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Understanding the customer has been the focus of attention of businesses and academia for many decades. Starting in 1960s, complex buyer behavior models developed by Nicosia, by Howard and Sheth (1969), were followed by Engel, Blackwell and Miniard in 1978 (Engel, Blackwell, & Miniard, 1990) to understand the buying process, shaping the thoughts today about consumers’ experiences in an omnichannel world. Interest in customer perceptions and expectations (Parasuraman, Berry, & Zeithaml, 1991), SERVQUAL (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Leonard, 1985) and SERVPERV (Cronin & Taylor, 1994) moved the academia to discuss the relationship marketing (Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Parvatiyar & Sheth, 1999; Peterson, 1995; Sheth & Parvatiyar, 1995). Wilson’s model (1995) of buyer–seller relationships extended the former models with additional concepts like social bonds, comparison level of alternatives, power roles, technology, structural bonds and cooperation as influencers on relationship development stages. His emphasis reflects a high relevancy in the omnichannel world of customers’ interactions today. Winer (2001), a pioneer to discuss the customer relationship management focused on a database to know about customers’ purchase history and interests. The millennium look at customer lifetime value is again relationship focused. For Fader, Hardie, and Lee (2005) rather the long-term focus of the consumer value and actions are important to understand the loyalty and nonlinear nature of relations. While Reinartz and Kumar (2003) focused on profitable customer lifetime and customer heterogeneity, Verhoef (2003) analyzed the impact of customers’ relationship perceptions and relationship marketing instruments on both customer retention and customer share development. The customer-centric thinking was first discussed by Grönroos (2006) within a new definition of marketing. The service dominant logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2008) resulted in the next highlight, the co-creation of value with customer involvement and customer advisory (Güngör, 2012; Güngör & Bilgin, 2011; Messner, 2007) empowering the customers and giving them the control over the supplier networks. Different factors will be influential at different stages of the buying process of customer clusters. The Web- and non-Web-based customer-centric measures can be multifold. Andersson, Movin, Mähring, Teigland, and Wennberg (2018) and Bank (2018) emphasize the importance of technology readiness focus throughout the customer–supplier journey. The question to be answered is, to which extent the empowered customers and the suppliers of this age are ready to adopt, embrace and finally use new technologies in the omnichannel world of holistic interactions that form new visions, expectations, values and desires in a tremendous speed. Ideas and experiences are shared and exchanged in online communities without the need of the involvement of the suppliers. This “holistic view” challenges firms further through the seamlessness it requires to create unity. Customer-centric research needs a new push for the development of instruments and measures to cope with the consumer decision process challenges. Process thinking is needed to capture the purchasing habits in an omnichannel world and to build a new thought for customer journey experience with the aim to understand technology-linked value propositions of customer clusters to optimize channel interactions. Customer journeys have to focus and describe the online/offline experiences at the hybrid shopping mile, trace the behavioral influential factors of the customers’ and sellers’ world in a technological environment. This chapter will discuss “Technology based Orbit Interactions” for “The Hybrid Shopping Mile and its Customer Journey Mapping” with a “Customer Intelligence Framework.” The outcome of the hybrid customer journey mapping gives orientation for customer-management decisions in developing new approaches.

A good customer experience means meeting the customer expectation. Thus, unexpected customer experience is usually a good point to initiate improvement or innovation for product or service design. Attempting to enhance the customer experience in the customer journey, this study aims to demonstrate a customer journey centred service design approach to receive the design requirements based on customers' needs and to use a systematic approach to generate solutions.

A holistic service design method named 3E model was proposed. It integrates customer experience journey map (CXJM), the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) and service assembly and service replacement mechanism into three design stages. In stage 1, CXJM is enhanced with emotional range analysis to identify the customer pain points as well as customers' requirements (CRs) in exhibition, tourism and hotel sectors for initializing service design. Stage 2 investigates the specific design requirements (DRs) of the smart exhibition system and the contradictions. Then, the innovative principles were analyzed. In Stage 3, expected exhibition service system was designed.

The new service system which named the smart expo system based on information and communication technology (ICT) is proposed. It consists of “Tourism Link assists”, “i-Kaohsiung hotel service center”, “Smart AEC” and “O2O e-tickets”.

The proposed 3E model builds a systematic and coherent design method for the smart exhibition service area. It provides the linkage and action-oriented guidance from customer pain points, service parameters, innovative principles to solutions.

Small business capabilities and customer interactions are particularly susceptible to market disruptions. Small businesses must pivot quickly to build or grow their capabilities and manage diverse strategies to deal with crises. This ability to quickly adapt and formulate strategies is necessary to help small businesses maintain sales and continue to engage with their clients, especially in light of disruption and crises. This work uses design thinking strategies to provide insight into how businesses can navigate such disruptions.

This research investigates how design thinking can help small businesses address crises. The focus is on leveraging design thinking strategies such as empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping and testing (EDIPT), divergence/convergence and customer journey mapping design thinking tools.

The authors provide propositions and strategies to help firms adapt their strategies to the demands of clients during crises.

This piece provides an accessible introduction to three design thinking strategies (general EDIPT model, convergence/divergence and consumer journey mapping). The authors present this in the context of disruption, especially the recent pandemic, specifically focusing on small businesses.

Customer experience (CE) has been of research interest especially with researchers in a Business-to-Consumer (B2C) context. Extensive research has identified the potential of similar studies in Business-to Business (B2B) contexts, yet we have little understanding of what influences a customer's experience in a B2B environment.

