge.

Although customer experience in leisure tourism has been thoroughly investigated

in the past, little research about customer experience in congress tourism has been

conducted so far. As market research seems to be lagging behind in this sector of

the tourism industry, the findings of this study definitely close existing research gaps.

Moreover, the current findings add substantially to the knowledge of demographic

characteristics, wants, needs as well as expectations of congress attendees.


103

Despite the fact that vast research exists on the differences between the character-

istics of B2B and B2C markets, the present study however, makes several notewor-

thy contributions to the comparison of customer experiences delivered and under-

gone in these two settings. The study has gone some way towards enhancing the

understanding of the same customer experience in two different surroundings. As

studies dealing with customer experience in a B2B context scarcely exist so far, the

findings doubtlessly fill another existing research gap.

In the past, research on customer experience has predominately been conducted

either from the customer’s or from the service provider’s perspective. However, as

this research took both viewpoints into account, a contribution to the current litera-

ture has been made.

8.4 Limitation of the Research

Qualitative research methods such as expert interviews as well as reflexive photog-

raphy do not allow generalisation of the results. Specifically focusing on the reflexive

photography method, findings were obtained only from some subjects of the entire

population. As a consequence of this, it needs to be outlined that the findings are

definitely not universally valid and cannot be used for assumptions beyond the

scope of the group of subjects participated in the study (Veal, 2011, p. 251).

Generally, qualitative methods are merely subject to the researcher’s interpretation.

However, special focus should be drawn on the analysis of the photographs pro-

duced in the course of this research. Despite all descriptions and notes given in the

photo journals, the interpretation of the data relies entirely on the researcher’s un-

derstanding. Whenever no clear indications were given, the interpretation is even

more subject to the researcher’s personal perspective. In conclusion, all results re-

lated to the analysis of the photographs taken in the course of this research are

subject to the researcher’s personal biases.

Another limitation related to the research method of reflexive photography are the

practical constraints connected to the use of disposable cameras. Indeed, this paper

cannot provide a comprehensive review of all pictures taken by the participants. The


104

reader should bear in mind that this study is solely based on those pictures that

could have been developed. In fact, a considerable part of the taken pictures could

not have been developed due to their relatively low quality. The use of disposable

cameras in historic event locations such as the HOFBURG Vienna, unfortunately

lead to a high amount of fairly dark pictures. What is more, the costs connected to

the research method of using disposable cameras may also be considered as an-

other limitation of the study.

Due to the fact that the term “customer experience” is relatively new in the German

speaking literature (Gouthier et al., 2012, p. 66), significant confusions arose when

directly asking the employees to describe the customer experience the HOFBURG

Vienna is transferring. Consequently, German translations were used, despite the

fact that “Erlebnis” as well as “Erfahrung” have confusingly diversified meanings of

the term “experience” (Helkkula, 2011, p. 369).

Palmer (2010, p. 203) drew the attention to the fact that in order to measure the

long-term effect of customer experience further research may be undertaken after a

specific period of time. Nonetheless, the author also mentions that even this ap-

proach may not fully cover the non-linearity of customer experience over time. Due

to time restrictions contacting the congress participants sometime after the event

has been taken place was not possible.

As this study concentrates only on the HOFBURG Vienna as a congress location,

the results may not be generalizable to any other congress centre. It may not be

appropriate to universalise the results to other locations as two different venues can

never transfer the same customer experience. Consequently, the results are rather

limited to the congress venue HOFBURG Vienna. All findings need to be interpreted

with caution and should only be considered as tentative unless they are tested in

other settings as well.

Another potential problem connected to the number of congresses involved in the

study is that congress organisers still consider empirical research undertaken during

an event as a potential risk. Indeed, several congress organisers strictly opposed

the implementation of a scientific study. Consequently, the reader should bear in


105

mind that the study is based solely on two congresses due to unforeseen rejections

on the part of other congress organisers.

On grounds of the fact that the HOFBURG Vienna is working with a variety of B2B

customers, employees often did not refer to the end customer, the congress partic-

ipants but rather to intermediaries instead when answering the researcher’s ques-

tions. Consequently, a constant clarification was required.

8.5 Further Research

Potential fields for further research on the topic of customer experience in congress

tourism are diverse. Some of the following recommendations may be extremely fruit-

ful avenues for further research.

