Factors Influencing The Ability Of Tommy Hilfiger To Maximize Customer Value

Brief background of the report

Customer experience has become a very common and very significant phrase in the recent times. Customer experience can be the factor for the competitive advantage of the companies and this shows whether the company need to improve their approach or to encompass it (Schmitt, 2016).  Customer experience is the sum total of retail or digital experiences and interactions of the customer with the business.  It is how a customer gets engaged to the brand and gets satisfied with its service.

The assignment here presents the analysis of the factors which influence the ability of the organisation to maximise the value of the customer.  These factors are the essence which determines the engagement of the customer with the business. Also, a clear understanding will be set up of the quality processes of the company and how effective it is in meeting the requirements and needs of the customers.

The assignment is focused on an American Fashion brand, Tommy Hilfiger which was found in the year 1985.  The company started with the men fashion apparel but later on entered into women clothing, accessories, perfumes and other luxury items. The company, at present is one of the leading designer brand which is recognised internationally. It offers preppy and latest designs to its customers and is known for its breadth of collections. The brand was acquired by PVH Corp. in 2010 and since then, the brand has grown and has built a network in over 90 countries with more than 1400 stores worldwide throughput America, Asia pacific and Europe. The company made a retail sales of more than US$ 6.5 billion in 2014 (Tommy Hilfiger, 2018).

The brand believes in providing premium quality products to the customers to provide them value. That is why, it has a strong global recognition by the customers. The company runs on three principles which are the way they create their product, the way they operate and the way they connect with people and communities. This shows that company believes in delivering the best customer experience and it is successfully doing the same (Tommy Hilfiger, 2018).

Brief background of the report

The report here discusses about the quality processes at the workplace of the brand chosen and it would also analyse the customer experience of Tommy Hilfiger. It would analyse the range of factors which impact the value of the customers of Tommy. It will also showcase the activities on which the brand is focussed and aims at providing best experience to its customers. A view will be provided on meeting the requirements of the customers of the company. It will evaluate the challenges and the opportunities available with the brand to maximise its customer value.

The report will also discuss about the terms and concepts like customer value, experience, role of Customer Relationship management and relationship between the business and customers which will help in identifying the critical success factors of the brand which maximises the value of the business and its customers as a whole. Recommendations will be provided in order to provide maximum value to its customers. It will also contain the discussions about the importance of marketing tools in maximising the advantage of the brand for its customers.

What is customer experience?

Factors influencing the ability of Tommy Hilfiger to maximize the customer value.

Customer service is the term which provides an idea about the satisfaction level of the customers and by the skill of handling the customers by the business.  It is the assistance provided by the businesses to the people who use those services. It can also be understood as the act of taking care of the customers by providing high quality and timely services for meeting the requirements of the customers (Grewal, Levy and Kumar, 2009).

Customer value is another concept which shows the satisfaction or customer experience (perceived or expected one) by buying a product or service. Generally there is a difference between the perceived value by the customers by using same service or product. So, the final customer value can be calculated or derived by comparing the perceived benefits with the costs incurred.

There are many drivers of the customer value which includes products function, points of differentiation, quality of product/ service, services provided by the company, marketing efforts of the company, branding done by the company, price of the products, existing relationship or experience and personal bias towards any brand (Puccinelli, et. al., 2009).

According to Verhoef and Lemon (2013), in the recent times, organisations have started paying more attention to the customer Value management (CVM). It is done with the help of Customer centric management systems whose main aim is to maximise the customer value. The businesses aim to maximize the value of their customers by attracting them through cost reduction programs, innovative products or by alluring them through offers. A customer gets engaged with the company only when there is something with the company to provide or offer to the customer. The combination of the drivers of customer value which are discussed above heightens the customer experience and also enhances the value of the brand as a result (Verhoef, et. al., 2009).

Importance of customer value and customer service

According to Palmer (2010), the organisations can only value customers and maximise this value by timely managing the customers and their services. Executing and providing appropriate services is a challenge for the businesses. Customer value maximisation is like a utopian situation for most of the organisations but the present tools and techniques and the processes help organisations in making it happen. It is very important to maximise the customer value for the below given reasons:

To build up loyal relationship with clients: It is very important for the business to earn and gain loyalty from its customers. This is how they can expect for repeat purchases and more customer engagement. When an organisation have good relationship with its customers, it clearly reflects on its performance and earnings (Berry, Carbone and Haeckel, 2002)

For increased revenues and sales: increased customer value provides increased revenue and sales for the business. It further helps the company in establishing itself in the market or industry.

