Digital Marketing. Annmarie Hanlon
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build a picture of the body of knowledge in this area and investigated earlier research into customer experience, summing up various definitions as ‘a multi-dimensional construct that involves cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, and social components’ (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016, p. 70). The concept of a ‘multi-dimensional construct’ covers many bases and ensures that the relationship and the product offer are combined.
Lemon and Verhoef provided a useful summary to explain what the research to date had explained about the different topics within customer experience, and this is reproduced in Table 2.4.
Table 2.3
Source: Adapted from Meyer and Schwager, 2007.
Table 2.4
Source: Lemon and Verhoef, 2016, p. 86, Journal of Marketing.
Lemon and Verhoef mentioned three terms in Table 2.4 concerning customer experience which may need more clarification:
SERVQUAL – a model for measuring service quality (see Parasuraman et al., 1985).
NPS – Net Promoter Score, which is a single-question survey asking customers how likely they are to recommend the product or service, on a scale of 1 to 10. The percentage of all scores of 1 to 6 is subtracted from the percentage of 9s and 10s; 7s and 8s are discarded to provide a single score (largely credited to Reichheld, 2003).
Moments of truth – all points of customer interaction (largely credited to Carlzon, 1987).
See Template online: Analyse the customer experience
Online Customer Service Experience (OCSE)
Online customer service experience (OCSE) is a newer concept, and writing in the Journal of Services Marketing, Philipp Klaus from the ESCE International Business School in Paris, created a conceptual model of online customer service experience which was based on customers’ experiences with the online bookseller Amazon.com (Klaus, 2013). His research identified 28 attributes, which were split into two main areas – psychological factors and functionality, and these were supported by sub-dimensions.
The psychological factors included trust, value for money and context familiarity (how close the experience is to an offline model).
The functionality elements are a useful checklist for overall website usability: ease of use; communication; social presence; product presence (product images and descriptions such as ‘look inside’); and interactivity.
The model is shown in Figure 2.4 and it may be that you think that this does not include any surprises. However, it is the combination of the two areas that leads to a better customer experience, which is similar to the initial descriptions discussed earlier in this chapter, provided by Gentile and colleagues, who considered the psychological factors, and it could be argued that Meyer and Schwager's definition of customer experience focused on the functionality aspect.
Figure 2.4 Online customer service experience (OCSE) conceptual model
Source: Klaus, 2013, p. 447
The OCSE model is another useful model for assessing the customer service experience and could be adapted as a checklist for business.
Path to Purchase
Borrowed from computing terms, path data contains information about a user's search behaviour, interests and visits. In marketing parlance, the ‘path to purchase’ concept is similar to a non-linear customer journey; the difference is trying to attribute the elements or touch- points which have had an impact on the journey. Was it the email? The pop-up offer on the website? Perhaps dark social (see Key Term) with a message from a friend? If the specific steps can be correctly attributed this means that greater investment can be made where needed.
Google, as a major seller of online advertising, was an early pioneer of sharing path to purchase data and provides free access to aggregate data, to inform marketers about latest trends and insights.
Digital Tool Google Path to Purchase
Google shares its aggregate data to inform marketers about shopping insights, trends and benchmarks. To further explore shopping insights, go to:
Other academic researchers, Alice Li and P.K. Kannan, created a conceptual framework for the path to purchase which combined the customer journey with stages initiated by the firm to influence and direct the purchase (Li and Kannan, 2013). They reviewed the channels connected to online purchases of high-involvement goods such as consumer durables and travel services.
They used a linear model from the channels considered, which were identified through search, so in the example of trying to find a flight, the consumer might search online for flights and they may visit a firm's own website, such as American Airlines or British Airways, or they may use a flight search engine such as SkyScanner. If the consumer goes backwards and forwards between the different sites, modifying their search terms, to gain the best price, they are leaving a trail of cookies (see Key Term) for the firms to add them to their online advertising campaigns. Ever noticed that ad following you around when you've just looked at a website? It's all based on your online behaviour and this is the area that Li and Kannan explored further as ‘firm-initiated’ behaviour. In some cases this may have been display ads, like the follow-me marketing. But if a user responded to another channel, such as email, the firm may have subsequently sent a nudge email to encourage the web visitor to return to the website and complete their purchase.
Li and Kannan discuss the concept of ‘spillover effects’, which they explained as the ‘impact of prior visits through a given channel’ (Li and Kannan, 2013, p. 43). As an example, I received an email that said ‘we noticed you left some things in your shopping basket’ and I clicked on the email, to return to the website and complete the purchase. The email has an impact on the final step in the path to purchase.
Key Term Cookie
A web cookie is a small piece of data that is stored temporarily or for a period of time on your device when you have visited a website.
There are two kinds of cookie: (a) session cookies, which are temporary whilst you are browsing and do not store your data, and (b) persistent cookies, which remember who you are. Persistent cookies remember usernames and passwords, automatically login to websites and recall what is in your shopping basket.
Service Blueprinting
Understanding customer journeys means understanding the process customers take from identifying a need or desire for an item, to the conclusion and purchase. This considers a single track, the customer view. Service blueprinting is another form of process modelling but considers all the actors involved: the customers, staff, delivery – any people or processes that contribute to the overall customer action.
In ‘Service Blueprinting: A Practical Technique for Service Innovation’ Mary Jo Bitner (the professor who increased the 4Ps to the 7Ps) and her colleagues identified five specific components for a service blueprint (Bitner et al., 2008), which are shown in Table 2.5 with examples.
Table 2.5
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