As this research has thrown up many questions in need of further investigation, ad-

ditional work needs to be done to establish whether these results are also true for

congress participants of other congress venues. Consequently, further experimental

investigations making use of the same research method are needed to estimate the

validity of the results. The reflexive photography method including photo journaling

used for the research on hand may also help other congress venues in Vienna to

find out more about their congress attendees’ customer experience. Results and

comparisons may show which aspects of the undergone customer experience are

specifically related to the individual congress venue and consequently, lie within

their sphere of influence.

Conducting additional research with participants of different nationalities would

show whether the delivery of the same customer experience would lead to different

outcomes. This would be of high importance for the HOFBURG Vienna as their cus-

tomer base consists of a variety of nationalities. Indeed, the resulting information

would be very helpful in order to be able to accordingly adapt the customer experi-

ence they are delivering. As a consequence of this, taking corresponding, culture-

specific adaption measures may lead to a highly satisfying customer experience

management. In addition, increasing the number of participants of the reflexive pho-

tography method would likewise increase the generalizability of the results.


106

With reference to the research method of the reflexive photography, further research

might explore its feasibility with more modern devices, such as tablets or

smartphones.

In addition, further research regarding the role of external suppliers and partners

would be of great help in understanding also their points of view. Here, a specific

focus on the most important partners such as congress organisers or catering part-

ners may be laid in future research. The resulting information would help the man-

agement team of the HOFBURG Vienna to establish a greater degree of accuracy

on this matter.

Further research on the measurement tool in use, the questionnaire would be highly

interesting. Further research should therefore concentrate on the investigation of

the efficiency, validity as well as the evaluation of the questionnaire. In the course

of this research the questionnaire design may be closer analysed in order to find out

which questions may cause confusion or misunderstanding. In the course of this

future research, new versions of the questionnaire may be developed not only for

congress organisers but as well for congress participants. However, pre-tests may

be undertaken before introducing new questionnaires.

Contacting congress attendees sometime after the event to identify which aspects

of the customer experience stayed in mind may also lead to interesting findings and

would capture the long term effect of the service delivery as well.

List of References

107

List of References

Accenture. (2014). B2B Customer Experience Start Playing to Win and Stop Playing

Not to Lose. Retrieved June 25th, 2015, from www.accenture.com:

https://www.accenture.com/lv-en/~/media/Accenture/Conversion-

Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Strategy_6/Accenture-B2B-

Customer-Experience-Start-Playing-Win-Stop-Playing-Not-

Lose.pdf#zoom=50.

Aguinis, H., & Henle, C. A. (2002). Ethics in Research. In S. G. Rogelberg (Ed.),

Handbook of Research Methods in Industrial and Organizational Psychology

(pp. 34-56). Oxford: Blackwell.

Badgett, M., Moyce, M., & Kleinberger, H. (2007). Turning Shoppers into Advocates.

New York: IBM Institute for Business Value.

Bagnoli, A. (2009). Beyond the Standard Interview: The Use of Elicitation and Arts-

Based Methods. Qualitative Research, 9(5), pp. 547-70.

Berry, L. L. (1986). Big Ideas in Service Marketing. Journal of Services Marketing,

1(1), pp. 5-9.

Berry, L. L., Carbone, L. P., & Haeckel, S. H. (2002). Managing the Total Customer

Experience. MIT Sloan Management Review, 43(3), pp. 85-9.

Block, M. P., & Block, T. S. (2005). Business-To-Business Marketing Research (2nd

ed.). Mason: Thomson.

Breiter, D., & Milman, A. (2006). Attendee's Needs and Service Priorities in a large

Convention Center: Application of the Importance-Performance Theory.

Tourism Management, 27(6), pp. 1364-1370.

Bruhn, M., & Hadwich, K. (2012). Grundlagen und Forschungsstand des Customer

Experience Management. In M. Bruhn, & K. Hadwich (Eds.), Customer

Experience. Forum Dienstleistungsmanagement (pp. 3-37). Wiesbaden:

Springer.

List of References

108

Buhalis, D., & Law, R. (2008). Progress in Information Technology and Tourism

Management: 20 Years on and 10 Years After the Internet - The State of

eTourism Research. Tourism Management, 29(4), pp. 609-23.

Carù, A., & Cova, B. (2008). Small Versus Big Stories in Framing Consumption

Experiences. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 11(2),

pp. 166-76.

Cassell, C. (2015). Conducting Research Interviews for Business and Management

Students. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

Collins, H. (2010). Creative Research. Lausanne: AVA .

Coulter, R. H., & Zaltman, G. (1995). Seeing the Voice of the Customer: Metaphor-

based Advertising Research. Journal of Advertising Research, 35(4), pp. 35-

51.