Turns non customers into the real ones: Good customer services often turns non customers or the non-interested customers into the real customers and loyal customers of the organisation. It is not necessary that all the customers who visit the store or website of the company will purchase the products or services from there but good services from the company turns them into the loyal customers of the brand (Gentile, Spiller and Noci, 2007).

Factors impacting customer value

Improves quality of products/ services: continuous provision of good services by the company helps in gaining insights about the needs and requirements of the customer and that is how they are bale to align their expectations with their services so that best suitable services can be provided.

These points clearly indicates the importance of good quality service and customer value for the organisation. It is one of the way and the most important one for maintaining good relationship between the clients and the business (Hill and Alexander, 2017).

Critical analysis of the factors which impacts the ability of Tommy Hilfiger to maximise the customer value

As it is already discussed that the customer value and services goes hand in hand and are very important for the organisations. This section will focus on the factors which influence the ability of the Tommy Hilfiger for maximising the value of its customers.  

Quality of the products

Tommy is always concerned about the quality of its products. The company is focussed on its quality and makes sustainability as its integral part. Quality is something which should never be compromised by the brand. If a company has a lousy product and if it’s sold in good numbers then it’s definitely a luck of the brand. No marketing or no PR can bring long term success for the company if quality is not maintained by it in its products. The quality of products impel the customers to choose the product over its competitors. It can be considered as the most important aspect which influence the ability of the firm to affect customer value followed by Service and cost (Kumar and Reinartz, 2016).

Wheel of Quality

This concept was given by Kenneth H. Rose which answers various questions with respect to the quality management.  This can also be understood as an advanced version of PDCA Model which helps in maintaining the required quality of the products or services of the organisation. PDA model is the Plan, Do, Check and Action model which is a quality control program for the organisations.  The wheel of quality helps in understanding the best practices of management of quality for the organisation. It provides an understanding as to how customers can be provided high quality services and how improvement can be brought in the services of the company (Dudin, et. al., 2015).

Customer requirements and needs

The companies need to focus on the requirements and needs of the customers. This helps them in bringing improvement in their products and services and increases the ability of the company to increase and maximise customer value. This can be done by conducting marketing research or survey which gives company an idea about the needs of the customers and how the company can provide excellent customer service (Hussain, Nasser and Hussain, 2015).

Training and development practices

As customer value is dependent mainly on customer service, it is very important for an organisation to provide excellent training to its employees so that they can increase the ability of the company to provide amazing services to the customers. Training and development helps in increasing the skills and knowledge of the individuals which helps them in providing the best quality services to its customers. So, it is evident that training to employees definitely improves the customer value (Beckers, Risselada and Verhoef, 2014).

Customer value management

Attention on processes

The processes of the company determines how successfully it satisfies customer and provides value to him.  The processes includes customer feedbacks and surveys which tells the organisation about the actual responses of the customers. It help Tommy in bringing changes in its services and revamping the designs and models of the services provided to the customers. The products and services of an organisation are created keeping customers in mind. This is how, they can provide the best services and can create excellent customer experience.

Styles of management and leadership

Leadership is the way of leading people and employees so as to achieve common goals of the organisation. The style of leadership of Tommy will determine the customer services because leadership style determines the quality and type of services provided to the customers. The leaders need to motivate and influence the employees to provide excellent services so that the customers can get a smooth experience with no fault in the services.  So, leadership has a great influence eon the ability of the organisation for creating and maximising the customer value (Tsou and Huang, 2018).

Smooth and clear communication

Communication is the act when two or more people interact with each other and there is a flow of information, ideas or opinions.  Communication between the employees and customers so=should be seamless. It is because smooth communication will help customers in raising any query and in getting it solved without any hassle. It plays major role in meeting the expectations of the customers and in also enhancing their experience with the company’s services.  There are so many mediums through which an organisations communicates with its customers (Veríssimo and Loureiro, 2018). It can be telephones, emails, social media, digital media and more.

Communication channels chosen by the company should be such which do not provide any blocks and increase the speed and quality of communication. It also increases the reliability and consistency of the information on which the customers can believe easily.  The customer do not accept the fact that the organisations fail to solve their queries or problems.  So, it is very important for any organisation to maintain smooth and consistent relationship with its customers with the help of seamless communication. It shows that communication is the factor which affect the ability of the organisation of providing maximum customer value (Weinstein and Pohlman, 2015).

