Customer Experience @ Shopping Malls: Influencing Customer Motives and Needs
Synopsis
This case flyer enables an interesting debate on the concept of customer experience and the difference between customer experience and customer service. Industry insiders opine that, shopping malls play an instrumental role in influencing and probably shaping consumers’ motives and needs by engaging them and delivering unique customer experience. However, due to surge in the internet and mobile telephony, online retail had gained momentum and started denting the conventional retailing, by grabbing a larger share of the consumer’s wallet. Worst hit by the online sales boom, malls are pulling out all stops to acquire the customers and retain them by crafting and offering exciting customer experience programs and in the due course want to transform themselves from preferred malls to destination malls. Do these techniques cater to the dynamic consumer motives and needs? Do they sync with the new age customer? Are these strategies sustainable in the long run?
Before the Classroom Discussion/Prerequisite Conceptual Understanding (PCUs)
This case flyer presupposes a conceptual understanding of the following concepts/information that would enable an effective discussion leading to more practical solutions than a mere intellectual exercise:
- a. Consumer Motivation
- b. Concept of Customer Experience
- c. Difference between Customer Service and Customer Experience
Positioning of this Case Flyer
This case flyer can be used in the following courses/modules:
a) Consumer Behavior course in MBA/Executive MBA program to discuss the following concepts:
- i. Consumer Motives – To examine how shopping malls and customer experience at shopping malls influence customer’s motives
- ii. Consumer needs (primary and acquired) including Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – To discuss on whether shopping malls influence acquired needs and which part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is satisfied through shopping malls
b) Mall Management Module in Retailing course to discuss the following issues:
- i. The competition between shopping malls and e-tailers
- ii. Customer experience at shopping malls
Case Flyer Analysis and Classroom Discussion
The discussion on the Case Flyer was conducted under three broad related topics [Exhibit (TN)-I]. The classroom analysis of the Case Flyer was carried out by discussing each of the questions of the case flyer. However, for each of the three sections, the discussion hovered around an ‘anchor point of discussion’..............
Case Flyer Analysis
I. Shopping Malls and Customer Experience
The session was initiated with a question posed to the participants/students about what is customer experience. How is customer experience different from customer service?
• The customer experience ranged from: ................
• Customer experience can be viewed as the successful outcome of a customer journey which makes the customer feel happy, satisfied and justified by their decision to visit a specific shopping mall and purchase a product or service.
• The students were asked to share their shopping experience with any of the recently visited mall in the city and asked them to figure out under which category of customers do they fall in – Specific customers, Explorers and Affiliators. 60% of the class categorized themselves as explorers.
• Further, they were asked to jot down the factors that they dislike and influence their shopping experience at the malls’. Most of them listed facilities like parking, security, civic amenities, etc., as the most annoying factors at the malls’. Exhibit (TN)-II illustrates the preferences of the students .................
Exhibits
Exhibit (TN)-I: Discussion Dashboard
Exhibit (TN)-II: Factors Influencing the Mall Visit
Exhibit (TN)-III: The Customer Journey in a Shopping Mall – Key Touch Points
Exhibit (TN)-IV: The 7As approach
Exhibit (TN)-V: Magic Malls
Exhibit (TN)-VI: Online Retailer’s Price Strategy
Exhibit (TN)-VII: Mall Space Development (million sq. ft.)
Exhibit (TN)-VIII: Malls – Experiential Marketing Techniques
Exhibit (TN)-IX: Malls Role in the Arousal of Consumer Motives
Exhibit (TN)-X: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Malls Positioning