Davidson, R. (2003). Adding Pleasure to Business: Conventions and Tourism.

Journal of Conventions & Exhibition Management, 5(1), pp. 29-39.

DiJulius, J. R. (2011). What's the Secret To Providing a World-Class Customer

Experience. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

Dixon, M., Freeman, K., & Toman, N. (2010). Stop Trying to Delight Your

Customers. Harvard Business Review, 88(7/8), pp. 116-22.

Eisner, E. (2008). Art and Knowledge. In J. G. Knowles, & A. L. Cole (Eds.),

Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies,

Examples and Issues (pp. 3-12). London: Sage.

Flick, U. (2009). An Introduction to Qualitative Research (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks:

Sage.

Frith, H., Riley, S., Archer, L., & Gleeson, K. (2005). Imag (in) ing Visual

Methodologies. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2(3), pp. 187-98.

Gentile, C., Spiller, N., & Noci, G. (2007). How to Sustain the Customer Experience:

An Overview if Experience Components that Co-Create Value With the

Customer. European Management Journal, 25(5), pp. 395-410.

List of References

109

Getz, D. (2008). Event Tourism: Definition, Evolution, and Research. Tourism

Management, 29(3), pp. 403-28.

Gopalan, R., & Narayan, B. (2010). Improving Customer Experience in Tourism: A

framework for Stakeholder Collaboration. Socio-Economic Planning

Sciences, 44(2), pp. 110-12.

Gouthier, M., Giese, A., & Bartl, C. (2012). Customer Experience,

Kundenbegeisterung und Service Excellece - Die Spezifikation DIN SPEC

77224. In M. Bruhn, & K. Hadwich (Eds.), Customer Experience. Forum

Dienstleistungsmanagement (pp. 63-83). Wiesbaden: Springer.

Grewal, D., Levy, M., & Kumar, V. (2009). Customer Experience Management in

Retailing: An Organizing Framework. Journal of Retailing, 85(1), pp. 1-14.

Grove, S. J., & Fisk, R. P. (1997). The Impact of Other Customers on Service

Experiences - A Critical Incident Examination of "Getting Along". Journal of

Retailing, 73(1), pp. 63-88.

Guillemin, M. (2004). Understanding Illness. Using Drawings as a Research

Method. Qualitative Health Research, 14(2), pp. 272-89.

Harper, D. (2002). Talking About Pictures: A Case For Photo-Elicitation. Visual

Studies, 17(1), pp. 13-26.

Harrington, C., & Lindy, I. (1998). The Use of Reflexive Photography in the Study of

the Freshman Year Experience. Annual Conference of Indiana Association

for Institutional Research.

Harris, P. (2007). We the People: The Importance of Employees in the Process of

Building Customer Experience. Journal of Brand Management, 15(2), pp.

102-14.

Hauk, J., & Schulz, C. (2012). Customer Experience Management für

Telekommunikationsunternehmen. In M. Bruhn, & K. Hadwich (Eds.),

Customer Experience. Forum Dienstleistungsmanagement (pp. 385-405).

Wiesbaden: Springer.

List of References

110

Helkkula, A. (2011). Characterising the Concept of Service Experience. Journal of

Service Management, 22(3), pp. 367-89.

Hennink, M., Hutter, I., & Bailey, A. (2011). Qualitative Research Methods. London:

SAGE Publications.

Hirschman, E. C., & Holbrook, M. B. (1982). Hedonic Consumption: Emerging

Concepts, Methods and Proposition. Journal of Marketing, pp. 92-101.

Hollyoake, M. (2009). The Four Pillars: Developing a "Bonded" Business-to-

Business Customer Experience. Journal of Database Marketing & Customer

Stragegy Management, 16(2), pp. 132-58.

Jago, L. K., & Deery, M. (2005). Relationships and Factors Influencing Convention

Decision Making. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 7(1), pp. 23-41.

Jenkings , N. K., Woodward, R., & Winter, T. (2008). The Emergent Production of

Analysis in Photo Elicitation: Pictures of Military Identity. Forum: Qualitative

Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 9(3).

Johnston, R., & Kong, X. (2011). The Customer Experience: A Road-Map for

Improvement. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 21(1), pp.

5-24.

Kaiser, R. (2014). Qualitative Experteninterviews. Konzeptionelle Grundlagen und

Praktische Durchführung. Wiesbaden: Springer.

Kamaladevi, B. (2010). Customer Experience Management in Retailing. Business

Intelligence Journal, 3(1), pp. 37-54.

