Customer Expectations Created through a Hotel Website

Abstract

Pine and Gilmores (2019) infamous exploration of customer experience puts today’s market into one sentence - time is money. The selection of where to put one’s money is so wide it creates higher demands for an exceptional customer experience to differentiate from other service providers.

The client with whom the thesis was conducted aims to expand their current customer base, given the seasonal nature of their current clientele. Website being the first step of the usual customer experience, the aim of this thesis is to help the client develop their website. This is done by collecting customer data of what customer expectations, the website creates in first- time visitors. The purpose is to help understand their customers better and hence master the customer experience which ultimately leads to expansion of the customer base.

Theoretical framework mainly revolves around customer expectations, customer experience and branding. The purpose and meaning of the website are briefly covered as well as elements of hospitality field and accommodation services. The biggest findings of the theory part are the financial profit it brings when investing in customer experience as well as the importance of making all decisions in developing the customer experience based on actual customer data since creating the memorable customer experience isn’t guess work.

For the field research, nine semi-structured qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted about target groups general buying behavior, general expectations for the accommodation field and specific expectations for the clients' services based on the website. The biggest findings were the importance of authenticity and uniqueness in accommodation services. As concrete steps for the client would be to have more pictures of the hotel, especially main building and the lobby, be more vocal about their actions towards sustainability and to emphasize their location and the actions they are taking in supporting the local businesses. Feedback from the client was positive. The development ideas were considered useful and the thesis well conducted and academically accurate.