The New Luxury Experience: Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience PDF
Preview The New Luxury Experience: Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience
Management for Professionals Wided Batat The New Luxury Experience Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience Management for Professionals More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10101 Wided Batat The New Luxury Experience Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience Wided Batat B&C Consulting Group Paris, France ISSN 2192-8096 ISSN 2192-810X (electronic) Management for Professionals ISBN 978-3-030-01670-8 ISBN 978-3-030-01671-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01671-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962965 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Praise for The New Luxury Experience… “This book provides a holistic perspective on marketing of luxury brands, offering both useful practical advice as well as illustrating important cases.” -- Ravi Dhar, Director, Yale Center for Customer Insights, Yale University “Wided Batat’s book offers a fresh, insightful and comprehensive analysis of the concept of the consumer’s experience with luxury whatever that may be. The Five experiential luxury strategies proposed by Wided highlight that luxury management should go above and beyond the design and branding of luxury goods and services. I also commend the consideration given to the younger generations’ approach to luxury and to corporate social responsibility aspects. Luxury marketers should find this book very useful indeed.” -- Francesca Dall’Olmo Riley, Professor of Brand Management, Kingston Business School, UK Preface More than in any other sector, luxury consumption is a response to a search for emotions, pleasure, uniqueness, consideration, and greatest services. The luxury consumer wants to live experiences – not just buy luxury products or services. To meet the new demands of customers, this book offers a concrete vision of the new luxury experience and tools that will help to create a memorable and an ultimate luxury experience, both online and offline. How do we define a luxury experi- ence? How can luxury houses design efficient, enjoyable, and memorable luxury experiences that differentiate them from their competitors? What are adequate strategies and tools? These are the questions that this book responds to, based on numerous industry examples, testimonials from luxury businesses, and mini-c ase studies. This book is indeed the first to offer a concrete and analytical vision of the luxury experience and its offline and online implementation in various domains, such as luxury hotels and palaces, gastronomic restaurants, luxury retail, etc. The content offered in this book provides luxury businesses with a practical, contemporary, and multidisciplinary expertise that is useful to create a memorable luxury experience that is tailored to the emotional and functional needs of luxury customers. Using a theoretical and practical approach as well as expert opinions, figures, and illustra- tions of several examples of luxury brands, the reader can understand the theoretical foundation, the implementation process, and the emerging challenges related to the new experiential luxury marketing and its big five experiential luxury strategies that address the functional, emotional, hedonic, and relational needs of the new luxury consumer. vii viii Preface Capturing luxury customer values Experiential Luxury staff branding of training luxury The BIG FIVE Experiential Luxury Strategies Consumer Experiential initiation to setting luxury design The first part of this book explores the evolution of luxury from object to experi- ence and includes three principal chapters. In Chap. 1, I examine the idea of “luxury.” Indeed, prior to defining the “luxury experience,” there is first a need to explain what we mean by “luxury” and what are its origins, characteristics, and typologies. To do so, this chapter aims to trace back the rise of luxury and its shift from a traditional perspective related to conspicuous and distinctive luxury consumption to the emer- gence of the “luxury experience,” a more emotional, sensory, and symbolic con- sumption of luxury. Chapter 1 takes a sociological perspective to explore people’s motivations to purchase and consume luxury products and services. In sociology, luxury has been studied according to two main approaches: conspicuous (American approach) and distinctive (French approach). Existing definitions of luxury will be analyzed, and then a new definition of luxury will be offered. This chapter contrib- utes to the field of luxury by offering an updated definition that incorporates the customer experience to explain the transition from traditional luxury marketing to the new experiential luxury marketing, which will be explained in Chap. 2. In the second chapter, I analyze theories underpinning customer experience mar- keting by providing a cross-sectional analysis of diverse studies in human sciences and business disciplines that tackle the concept of “customer experience.” Chapter 2 addresses the customer experience to answer the following questions: What do we know about what happens in the customer experience in luxury? How does customer experience transform luxury marketing? Does the customer experience allow luxury brands to differentiate their offers, retain their customers, and attract new ones? Preface ix I propose to start from the limits of traditional luxury marketing to better understand how luxury businesses can implement experiential luxury marketing and thus convert their experiential thinking into strategies, communication, staff training, digital strategies, and techniques of sales to distinguish themselves and develop a strong and sustainable competitive advantage. Chapter 3 will focus on luxury brands and the necessity to introduce customer experience in order to keep up with evolving consumer behaviors and new luxury trends. Indeed, today’s luxury consumers are becoming familiar with instant acces- sibility and will expect their luxury experiences to be personalized and emotional. Thus, luxury brands need to better understand their customers and emerging social trends