King, N., & Horrocks, C. (2010). Interviews in Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks:

SAGE.

Klaus, P. (2015). Measuring Customer Experience. How to Develop and Execute

the Most Profitable Customer Experience Strategies. Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan.

Kruse, J. (2015). Qualitative Interviewforschung. Ein Integrativer Ansatz (2nd ed.).

Weinheim: Beltz Juventa.

List of References

111

Leach, M. P., Liu, A. H., & Winsor, R. D. (2008). The Impact of Attitudes, Word-Of-

Mouth, and Value Congruence on Conference Participation: A Comparison

of Attending and Non-Attending Organizational Members. Journal of

Hospitality & Leisure Marketing, 16(3), pp. 246-69.

Lee, J. S., & Back, K. J. (2008). Attendee-Based Brand Equity. Tourism

Management, 29(2), pp. 331-44.

Lee, M. J., & Back, K. J. (2005). A Review of Economic Value Drivers in Convention

and Meeting Management Research. International Journal of Contemporary

Hospitality Management, 17(5), pp. 409-20.

Lemke, F., Clark, M., & Wilson, H. (2006). What Makes a Great Customer

Experience? Hemley Center for Customer Management.

Lemke, F., Clark, M., & Wilson, H. (2011). Customer Experience Quality: An

Exploration in Business an Consumer Contexts Using Repertory Grid

Technique. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences, 39(6), pp. 846-

69.

Macmillan Dictionary. (2016). Experience. Retrieved September 30th, 2016, from

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/experience_1.

Mair, J. (2014). Conferences an Conventions: A Research Perspective. New York:

Routledge.

Mair, J., & Thompson, K. (2009). The UK Association Conference Attendance

Decision-Making Process. Tourism Management, 30(3), pp. 400-9.

Maklan, S., & Klaus, P. (2011). Customer Experience: Are we Measuring the Right

Things. International Journal of Market Research, 53(6), pp. 771-92.

Mason, J. (2006). Mixing Methods in a Qualitatively Driven Way. Qualitative

Research, 6(9), pp. 9-25.

Mason, J., & Davies, K. (2009). Coming to Our Senses? A Critical Approach to

Sensory Methodology. Qualitative Research, 9(5), pp. 587-603.

List of References

112

Matteucci, X. (2012). Photo Elicitation: Exploring Tourist Experiences with

Researcher Found Images. Tourism Management, 35, pp. 190-7.

Mayring, P. (2007). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse, Grundlagen und Techniken (9th ed.).

Weinheim: Beltz.

Merriam-Webster. (2015). Experience. Retrieved September 30, 2015, from

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/experience.

Meuser, M., & Nagel, U. (2005). ExpertInneninterviews - vielfach erprobt, wenig

bedacht. Ein Beitrag zur qualitativen Methodendiskussion. In A. Bogner, B.

Littig, & W. Menz (Eds.), Experteninterview (2nd ed., pp. 71-95). Opladen:

Leske & Budrich.

Meyer, C., & Schwager, A. (2007). Understanding Customer Experience. Harvard

Business Review, 85(2), pp. 116-26.

Molina, C. (2012). How to Measure Customer Experience. In E. Alfaro, J. Velilla, H.

Brunetta, B. Navarro, C. Molina, L. Martinez-Ribes, . . . B. Muñoz (Eds.),

Customer Experience: A Multidimensional Vision of Experiential Marketing

(pp. 36-46). Spain: CEMbook.

Mosley, R. W. (2007). Customer Experience, Organisational Culture and the

Employer Brand. Journal of Brand Management, 15(2), pp. 123-34.

Naseem, A., Sheikh, S., & Malik, K. (2011). Impact of Employee Satisfaction on

Success of Organization: Relation Between Customer Experience and

Employee Satisfaction. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Sciences

and Engineering, 2(5), pp. 41-6.

Nasution, H. N., & Mavondo, F. T. (2008). Customer Value in the Hotel Industry:

What Managers Believe they Deliver and What Customer Experience.

International Journal of Hospitality Management, 27(2), pp. 204-13.

Navarro, B. (2012). The Role of Employees in Customer Experience. In E. Alfaro, J.

Velilla, H. Brunetta, B. Navarro, C. Molina, L. Martinez-Ribes, . . . B. Muñoz

(Eds.), Customer Experience: A Multidimensional Vision of Experiential

Marketing (pp. 47-53). Spain: CEMbook.

List of References

113

Neuman, W. L. (1997). Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative

Approaches (3rd ed.). Needham Height: Allyn and Bacon.

