Advancing Knowledge on Customer Experience and Customer Experience Management: Operationalizations, Consequences, and Contingencies

Customer experience management has emerged as a sustainable source of competitive advantage. Hence, researchers devoted significant attention to understanding the customer experience and customer experience management. A close inspection of prior literature reveals (1) significant differences in the outcomes linked to customer experience, (2) different ways of measuring the customer experience at the customer level, (3) a lack of research linking the customer experience at customer-level financial outcome metrics, (4) a lack of scientifically validated measure of customer experience management maturity at the organizational level, (5) a lack of understanding how the customer experience affects firm performance, and (6) a limited understanding of contingencies of customer experience management. We take a multi-method approach to these problems and propose six studies aimed at addressing these issues. These studies are situated at the customer level (Studies 1-3), the organizational level (Studies 4-5), and across levels (Study 6). Combined, this research project lays the necessary foundations for advancing knowledge on the customer experience and customer experience management. Such insights are deemed necessary given the increased focus on customer experience management in practice.