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The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to examine the effects of different touch points on customer experience, second, effects of customer experience on loyalty intentions, and actual spend, and third, the moderating role of motivation orientation on these effects.

By recognizing the importance of capturing customer experience assessments at the “time of the experience”, a smartphone technology mobile app was developed for the purpose of this study. Real time customer experience data were collected at individual touch points.

The results show that the real-time touch point evaluations significantly effect overall customer experience and that these effects significantly differ for utilitarian and hedonic motivation orientations. The effects of technology, atmospherics, employee–customer interaction and service/product interaction touch points on overall customer experience are significantly stronger for hedonic orientation than for utilitarian orientation. In contrast, the effect of process touch point on overall customer experience is significantly stronger for utilitarian than hedonic orientation. Also, favorable overall customer experience evaluations exert significant positive influence on loyalty intentions, and actual spend, and these influences are significantly stronger for consumers with hedonic than utilitarian motivation orientations.

The findings of this study will enable companies to manage customer experience programs effectively by providing an understanding of the distinct touch points that occur along the customer journey and the relative importance of each of these touch points in enhancing customer experience.

This is the first empirical study that offers important insights on the effects of different touch points on customer experience, and on the moderating role of consumer motivation orientations on the touch points – customer experience – loyalty link by using real-time data.

This paper aims to contribute to extant research which emphasises the need for service suppliers to be able to leverage firm‐customer relationships through an understanding of the correlation between service touch‐points and engagement parameters.

The authors utilised multivariate methods (CATPCA and Pro‐fit) to analyse the data. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 238 respondents, sampled through the social networking site, “Facebook”.

It was found from the analysis of data that within the context of customer engagement, four critical parameters (“satisfaction”, “loyalty/advocacy”, “recruitment/retention” and “customer losses”) impact on customer touch‐points.

The study is characterised by two limitations. The first is that the respondents' simultaneous utilisation of multiple touch‐points was not accounted for in the study. Second, the authors acknowledge that the narrow demographic spread of the respondents is a possible limitation of the study.

The study findings are grounded in empirical findings which is a departure from traditional scholarship on customer touch‐points which has been based on case observations and anecdotal evidence.

This paper aims to define and frame the understanding of customer journeys, associated areas of consumer decision-making process stages and touch point categories based on an ownership perspective.

The research is based on a detailed literature review of customer journeys, in peer-reviewed marketing and retail journals, within the last decade. The Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS) academic journal guide marketing discipline list was used because it only includes peer-reviewed journals, based on an internationally accepted quality ranked list.

The detailed analysis of the journals identified three groups of touch points (brand owned, partner owned/managed and outside the control of brand owner/partner) and three decision-making process stages (pre-purchase, purchase and post–purchase) that informed a clearer definition and understanding of the customer journey.

Limitations concern the ABS database was used and a ten-year date period was selected, which may exclude some relevant journal articles, particularly those written in a language other than English.

The authors have provided a revised definition of customer journey, clarified the decision-making stages and subsequent categorisation of touch points from an ownership perspective.

Various consumer-facing artificial intelligence (AI) applications are used to interact with consumers at all purchase stages, and related research has sharply increased. This study aims to synthesize the literature related to consumer–AI interaction using the customer journey framework, identify the factors affecting AI's effectiveness in interactive marketing and offer an agenda for future research.

This study undertakes a framework-based systematic review of 239 articles on AI in marketing from the consumer perspective published in peer-reviewed journals from 2007 to 2021.

This review identifies the roles of AI touch points and factors affecting the acceptance and effectiveness of consumer–AI interaction in each stage of the customer journey.

This study is the first to review the existing literature using a customer journey framework to identify the factors that influence customer interactions with AI touch points at each purchase stage and pave the way for future research.

This paper aims to describe the development and evaluation of a process model to transform brand strategy into service experiences during the front end of new service development (NSD). This is an important yet poorly understood transformation that occurs early in service development projects. The paper also aims to describe the theoretical basis for this transformation, and introduces a process model that has been developed to understand and assist with this. Further, it seeks to describe early evaluation results and reflections upon its use.

A research through design approach using participatory co‐design led to the development of the new process. The development was iterative and carried out together with three service providers. The process model was evaluated using a combination of qualitative methods, including interviews, observation and participatory observation.

This work underlines the importance of aligning the customer experience to the company brand and suggests how this can be achieved. A key element in this is the development of a service personality and consideration of service touch‐point behaviours through a combination of analytical work and experience prototyping. The suggested process model has received positive evaluation when used in commercial projects, in terms of brand congruence, project team cohesiveness and experiential result. The work advocates tighter integration between brand management and NSD, and has identified multiple issues regarding the content of a service brand strategy. These include the ways in which a brand department should communicate its brand strategy, and how it should be involved in NSD projects to ensure brand alignment.

The evaluation of the model has limitations, both in terms of number of cases and downstream/long term effects. This should therefore be considered an initial evaluation of the model, requiring further verification.

The paper describes a structured three‐stage experience‐centric process that improves brand alignment in projects. Further, the work shows that brand specifications for services should increasingly focus upon desired customer experiences, service touch‐points and touch‐point behaviours rather than the current focus upon visual identity.

This is the first paper to suggest a process that transforms a brand strategy into customer experiences during NSD. It also adds original insights into the transition from brand to concept, bridging branding, service design and NSD.