Oh, H., Fiore, A., & Jeoung, M. (2007). Measuring Experience Economy Concepts:

Tourism Applications. Journal of Travel Research, 46(2), pp. 119-32.

Oppermann, M., & Chon, K. S. (1997). Convention Participation Decision-Making

Process. Annals of Tourism Research, 24(1), pp. 178-91.

Palmer, A. (2010). Customer Experience Management: A Critical Review of an

Emerging Idea. Journal of Services Marketing, 24(3), pp. 196-208.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A Conceptual Model of

Service Quality and its Implications for Future Research. Journal of

Marketing, 49(4), pp. 41-50.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1988). SERVQUAL: A Multiple-

Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality. Journal

of Retailing, 64(1), pp. 12–40.

Pauwels, L. (2011). An Integrated Conceptual Framework for Visual Social

Research. In E. Margolis, & L. Pauwels (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of

Visual Research (pp. 3-23). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Payne, A., Storbacka, K., & Frow, P. (2008). Managing the Co-Creation of Value.

Journal of the Acadmey of Marketing Science, 36(1), pp. 83-96.

Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1998). Welcome to the Experience Economy. Havard

Business Review, 76, pp. 97-105.

Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (2011). The Experience Economy. Boston: Havard

Business Press.

Pink, S. (2015). Doing Sensory Ethnography (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Prahalad, C. K., & Ramaswamy, V. (2003). The New Frontier of Experience

Innovation. Sloan Management Review, pp. 13-18.

List of References

114

Prosser, J. (2011). Visual Methodology: Toward a More Seeing Research. In I.

Denzin, & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research

(pp. 479-95). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Pullman, M., & Robson, S. (2007). Visual Methods: Using Photographs to Capture

Customer's Experience with Design. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant

Administration Quaterly, 48(2), pp. 121-44.

Quan, S., & Wang, N. (2004). Towards a Structural Model of the Tourist Experience:

An Illustration from Food Experiences in Tourism. Tourism Management,

25(3), pp. 297-305.

Radley, A., & Taylor, D. (2003). Images of Recovery: A Photo-Elicitation Study on

the Hospital Ward. Qualitative Health Research, 13(1), pp. 77-99.

Rageh, A., Melewar, T. C., & Woodside, A. (2013). Using netnography research

method to reveal the underlying dimensions of the customer/tourist

experience. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 16(2), pp.

126-49.

Rakic, T., & Chambers, D. (2010). Innovative Techniques in Tourism Research: An

Exploration of Visual Methods and Academic Filmmaking. International

Journal of Tourism Research, 12, pp. 379-89.

Ramirez, D., Laing, J., & Mair, J. (2013). Exploring Intentions to Attend a

Convention: A Gender Perspective. Event Management, 17, pp. 165-78.

Rawson, A., Duncan, E., & Jones, C. (2013). The Truth about Customer Experience.

Harvard Business Review, 91(9), pp. 90-8.

Ritchie, J. R., & Hudson, S. (2009). Understanding and meeting the challenges of

consumer/tourist experience research. International Journal of Tourism

Research, 11(2), pp. 111-26.

Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., Nicholls, C. M., & Ormston, R. (2013). Qualitative Research

Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers (2nd ed.).

London: Sage.

List of References

115

Rogers, T. (2003). Conferences and Conventions. Global Industry. Oxford:

Butterworth- Heinemann.

Schmitt, B. (2003). Customer Experience Management. A Revolutionary Approach

to Connecting with Your Customer. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons.

Schulze, S. (2007). The Usefulness of Reflexive Photography for Qualitative

Research. A Case Study in Higher Education. Sharriouth African Journal of

Higher Education, 21(5), pp. 536-53.

Schwartz, D. (2007). If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, Why Are You Reading

this Essay? Social Psychology Quarterly, pp. 319-21.

Severt, D., Wang, Y., Chen, P. J., & Breiter, D. (2007). Examining the Motivation,

Perceived Performance, and Behavioural Intentions of Convention

Attendees: Evidence from a Regional Conference. Tourism Management,

28(2), pp. 399-408.

Severt, K., Fjelstul, J., & Breiter, D. (2009). A Comparison of Motivators and

Inhibitors for Association Meeting Attendance for Three Generational

Cohorts. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 10(2), pp. 105-19.

Shaw, C., & Ivens, J. (2002). Building Great Customer Experiences. New York:

Palgrave Macmillan.

Spencer, S. (2011). Visual Research Methods in the Social Sciences. Awakening

Visions. New York: Routledge.

