[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-647740-105":59,"doc-detail-647740-en":129},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":122,"head_meta":124,"extra_data":126,"updated_unix":128},105,"en","understanding-customer-experience-throughout-the-customer-journey","Understanding Customer Experience Throughout the Customer Journey","","Understanding customer experience and customer journeys over time is essential for firms facing social, multi-channel interactions and increasingly complex customer behavior. This article reviews existing definitions and conceptualizations of customer experience, traces historical roots in marketing, and synthesizes current knowledge about customer journeys and customer experience management. It also highlights critical directions for future research to support firms in integrating internal functions and partners to create positive outcomes.",{"@graph":69,"@context":121},[70,84,104],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/understanding-customer-experience-throughout-the-customer-journey/647740/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":98,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":99,"interactionStatistic":100},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/understanding-customer-experience-throughout-the-customer-journey/647740.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Emma Wilson","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-23",true,{"@type":101,"interactionType":102,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":103},"ViewAction",{"@type":105,"mainEntity":106},"FAQPage",[107,113,117],{"name":108,"@type":109,"acceptedAnswer":110},"Why is understanding the customer journey over time critical?","Question",{"text":111,"@type":112},"Customers interact across many touch points, channels, and media, making journeys more complex and socially influenced. Firms need a stronger understanding to deliver consistently positive experiences.","Answer",{"name":114,"@type":109,"acceptedAnswer":115},"How do firms create strong customer experiences under modern conditions?",{"text":116,"@type":112},"They must integrate multiple business functions and external partners, since media fragmentation and social interactions reduce overall firm control and complicate journey management.",{"name":118,"@type":109,"acceptedAnswer":119},"What does the article do to advance understanding in this field?",{"text":120,"@type":112},"It examines existing definitions of customer experience, offers a historical perspective on its marketing roots, synthesizes knowledge on journeys and management, and identifies areas for future research.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":123,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":125,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":127,"site_id":62},647740,1792789992,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":130},{"doc_id":127,"user_id":131,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":132,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":133,"file_id":134,"file_url":135,"file_type":136,"file_size":137,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":138,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":128,"read_time":143},3848291630094,"https://eur-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","Katherine N. Lemon & Peter C. Verhoef  \nUnderstanding Customer Experience Throughout the Customer Journey  \nUnderstanding customer experience and the customer journey over time is critical for firms. Customers now interact with firms through myriad touch points 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.  \nKeywords: customer experience, customer journey, marketing strategy, customer experience management, touch points  \nCreating a strong customer experience is now a leading  \nmanagement objective. According to a recent study  \nby Accenture (2015; in cooperation with Forrester), improving the customer experience received the most number one rankings when executives were asked about their top priorities for the next 12 months. Multiple firms, such as KPMG, Amazon, and Google, now have chief customer experience officers, customer experience vice presidents, or customer experience managers responsible for creating and managing the experience of their customers. Schmitt (1999) was one of the first scholars to emphasize the importance of customer experience, and Pine and Gilmore (1998) specifically address the importance of experiences in today ’s society and the opportunities for firms to benefit from creating strong and enduring customer experiences . Marketing science, and specifically customer management, has been slow to adopt these developments in the marketing literature. Attention in customer management has mainly centered on customers’ value creation for firms, with a focus on metrics such as customer lifetime value (CLV) (Gupta, Lehmann, and Stuart 2004; Kumar and Shah 2009) instead of value creation for customers (B¨ugel 2010; Kumar and Reinartz 2016) .  \nKatherine N. Lemon is Accenture Professor in Marketing, Carroll School of Management, Boston College (e-mail: [kay.lemon@bc.edu](kay.lemon@bc.edu)). Peter C. Verhoef is Professor of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen (e-mail: [p.c.verhoef@rug.nl](p.c.verhoef@rug.nl)). Both authors contributed equally to the development of this article. They thank Nancy Sirianni and Arne de Keyser for their helpful comments on a previous draft of this paper, as well as the seminar participants at Leeds University, Rotterdam School of Management, and Bocconi University for their feedback. They also acknowledge the comments of participants of the MSI Frontiers in Marketing Conference 2015 at Carroll School of Management, Boston College.  \nThe increasing focus on customer experience arises because customers now interact with firms through myriad touch points in multiple channels and media, resulting in more complex customer journeys. Firms are confronted with accelerating media and channel fragmentation, and omnichannel management has become the new norm(Brynjolfsson, Hu, and Rahman 2013; Verhoef, Kannan, and Inman 2015) . Moreover, customer-to-customer interactions through social media are creating significant challenges and opportunities for firms (Leeflang et al. 2013; Libai et al. 2010) . Customer experiences are more social in nature, and peer customers are influencing experiences as well. Firms also have much less control, overall, of the customer experience and the customer journe","cbCaic3yOSlVf1ea","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaic3yOSlVf1ea","pdf",464598,28,"English","# Customer Experience and the Customer Journey Over Time\n## Drivers of Increasing Complexity\n## Implications for Research and Management","[{\"question\":\"Why is understanding the customer journey over time critical?\",\"answer\":\"Customers interact across many touch points, channels, and media, making journeys more complex and socially influenced. Firms need a stronger understanding to deliver consistently positive experiences.\"},{\"question\":\"How do firms create strong customer experiences under modern conditions?\",\"answer\":\"They must integrate multiple business functions and external partners, since media fragmentation and social interactions reduce overall firm control and complicate journey management.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the article do to advance understanding in this field?\",\"answer\":\"It examines existing definitions of customer experience, offers a historical perspective on its marketing roots, synthesizes knowledge on journeys and management, and identifies areas for future research.\"}]","Understanding Customer Experience Throughout the Customer Journey | PDF",71]