Active listening and interpersonal skills

The interpersonal skills of the employees of the organisation and the active listening by the customer service department of the organisation affect the satisfaction level of the customers. It is seen that when a customer comes up with a genuine problem, the time to solve problem and the way in which his query is resolved is taken into consideration. When they listen actively to the customers, clear understanding is developed between the business and the customers. It helps in meeting the requirements and actual needs of the customers which maximises the value of customers (Keller, 2017).

Customised services

It is often seen that when a customer feels that the services are designed as per his needs and requirements, he tends to get more attached to the brand or company. It is known as customisation of services which personalise the experience for the customers and only relevant content is shared with the customers which enhances their experience and makes them loyal for the brand (Sondhi, Sharma and Kalla, 2017).

Importance of customer value and customer service

Accessibility

The accessibility of the products and services should be easy for the customers which enhances their experience and impact heavily on the value derived by the customers. It is very important for a brand to make its services and products available for the right target audience (Xu, Peak and Prybutok, 2015).

Speed of the delivery of services

It is very important for a company to focus on the speed of loading a page if the customer is shopping on online platform. Also, speed of customer service on offline mode also determines the satisfaction level of the customers. The faster page will load, happier will be the customer. If the page loading will take time, customer will take no time to shift on to another page or website. This impacts the customer value a lot. In the world of high competition, it is very important for a company to maintain its number of users so that competition can be met (Berguson, 2002)

Navigation between the pages and user friendly website

The website of Tommy should be user friendly which can make customer experience more smooth and rich. The navigation between different pages should be smooth which can make this process less cumbersome.  Keywords should be used to make it easy for the customers to search for any particular product (Agnihotri, et. al., 2016).

Language used

The language used on the website should be kept keeping in mind the country, culture and religion of the people in a country.  Language impacts a lot on the customers. Also, the complexity of language makes it tougher for the customers to understand and deal with the company. The language used should be easier so that the customers feel fine with the website or information provided.  It will definitely increase the experience of the customer and will heighten its value.

Choice and convenience

If it is easy and convenient for the customer, the sales and interaction with the customer will increase. The opposite will happen if convenience is not provided. Convenience can be termed here as the decisions taken regarding what to buy, from where to buy, easy payment options available and easy to navigate between pages. It makes process for the customers easier and smooth and also enhances the experience of the comer. Also, the variety given to the customer also adds up to the customer value. It is because variety is the spice of life and this is what believed by the customers nowadays. They have number of other brands to choose from and only if number of choices will be provided, it will help customers to remain intact with the same brand or company (Radojevic,  Stanisic and Stanic, 2015).

Sustainability and community involvement

With the advent of sustainability concept, it has become more important for the companies to be sustainable and involve communities in their actions so that the community can provide their valuable views and the sentiments of the community can be involved in the process of buying and selling of the products and services. If strong community is built by the company, it will impact a lot on increasing the customer value (Cook, 2017).

Above discussed factors are some of the factors which impacts the ability of the companies so that they can maximise the value of customers. There are many other factors which impacts the same.  Building up relationship with the customers has now become an indispensable part of the customer service process

Critical analysis of the quality processes and effectiveness of Tommy Hilfiger in meeting customer requirements

The global companies’ nowadays leverage new technologies and tools which helps in increasing the efficiency of the processes and in meeting the demands of the customers so that competitive advantage can be gained. Successful companies like Tommy have figured out that customer satisfaction directly impacts the value provided to the customers. The quality processes or quality management systems can be defined as the processes and structures which are implemented to improve the management of quality (Goetsch and Davis, 2014.).

This section will focus on the quality processes of Tommy Hilfiger which helps in meeting the customer requirements. As per Tommy Hilfiger (2018), the brand delivers premium products and quality services so that value can be added to the consumers worldwide. The brand is focussed on quality and is inspired to make it as an integral part of the business. The company sells its products both on digital platform and through online stores so that it can attract masses and drives value for the customers at both the platforms.

Here are some practices and processes of the Tommy Hilfiger which states how it meets customer requirements effectively:

High quality Customer service

The Company has high quality customer service strategies which helps it in outsmarting competition in the industry. The company sees an opportunity for significant growth and that is why it adopts several growth strategies which includes:

• Driving consumer engagement by investing in their in store and online experiences
• Expanding the reach and direct control over various licensed business
• Investments made to evolve and improve systems, data control and supply chain initiatives of the business
• Develop skilled employees to maximise customer satisfaction
• Generate good amount of cash flow to seek and maximise the returns of the business (Tommy Hilfiger, 2018)

Marketing campaigns and expanded portfolio of products

The company is consumer centric and enhance customer experience by implementing a global level marketing campaigns to engage customers. Right products are delivered to different segments as per their demands and aspirations. The company believes in delivering right products to the customers that is why it builds up an attractive portfolio of brands which have potential of growth and it also provides recognition to brand in the world of high competition (Doligalski, 2015).