Sultana, N. (2008). Achieving Customer Satisfaction through Customer Experience.

CMRD Journal of Management Research, 7(1), pp. 59-63.

Veal, A. J. (2011). Research Methods for Leisure & Tourism. A practical Guide.

Harlow: Prentice Hall.

Verhoef, P. C., Lemon, K. N., Parasuraman, A., Roggeveen, A., Tsiros, M., &

Schlesinger, L. A. (2009). Customer Experience Creation: Determinants,

Dynamis and Management Strrategies. Journal of Retailing, 85(1), pp. 31-

41.

List of References

116

Voeth, M., & Loos, J. (2012). Customer Experience Management bei B2B-Services-

Besonderheiten und Erfolgsfaktoren. In M. Bruhn, & K. Hadwich (Eds.),

Customer Experience. Forum Dienstleistungsmanagement (pp. 369-84).

Wiesbaden: Springer.

Wakefield, K. L., & Blodgett, J. G. (1999). Customer Response to Intangible and

Tangible Service Factors. Psychology & Marketing, 1, pp. 51-68.

Walls, A. R., Okumus, F., Wang, Y. R., & Kwun, D. (2011). An Epistemological View

of Consumer Experiences. International Journal of Hospitality Management,

30(1), pp. 10-21.

Warren, S. (2008). Empirical Challenges in organizational Aesthetics Research:

Towards a Sensual Methodology. Organization Studies, 29(4), pp. 559-80.

Wien Tourismus. (2015). Tourismus Strategie 2020. Retrieved September 24th,

2015, from http://www.tourismusstrategie2020.wien.info/downloads/WT-

Tourismusstrategie-2020.pdf.

Wiles, R., Clark, A., & Prosser, J. (2011). Visual Research Ethics at the Crossroads.

In E. Margolis, & L. Pauwels (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Visual Research

Methods (pp. 685-706). Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

Witt, S. F., Sykes, A. M., & Dartus, M. (1995). Forecasting International Conference

Attendance. Tourism Management, 16(8), pp. 559-70.

Yoo, J. J., & Zhao, X. (2010). Revisiting Determinants of Convention Participation

Decision Making. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 27(2), pp. 179-92.

Zehrer, A. (2009). Service Experience and Service Design: Concepts and

Application in Tourism SMEs. Managing Service Quality: An International

Journal, 19(3), pp. 332-49.

Zhang, H. Q., Leung, V., & Qu, H. (2007). A Refined Model of Factors Affecting

Convention Participation Decision-Making. Tourism Management, 28(4), pp.

1123-27.

List of References

117

Zomerdijk, L. G., & Voss, C. A. (2010). Service Design for Customer-Centric

Services. Journal of Service Research, 13(1), pp. 67-82.

ANNEX

118

Annex

Annex 1 Coding Tree ......................................................................................... 119

Annex 2 Expert Interview Guideline ................................................................... 120

Annex 3 Photo Diary .......................................................................................... 124

Annex 4 Coding Photographs ............................................................................ 128

Annex 5 Coding Photo Journals ......................................................................... 129

ANNEX

119

Annex 1 Coding Tree

Customer Experience

HOFBURG Vienna

Feelings Delivered, Senses Attracted

Employees

External Suppliers

B2B and B2C Customer

ExperienceMeasurement of

Customer Experience

Congress Participants of the HOFBURG Vienna

Participants' Informaton

Procurement

Gender

Age

Expectations

Congress Participants' Customer

Experience

Congress Content

Catering

Networking and other Social

Aspects

Opportunity Cost

Physical Elements

Congress Location Vienna

ANNEX

120

Annex 2 Expert Interview Guideline

Interview Leitfaden

“Understanding Customer Experience in Congress Tourism

- A Roadmap to Success?

An Analysis of Congress Participants on the example of HOFBURG Vienna”

Datum:………………………… Uhrzeit: Beginn:………………………………Ende:……………………………………... Interviewerin:……………………………………………………………………………….. Interviewte/r:………………………………………………………………………...………

Vorstellung der Moderatorin

Beschreibung des Projekts

Vorstellung und Erklärung der Forschungsmethode

Einverständniserklärung für Audioaufzeichnung

Einverständniserklärung für Verwendung der Namen

Vertrauliche Behandlung der Daten

„Warm-Up“ Fragen

Könnten Sie sich bitte kurz vorstellen und einen Einblick in Ihre bishe-

rige berufliche Erfahrung geben?

