Customer experience management (CEM) model, IDIC, helps to establish a customer value to build a customer relationship (Peppers, Rogers, and Kotler, 2016, p. 73).

Woolworths state their core values are, care deeply; always do the right thing, and listen and learn (Woolworths website, n.d.). The IDIC model could assist Woolworths in reaching their core values by establishing what it means to do the right thing in the perspective of their customers.

Identify as stated by (Peppers, Rogers, and Kotler, 2016) means an organisation needs to be able to recognise a customer in store may be the same customer online or on the phone. Woolworths are currently identifying their customers through their Woolworth rewards card.

This loyalty program is designed to track customers by obtaining contact information and having customers scan the card at checkout to earn points on their groceries.

 

Woolworths may find it challenging to differentiate customers whom they are yet to identify. Evidentially, the completed Woolworths surveys showed half of Woolworths loyal and return customers are not a-part of the rewards programs and thus behaviour and patterns are unable to be tracked.

Interacting with customers can be challenging for an organisation continuously trying to identify their customers. Woolworth Product Review page currently has a star rating of 2.1 out of 5 stars (Product Review, n.d.). This suggests room for improvement in terms of interacting with their customers. An opportunity lies in embracing the online world and responding to customers publicly to show they care deeply, as stated in Woolworths core values.

 

Woolworths have adopted a strategy to customise interactions and products based on their customer's needs and wants. This strategy includes serving customers with more healthy-friendly options. This opportunity emerged with healthy eating becoming so mainstream. "Ninety-three percent of consumers want to eat healthy at least some of the time, with 63% trying to eat healthy most or all of the time" (Food Industry Executive, 2019).

Woolworths invested in low sugar and sugar free brands. They stoked their shelves with more gluten free and whole foods alternatives. Furthermore, this led to Woolworth creating their own gluten free brand called free from gluten.

Woolworths adopted the CEM model (IDIC) to establish a customer value to build a customer relationship.

Identify

A business working towards customer experience management has to first identify its customer needs, wants and preferences. Woolworths has categorised their customers on the basis of their purchasing trend; store visitors, online shoppers and phone shoppers. Customer's purchasing trend became a parameter of the categorization. In terms of identification, Woolworths launched their loyalty program which is designed to track customers by obtaining contact information and having customers scan the card at checkout to earn points on their groceries. This loyalty program helps the company to find out the needs, wants and preferences through the tracking of their every purchasing. Reward cards is the technique to collect the data regarding purchasing trend of each platform.

Differentiate

To meet customer expectations it is important to differentiate customer base into value and need ( Peppers & Rogers, 1995). This differentiation helps to prepare strategies that meet company goals and customer expectations for strong customer relations. Woolworths's loyalty programs was not able to meet the objective of the differentiate customer expectations as Woolworths surveys showed half of Woolworths loyal and return customers are not a-part of the rewards programs and thus behaviour and patterns are unable to be tracked.

It shows that Woolworths CEM model is not able to differentiate the customer expectations as their reward card program is unable to cover the large section of the customers.

Interaction

Customer interactions help to understand customer expectations and how they relate to business products and services (Eko, 2014). The interaction, based on customer value and needs, provides a chance to collect feedback, opinions and wants.

Woolworths's loyalty program was unable to identify the customer's need, wants and preferences, resulting company has not achieved the objective of the differentiate the customers expectations. That is why, Woolworths's interaction with the customers get affected negatively and Woolworth Product Review page currently has a star rating of 2.1 out of 5 stars. This shows that, interaction with the customer is quite unsatisfactory and it need to be improved.

Customization

After identifying, differentiating and interacting with the customers a fair idea can be drawn for new strategies and product customizations (Peppers & Rogers, 1995). 

Woolworths have adopted a strategy to customise interactions and products based on their customer's needs and wants. This strategy includes serving customers with more healthy-friendly options. This opportunity emerged with healthy eating becoming so mainstream. "Ninety-three percent of consumers want to eat healthy at least some of the time, with 63% trying to eat healthy most or all of the time" (Food Industry Executive, 2019).

But, above strategy is based on the identifying, differentiating and interacting which we discussed in above mentioned points. And above discussion conclude that Woolworths have not achieved the real objective of the IDIC model, so this strategy would be not workable as we have not identified the customer's need, wants and preferences.

New Strategy

Identify

Woolworths has identified the catagories of the customers on there purchasing trend; store visitors, online shoppers and phone shoppers. Company should target all of the customer category through the loyalty program. Company should run the loyalty program at each platform and all of the customers should get the benefit of the loyalty program. It would be helpful to collect the information regarding all of the customers from different platforms. All of the customers should be covered under the program, whether they are new or existing. Stores, online stores and call centers should be given target to cover the maximum number of the customers under the loyalty program.

Differentiate

Differentiation by value helps to identify customers that are loyal and should be focused on. Their feedback can be valuable for product line extension, increased efficacy, and performance, as well as revenue generation (Srivastava, 2013).

Now Woolworths should differentiate their customers on the basis of their needs, wants and preferences.

Interaction

Now, Woolworths should focus on interaction with their customers. They can choose the various tools such as online marketing, direct sales representatives, and customer care executives to interact with their customers from different categories.

Customization

Now Woolworths have sufficient information regarding their customers and now they can target their customers through the strategy of customization which would be helpful to meet the needs, wants and preferences of their customers.