The organisation have forward thinking which takes it into sustainability actions. The company have some core values which includes partnership, individuality, passion, integrity and accountability. The company is accountable for the best interest of its customers and other stakeholders which helps it in maintaining a good quality process which ultimately increases the customer value of the organisation (Kaul, 2017).

Reimaging the brand

With the advent of globalisation, the brand has reimagined itself as per the latest trends and requirements. The company is investing into the partnerships a campaigns which shows its concerns for the public (Oswald and Kleinemeier, 2017).  The company shares its happenings and campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and twitter which gives them millions of views and the advantage of social media platform. The company says that in order to keep the brand young, they have to run this whole idea of being on the social media. The company has changed and revamped its recognition as digital age evolved. The owners of the company says that the company need to be a fashion house which speak to a new generation of consumers. This shows how Tommy and its processes are able to meet the changing needs of its customers (Segran, 2016). 

Customer relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can be understood as the strategy which has been adopted by many organisations in order to build up strong relationships with the customers.  It helps companies to stay connected with its customers and improve the profitability of the company along with the increased satisfaction of customers (Khodakarami and Chan, 2014).

With the increased competition, Tommy Hilfiger adopted CRM processes in order to establish good relationships with its customers.  The company has pushed its customers to go for online sales form its website. They also have feedback forms so that customers could give their feedbacks which will be ultimately used to improve the quality of the services of the company. To develop loyalty with the clients, Tommy uses CRM Tool which provides direct impact on the experience of its customers and also creates a database for making future sales of the company. Tommy is using its CRM tool well to provide what is required and demanded by its customers. It has maximum impact on the customer value of the brand (Bachmann, Walsh and Hammes, 2018).

Social networks

Tommy has shifted its focus to social networks in the past few years. It is because the company knows that they have clear opportunity to go digital. For making this shift and to make it easier for the customers to get engaged and interact with the brand, the company has focussed on the unique and quality content which enables everyone to get engaged with the story of the brand and also attracts target groups. The company combines the strength of influencer marketing which reward the most loyal fans of the company and perks are provided to them like free access to the fashion show. The company says that every season that strive to develop new digital programs so that new audience can be engaged. By using digital technologies, the company is able to provide unique experiences to its customers (Zama, 2014).

Online shopping experience to the customers

The companies believes in shifting to the new and trendy. The company has accepted that ecommerce is in and it will provide huge benefits to the company. The company is now providing the online shopping experience to the customers through which they can have luxury experiences online. The company care about its customers and that it why it provides customer care options on the website through which quick interaction can be made between the customers and the company. The company also have retail stores which aims at providing best products to the customers. Caring about the customers is the key which provides high value to the customers of the company (Wang, 2015).

Like this, it can be seen that the company has performed really well in managing its quality processes and in maximising the value for its customers. The company intelligently uses the way outs which provides rich and smooth experience to the customers and heightens their experience and value derived.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that Tommy Hilfiger is the leading name in the world of fashion and the company has started with its retail journey through retail stores but has now shifted to digital age so that it can leverage the opportunities available in the retail industry and ecommerce industry. The company has successful created its aura in the industry and is been successful in engaging the customers with the brand. The brand is luxury and with this, it has responsibility of providing luxury experiences to its customers to fulfil their demands and requirements. Failing to this, customers can easily switch on to the other brand which would be a huge loss to Tommy Hilfiger.

The report has discussed about the customer value and customer service. It is customer service and the quality of customer service which enhances or maximises the customer value. It is also discussed that which factors are most responsible for making the organisation able to maximise the value to its customers. It is also discussed that there are many factors like quality of services, communication channels, ease of processes, language and more factors which influence the ability of the company to maximise the customer value.  The second section of the report discusses the quality processes and practices adopted by tommy which helps it in dealing with the tough competition in the market by engaging its customers and their loyalty.

It is clear from the report that no matter how good the service quality is and how established the business is, moving and shifting as per the demands of the consumers and present age is necessary. It helps business in adopting present complexities of business environmental and also in satisfying the customer needs. It is clear that the shift to digital age has brought a lot of success to Tommy Hilfiger.

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