Positive Customer

Experience

Bei den folgenden Fragen geht es um Sie persönlich. Diese Fragen ste-

hen nicht in Relation mit der HOFBURG Vienna!

(Klaus, 2015; Lemke,

et al, 2006; Shaw &

Ivens, 2002)

Fällt Ihnen spontan eine Firma ein, die Sie intuitiv mit einer positiven

Customer Experience/Kundenerfahrung verbinden?

Warum war diese Erfahrung so gut? Welche Erwartungen hatten Sie?

Was macht für Sie eine gute Customer Experience/Kundenerfahung

aus?

Welche potentiellen Schwierigkeiten sehen Sie bei der Vermittlung ei-

ner Customer Experience?

Customer Experience

and Money

(Rawson et al., 2013;

Sultana, 2008)

Denken Sie, führt eine vom Unternehmen initiierte Customer Experi-

ence automatisch zu finanziellen Erfolgen?

Denken Sie, ist Customer Experience Management nur dann möglich,

wenn ausreichend Budget vorhanden ist?

Negative Customer

Experience

ANNEX

121

(Klaus, 2015; Sultana,

2008)

Was ist für Sie eine schlechte Customer Experience?

Woraus besteht eine schlechte Customer Experience?

Fallbeispiel HOF-

BURG Vienna

Wir haben jetzt sehr generell über das Thema Customer Experience

gesprochen, ich würde nun gerne speziell auf die HOFBURG Vienna

eingehen!

(Klaus, 2015) Gibt es eine solche definierte Customer Experience Strategie der HOF-

BURG Vienna?

Wenn ja: Können Sie mir die Definition der Customer Experience Stra-

tegie der HOFBURG Vienna beschreiben?

Gefühle/Sinne HOF-

BURG Vienna

(Bruhn & Hadwich,

2012; Shaw & Ivens,

2002)

Welche Rolle spielen Gefühle bei einer Veranstaltung in der HOFBURG

Vienna?

(Bruhn & Hadwich,

2012; Shaw & Ivens,

2002)

Wissen Sie welche Gefühle Ihre Firma bei den Kunden vermitteln

möchte?

(Bruhn & Hadwich,

2012)

Welche Sinne werden bei einem typischen Kongress in der HOFBURG

Vienna angesprochen? Können Sie mir Beispiele nennen?

B2B/B2C Customer

Experience

Lassen Sie uns nun mit dem Unterschied zwischen B2B und B2C

Customer Experience weitermachen!

(Accenture, 2014;

Meyer & Schwager

2007)

Wenn wir von der Customer Experience der HOFBURG Vienna spre-

chen, gibt es für Sie Unterschiede wenn Sie an Veranstaltung denken,

bei denen Ihre direkten Kunden Agenturen sind und bei solchen, wie

dem Silvesterball, bei dem Sie direkt mit dem Endkunden in Kontakt

stehen?

Was zeichnet eine B2B Customer Experience Ihrer Meinung nach aus?

Welche Aspekte der HOFBURG Vienna fallen Ihnen ein, die die Custo-

mer Experience sowohl die B2B als auch der B2C Endkunden beson-

ders beeinflussen? (Was bleibt gern in Erinnerung bzw. warum ent-

scheidet man sich für die HOFBURG?)

Messung Nun kommen wir zum nächsten Thema, welches sich mit der Messung

von Customer Experience auseinandersetzt.

(Rawson et al., 2013;

Shaw & Ivens, 2002)

Wird die vermittelte Customer Experience der HOFBURG Vienna kon-

trolliert, bzw. gemessen?

Wenn ja: Wie wird sie gemessen?

ANNEX

122

Wenn ja: Gibt es auch bestimmte Ziele, die dadurch erreicht werden

sollen?

(Meyer & Schwager,

2007; Shaw & Ivens,

2002)

Wenn nein: Wissen Sie, wieso sie nicht gemessen wird?

(Palmer, 2010) Welche Schwierigkeiten verbinden Sie mit der Messung der Customer

Experience?

Kongress/

Kongressteilnehmer

Ich würde jetzt gerne zum nächsten Thema übergehen. Dieses be-

schäftigt sich besonders mit Kongressen und deren Teilnehmern/innen.

(Rogers, 2003) Sind die Kongresse, die die HOFBURG Vienna organisiert von Jahr zu

Jahr ähnlich?

(Schmitt, 2003) Verändert sich die Customer Experience, die Sie vermitteln von Veran-

staltung zu Veranstaltung?

Wenn ja: Welche Aspekte verändern sich?

