The millennial customer journey: a Phygital mapping of emotional, behavioural, and social experiences

Abstract

Purpose

The wider possibility of connectivity offers additional opportunities for customers to experience value propositions. The online world is only one side of the customer experience. The integration of digital technologies, social presence and physical elements increases the complexity of customer journey. This paper aims to map the phygital customer journey by focusing on millennials.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted a qualitative methodology to investigate 50 millennials from Italy. Millennials had to describe, in two phases, a journey they had recently made. First, they used sticky notes with no restrictions on expressing their feelings and structuring their CJ. Second, customers transferred the sticky notes’ contents, consider the information provided and map the journey with additional details using the Uxpressia software.

Findings

This paper frames the Millennials customer journey as a cycle of four moments: connect, explore, buy and use. Each moment enacts the customer experience as a mixture of emotional, behavioural and social responses. Online and offline interactions blur the boundaries between the physical and digital world (i.e. phygital): millennials move back-and-forth or jump from one action to another according to the evolving path of emotions and interactions.

Originality/value

The phygital customer journey provides an alternative understanding of customer journey occurring as a fuzzy process or loop. A phygital map develops as a circular path of moments seen as phenomenological microworlds of events, interactions, relationships and emotions.

Citation

Mele, C., Russo-Spena, T., Tregua, M. and Amitrano, C.C. (2021), "The millennial customer journey: a Phygital mapping of emotional, behavioural, and social experiences", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 420-433. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-03-2020-3701