in order to offer the luxury experiences consumers really want through mean- ingful messages that resonate through different products and marketplaces. In this chapter, I explore the key changes in consumer behaviors and the new luxury trends that affect customer experience and can help luxury businesses design suitable experiences by taking into account both tangibles (e.g., the need for high-quality products, heritage, and ancestral know-how) and intangible (e.g., emotional needs) aspects of luxury. The second part of this book explores, throughout five chapters, the big five strat- egies luxury businesses should implement to design the ultimate luxury experience. In Chapter 4, I present the first strategy: capturing luxury customer values. This strategy is critical for luxury brands since the perception of luxury value is essential to the enjoyment and the satisfaction of consumers and is, consequently, of huge significance to luxury brands. The objective of this chapter is to examine consumer value as a relevant component that luxury houses should integrate into their strate- gies and communication campaigns. In fact, one of the big five strategies used to attract consumers and connect with them is based on capturing, sharing, and con- necting with the values of their luxury consumers – if we assume that luxury goods (products and services) are also bought for their symbolism and perceived values. In Chap. 5, I introduce the second luxury experience strategy based on the idea of the experiential branding of luxury. Luxury businesses should use this strategy to create an emotional luxury experience with a strong bond connecting the customer to the luxury brand. Instead of using brand promotion as in the 4Ps of the traditional marketing mix, the emphasis on the cultural meanings behind a luxury brand pro- vides a necessary complement to promotional strategies by including a focus on the significances that are shaped by specific cultural settings in order to design suitable and powerful luxury experiences that are meaningful to consumers. Then, Chap. 6 will focus on the third luxury experience strategy: experiential setting design. This chapter explains the way luxury businesses can design their experiential settings by emphasizing the phygital aspect of the experiences which will guarantee the con- tinuum between physical place and digital space. By designing experiential settings, luxury businesses will be able to create a memorable and rewarding luxury experi- ence that makes sense and allows the luxury brand to communicate its DNA throughout the phygital experiential journey of the customer. x Preface Chapter 7 introduces the fourth luxury experience strategy related to the human dimension in luxury: luxury staff training. Although the human value dimension guarantees a certain quality of service, customer satisfaction, and thus emphasizes the coherence in the experience, efficiently training luxury employees is often approached in a very narrow way by luxury companies. This chapter examines another strategy related to the importance of empathic training of luxury staff to provide the customer with the ultimate luxury experience that is both efficient and touching. Chapter 8, the last luxury experience strategy in part two of this book, introduces the strategy: consumer initiation to luxury. In this chapter, I introduce consumer education and consumer initiation to luxury as one of the big five strate- gies luxury companies should implement to empower their customers and make sure they will better enjoy their luxury experiences. I explain in this chapter the educational policies and programs luxury houses can implement to educate their customers and help them develop skills, know themselves, and enjoy novelty for a better appreciation of their luxury experiences with the brand. The third part of this book, which relates to the future challenges facing luxury experience offerings, includes three main chapters. In Chap. 9, I introduce the first challenge related to the necessity of using alternative market research tools to understanding luxury experiences online and offline. This chapter introduces expe- riential and e-experiential research methods as an alternative to studying luxury experiences. Chapter 10 focuses on a second challenge that questions the way mil- lennials and post-millennials are reshaping luxury. Indeed, millennials and post- millennials are particularly strategic targets for the luxury industry and its services. Not only does this challenge represent a significant weight for luxury, but it is also a deeply globalized issue, which is a major asset for international luxury brands. This chapter addresses the following questions: What are the expectations of mil- lennials and post-millennials in relation to their consumption of luxury goods? What are their values, and is there possible overlapping with those values embodied by luxury brands? Do youth and luxury really need each other, and if so, what are their mutual contributions? Which luxury brands are consciously seeking to speak to this specific generation, and how do they do it? Finally, in Chap. 11, I will con- clude by addressing the third challenge linked to the compatibility of luxury experi- ences with sustainable development and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Indeed, where sustainable development often advocates sobriety and simplicity, luxury, conversely, reflects an image of abundance and complexity. In this chapter, I explore the sustainable practices of luxury houses and the CSR strategies they can implement to create sustainable and engaged luxury experiences. In this book, I have combined my professional expertise, my research, and prior works on the customer experience topic related to the field of luxury to introduce a new framework based on the idea of the big five strategies luxury businesses should take into account when creating and designing experiential offerings. These offer- ings guarantee a sustainable competitive advantage because the ultimate phygital luxury experience created (offline and online) cannot be replicated by others. This book provides an extensive review of the existing knowledge in this field as well as
The list of books you might like
