Understanding Customer Experience Throughout the Customer Journey

Abstract

Understanding customer experience and the customer journey over time is critical for firms.Customers now interact with firms through myriad touchpoints in multiple channels and media, and customer experiences are more social in nature. These changes require firms to integrate multiple business functions, and even external partners, in creating and delivering positive customer experiences. In this article, the authors aim to develop a stronger understanding of customer experience and the customer journey in this era of increasingly complex customer behavior. To achieve this goal, they examine existing definitions and conceptualizations of customer experience as a construct, and provide a historical perspective of the roots of customer experience within marketing. Next, they attempt to bring together what is currently known about customer experience, customer journeys and customer experience management. Finally, they identify critical areas for future research on this important topic.

Executing on a customer engagement strategy

“…This is a first step in a critical direction toward value creation for different customer types. In this editorial I propose that academics and practitioners can benefit from combining the perspectives of customer experience (Lemon and Verhoef 2016) and engagement literatures. I base this on the following process-based premise: Customer relationships evolve through different states that can be broadly categorized as acquisition, growth, retention, and win-back.…”

Customer journeys: a systematic literature review

“…Here, the focus has been on consumers' decision processes, from becoming aware of a company to making a purchase (Lee, 2010) or becoming a loyal customer (Buttle, 2003;Court et al, 2009). In this approach, customers' behaviour and experiences typically are analysed according to a predefined onboarding process, structured in steps such as awareness, familiarity, consideration, purchase, and loyalty (Court et al, 2009), or pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016), often supported by customer relationship management (CRM) systems (Buttle, 2003) or web analytics (Anderl et al, 2016;Lee, 2010;Muret, 2013).…”

How to Engage Children into the World of Traditional Car Brands? Exploration of Specific Touchpoints between Future Buyers in the Car Industry and Established Brands

“…Prepurchase encompasses the customer's experience from the beginning of the need/ goal/impulse recognition to consideration of satisfying that need/goal/impulse with a purchase (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016) (Hoyer, 1984). The second stage -purchase -has been traditionally described by choice making, ordering and payment, with high focus on the shopping experience within the retail industry.…”

“…There are four types of touchpoints that influence each stage of the journey: brand-owned, partner-owned, customer-owned and social/external. It is important to identify the critical touchpoints ("moments of truth") throughout the journey that have the most significant influence on key customer outcomes (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016).…”