This chapter aims to capture the adequacy of efforts to capture the intricacies of CE in a B2B context using input–output measures both in the traditional and modern-day environment. The chapter would provide marketing managers with a clear understanding of how CE is affected in the B2B context. Essentially, it describes the importance of creating a positive CE through the direct interaction of various stakeholders with the company and its brand. This chapter advances the current state of knowledge by analysing the impact of CE on all dimensions of customer journey, creating a differential advantage over time.

Creating memorable tourism experiences (MTE) is vital to obtain sustained tourism visits. In the digital era, infusions of various digital technologies in tourism services without admitting tourist emotions could jeopardize the experience. Drawing from a Service-Dominant Logic (S-DL) perspective, this study explains the complexity of digital tourism experience in the service system view, highlighting the importance of emotions as resources. It is composed of actors' orchestrations, connected by shared emotions, and enabled by sensory stimuli facilitated by the digital tourism ecosystem throughout the tourism journey. This study proposes a Memorable Digital Tourism Experience (MDTE) framework by identifying the focal actors, recognizing the emotions, and determining the moderating role of sensory stimuli enabled by various novel technologies. At last, several agenda and practical guidelines are proposed on how to operationalize the framework and different methodologies to explore Memorable Digital Tourism Experience.

Marketplaces are changing, and customers are demanding improved experiences where they want, how they want, and when they want. The omnichannel concept is perceived as an evolution of multichannel retailing, which implies a blurring division between the physical and online stores. In the omnichannel environment, customers move freely among physical and online stores expecting seamless shopping experiences between channels. Among different generational consumer groups, Gen Z deserves marketers’ particular attention, which is the new rising segment for omnichannel experiences. The purpose of this chapter is first to verify the essence of generational differences in consumer’s omnichannel buying behavior by giving a special focus on the Gen Z segment. Secondly, this chapter discusses how retailers should integrate their online and offline store channels to provide the best retail brand experience to these distinctive Gen Z consumers.

In its simplest form, community engagement is a process whereby an organization works with the groups and individuals it serves to transform a shared vision into actions that ultimately benefit them. This chapter presents a framework to assist library managers and administrators in reimagining their outreach efforts from a community engagement perspective where users actively shape their shared experiences with the library. Although there are resources that discuss how libraries can structure these initiatives through the ACRL Library Marketing and Outreach Interest Group, the Public Library Association, and publications such as Marketing Libraries Journal, some of the literature surrounding community-based work is not as directly tied to outreach. By reading this chapter, libraries will find information related to defining their role within their communities, outlining strategies for collaboration, conducting needs assessment, gap analysis, asset mapping, and identifying a variety of outreach activities and their accompanying assessment strategies.

This study aims to provide a cutting-edge evaluation of the sharing economy's impact within the realm of tourism and hospitality. The primary objectives guiding this research are as follows: to uncover the prevalent discussions and debates within the tourism and hospitality sector concerning the implications and effects of the sharing economy on urban destinations; and to analyse how scholarly inquiries and empirical investigations have contributed to a comprehensive comprehension of the intricate theoretical foundations and practical intricacies inherent in the sharing economy. This exploration takes place within the extensive expanse of existing literature.

The study used the non-conventional method for data mining. An artificial intelligence (AI) tool called www.dimensions.ai was used to mine data between the year 2002 and 2021. After which the data was analysed, using Citespace software that assisted in building themes for answering the research questions.

The sharing economy has multifaceted implications for rural and urban destinations. For instance, the findings demonstrated that emotional solidarity fosters community bonds between tourists and residents, enhancing authenticity. While, management firms optimise short-term rentals, boosting revenue and occupancy rates despite capped at 20%. It further demonstrated that the sharing economy disrupts traditional accommodations, especially hotels, impacting rural and urban destinations differently based on location and regulatory flexibility. Technological advancements would shape the digital future, transforming the resource in sharing and connectivity in urban settings.

Management firms or agents significantly enhance property facilities, revenue and occupancy rates. Properties managed by professionals perform better in terms of revenue and occupancy; furthermore, traditional accommodations need innovative strategies to compete with sharing economy platforms. Policymakers must consider location-specific regulations to balance sharing economy impacts. Embracing technological advancements ensures urban destinations stay relevant and competitive.

Emotional solidarity fosters bonds between residents and tourists, contributing to a sense of community. Management firms contribute to local economies and stability. However, Airbnb's impact on traditional accommodations raises concerns about the effect on residents and communities.

The study incorporates classical sociology theory to understand emotional solidarity and extends the concept of moral economy to guide economic behaviour in the sharing economy. The analysis also underscores the influence of technological trends such as mobile technology, Internet of Things, AI and blockchain on sharing practices in reshaping existing theoretical frameworks in the sharing atmosphere. Furthermore, the co-creation of value theory highlights collaborative interactions between hosts and guests, shaping the sharing economy experience. Consumer segmentation and choice theories shed light on sharing economy dynamics. Institutional and location-based theories provide insights into regulatory and location-specific impacts.

This research contributes by comprehensively exploring the multifaceted implications of the sharing economy on a tourist destination. It delves into emotional solidarity, management firm roles and location-specific impacts, enriching the understanding of the sharing economy's effects. The application of co-creation of value theory and examination of platform technologies offer fresh perspectives on value creation and user engagement. The study's focus on practical dimensions guides stakeholders in optimising the benefits and addressing challenges posed by the sharing economy in urban contexts. The exploration of moral economy and its relevance to the sharing economy provides a novel perspective, while the examination of technological influences on sharing practices contributes to understanding the digital future of the sharing economy.