Design for the customer experience (2014)

Abstract

In the challenging competitive environment success of the companies is determined by strong product or service differentiation, establishing customer relationships, and ability to provide value to the customers. The companies can gain competitive advantage by creating customer experience. Although the importance of customer experience and its positive influence on customer retention and loyalty have theoretical recognition, the rate of adoption into practice is rather low. The purpose of this research is to explore how customer experience can be enhanced using both company’s and customers’ inputs. The first research question investigates whether the perception of a company’s current and desired service performance differs in between operation’s perspective and customer’s perspective. The second research question aims to find solutions for enhancing customer experience. The Wheel lifecycle template is used as a method for designing experience and is applied to a hotel selected as a case company. This method enables the researcher to identify challenges the company faces and develop actions for customer experience improvement. The study results in practical suggestions for enhancing customer experience. It makes valuable contribution to customer-company relationships, which leads to customer loyalty, retention, and enhancement of the company’s performance.