Developing Methods for Measuring Customer Experience at Lähialuematkat Oy

Today there is stiff competition among companies in attracting customers, which is, how-ever, just the first step towards success. In order to remain competitive, a company must maintain their existing customer base by providing an exceptional customer experience, as they strive for the highest level of customer satisfaction, and this includes service. Lähialuematkat Oy is a small organization specializing in visa support services, which organizes travels to Russia and neighbouring countries. Although they are the market leader in Finland, competition in the industry is intense. As a result, they have to ensure that they increase their customer retention rate, instead of continuously focusing on attracting new customers, which may have a negative effect on their revenue. In this research-based thesis, I worked closely with the company to help them develop a customer satisfaction measurement method. The objective was to choose a method that is simple to use and practical, so that Lähialuematkat can accurately measure and evaluate customer satisfaction. They can subsequently act upon this new knowledge in order to increase their customer satisfaction. Important concepts, such as customer satisfaction, customer experience and its management helped to gain deeper understanding of customer behaviour and expectations thus serve as the theoretical framework of the thesis. Qualitative research was used for data collection throughout the thesis writing process. The empirical part is based on my own observations from the time of my internship at the company from January to May 2017 and on the semistructured interview I conducted with company representatives in March 2018. As there was no possibility to implement a customer satisfaction measurement method during the thesis writing process, as a result, I only present three different methods which I think the company could use in the future and could be implemented maybe as part of an-other thesis project