(Schmitt, 2003; Shaw

& Ivens, 2012)

Was erwartet sich Ihrer Meinung nach ein typischer Kongressteilneh-

mer von der HOFBURG Vienna?

(Clarke, 2001; Mair,

2014; Rogers, 2003)

Welche Information über die Teilnehmer ist Ihnen vor einem Kongress

bekannt?

Gibt es Aspekte, die Sie unbedingt wissen müssen?

Was ist zusätzlich noch hilfreich zu erfahren?

(Mair, 2014) Gibt es Unterschiede zwischen den Bedürfnissen von weiblichen und

männlichen Kongressteilnehmern?

Wenn ja: Welche?

Die Generation Y, die die zwischen 1970 und 1997 Geborenen invol-

viert, ist mittlerweile Teil der Geschäftswelt. Diese sind somit nun auch

Teilnehmer an Kongressen. Haben Sie bereits etwaige Veränderungen

aufgrund der Teilnehmer dieser Generation bemerkt?

Wird die HOFBURG Vienna in Zukunft besonders auf diese Generation

reagieren?

Wenn ja: Wie?

Deutscher Steuerbe-

ratertag

13. Österreichischer

IT- und Beratertag

ausschließlich für die Projektmanager Ursula Schuster; Christian

Koprolin

Bitte beschreiben Sie bitte die Grundzüge des bevorstehenden Events!

(Schmitt, 2003; Shaw

& Ivens, 2012)

Was denken Sie, erwartet sich ein typischer Teilnehmer der Veranstal-

tung des Deutscher Steuerberatertages/ des

ANNEX

123

13. Österreichischer IT- und Beratertages?

(Clarke, 2001; Mair,

2014; Rogers, 2003)

Welche Informationen über die Teilnehmer haben Sie?

Welche Customer Experience möchte die HOFBURG Vienna während

dieser Veranstaltung vermitteln?

(Shaw & Ivens, 2002;

Rawson et al., 2013)

Wird der Erfolg der Veranstaltung gemessen?

Wenn ja: Wie?

Mitarbeiter

(Klaus, 2015; Palmer,

2010; Schmitt, 2003)

Wie würden Sie den Einfluss Ihrer Arbeit auf die Customer Experience,

die die HOFBURG vermittelt, beschreiben?

Haben Sie die Möglichkeit bei Schulungen teilzunehmen, bzw. besteht

eine Möglichkeit der Weiterentwicklung?

Finden Mitarbeiter Feedback-Gespräche statt?

Wenn Sie sich an Ihrem Arbeitsplatz etwas wünschen könnten, was

wäre das?

(Klaus, 2015) Werden auch die Mitarbeiter Ihrer Lieferanten bzw. Zulieferer, über die

Customer Experience, die die HOFBURG Vienna vermitteln möchte, in-

formiert?

Leadership ausschließlich für Frau Mag. Kaszay

(Schmitt, 2003) Wie kann eine Institution, wie die HOFBURG Vienna, sichergehen, dass

alle Mitarbeiter eine bestimmte Customer Experience vermitteln?

Wird dies bereits im Rekrutierungsprozess berücksichtigt?

Gibt es sogenannte „Belohnungen“ für vorbildliches Verhalten?

Wird die Leistung der Mitarbeiter gemessen?

Marketing ausschließlich für Frau Scheinost, Frau Gurtner, Frau Schulz

(Schmitt, 2003) Wie wirkt sich die Customer Experience, die die HOFBURG Vienna ver-

mitteln möchte, auf die Marketingaktivitäten aus?

(Mair, 2014; Schmitt,

2003)

Inwiefern sind bei einer so traditionellen Location, wie der HOFBURG

Vienna Innovationen möglich?

Vielen Dank, dass Sie sich Zeit genommen haben!

ANNEX

124

Annex 3 Photo Diary

ANNEX

125

ANNEX

126

ANNEX

127

ANNEX

128

Annex 4 Coding Photographs

Table 4: Coding Photographs Deutscher Steuerberatertag


Table 5: Coding Photographs 13. Österreichischer IT/Beratertag


ANNEX

129

Annex 5 Coding Photo Journals

Table 6: Coding Photo Journals Deutscher Steuerberatertag


Table 7: Coding Photo Journals 13. Österreichischer IT/Beratertag


Master of Arts in Business (MA) · 2019-03-19 · 1.3 Data Collection and Analysis ... 3.2 Customer...

Documents

Transcript of Master of Arts in Business (MA) · 2019-03-19 · 1.3 Data Collection and Analysis ... 3.2 Customer...