• Customers expect retail companies to adapt their strategies to their behaviour, so they should use different channels and devices in interaction;

• Multichannel and omnichannel strategies represent two distinct approaches to managing relationships with the customers;

• The key to developing a successful omnichannel strategy is to integrate channels and touch points that will create a frictionless experience for the customer;

• Introducing omnichannel interaction requires organizational and IT changes within the company.

Customers expect retail companies to adapt their strategies to their behaviour, so they should use different channels and devices in interaction;

Multichannel and omnichannel strategies represent two distinct approaches to managing relationships with the customers;

The key to developing a successful omnichannel strategy is to integrate channels and touch points that will create a frictionless experience for the customer;

Introducing omnichannel interaction requires organizational and IT changes within the company.

This chapter seeks to investigate the journey of breast and bowel cancer patients at the HMC Antoniushove. It zooms in on specific touch points and the possibilities for improvements. Furthermore, it elucidates the learning process and more particular the dissemination between the hospital (staff and medical students) and hospitality students and professionals and emphasizes that looking from different perspectives and various disciplines is beneficial for all the stakeholders involved in hospitals.

Diseases are increasingly chronic; patients are more demanding and competition between different hospitals is increasing. That is why, in addition to excellent medical treatment, excellent service (referred to here as hospitality) is becoming increasingly important in the healthcare sector, including in hospitals. What does it have to meet? What do patients appreciate, what needs to be improved and how can these improvements be designed and implemented with the involvement of both patients and hospital staff?

Medical and hospitality students collaborated in this project analysing and describing the journey of patients with breast and bowel cancer. They examined the patient journey and elucidated the touch points, which patients indicated as critical during their ‘journey’.

Most important finding resulted from the learning process of this collaboration and the insight gained, a greater awareness and understanding of the non-medical needs and wishes, i.e. hospitality, of patients. Furthermore, the mutual understanding between the evidence-based stance of thinking of medical students and hospital staff at the one side and the more on soft skills–focused attitude of hospitality students on the other hand increased.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how essential dimensions of customer experience management (CEM) drive business performance in Danish companies.

An empirical study is conducted to investigate the relationships between seven CEM dimensions, differentiation, market performance and financial performance. The conceptual model is operationalized by a structural equation model, and the model is estimated and tested by using the partial least squares method. A survey among 484 companies in Denmark forms the empirical basis for the study.

The findings provide evidence that the seven CEM dimensions influence differentiation, market performance and financial performance. High-performing companies differ significantly from low-performing companies with regard to how they master the CEM, meaning that those companies which incorporate superior customer experience into their products and service enjoy measurable financial success.

This study is limited to the seven identified CEM dimensions in Danish companies.

This study has clear implications in terms of identifying and measuring the importance of essential CEM dimensions which influence business performance. The results can help companies to understand CEM and develop CEM strategies.

The paper provides a deeper insight into CEM and how CEM works.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of Tehran pharmacies' services and their impacts on the pharmaceutical firms, to highlight forces behind the current situation and suggest some improvements. This provides the means for pharmaceutical companies to differentiate themselves by quality of services, in the forefront of dealing with the customers, so‐called the last “touch point”.

After a comprehensive literature review, SERVQUAL model was chosen to be used in this study. A combination of quantitative and qualitative (integrative) methods was used for data collection and analysis. The quantitative data were gathered by questionnaires, including 22 pair items measuring expectation and perception, followed by qualitative data, including 32 in‐depth interviews. Furthermore, the views of our expert panel consisting of nine experts have been identical to the study. For statistical treatment of quantitative data, SPSS software was used.

The study reveals that Tehran community pharmacies are facing serious service quality problems. The results of quantitative data show negative gaps in perceptions and expectations of customers in all 22 SERQUAL statements and all dimensions: Information, Reliability, Empathy, Appearance and Time commitment. Comparatively, appearance dimension is ranked as the highest quality and the lowest rank belongs to information dimension. The findings show that the generic SERVQUAL scale does not properly measure the quality of pharmacies' services; therefore, the authors recommend an industry‐based scale; called PHARMA‐SERVQUAL. The findings show the reasons for low quality services are: low education of pharmacists' assistants, lack of proper regulation and control, pharmacies' economic problems and cost of quality improvement, the culture of blaming others and accusing pharmaceutical firms, government and social security organization. In short, pharmacists transfer their service problems to pharmaceutical firms, which have largely neglected this last touch point with the customer. The study also suggests some quality improvements and academic as well as managerial implications.

The study provides empirical evidence regarding the service quality of pharmacies in a developing country (Iran) and adds depth to the understanding of the reasons behind the quality problems. This research contributes to the understanding of how pharmacies' qualities of services enhance/change the customers' perception of the pharmaceutical companies' product qualities. It suggests that the firms should differentiate themselves at the pharmacies as the “last touch point” dealing with the end‐users. The study sheds light on the necessity of modifying the SERVQUAL items and dimensions to fit pharmacies' services.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to questionnaires as a corporate touch point, and their relationship with corporate identity (CI).

Following observational research, the paper presents a review of published works, including journals, textbooks and industry papers that consider qualitative aspects of questionnaire design. Primary data was collected via existential phenomenological interviews to understand the experiences of employees who engage with questionnaires from external companies within the industrial business-to-business (B2B) industry.

A lack of practical advice around aesthetic appearance of questionnaires in both journal papers and research design textbooks is identified, suggesting limited awareness of visual aspects of questionnaire design, even for those with formal training. Through interviews, it is suggested that poor design is forgiven through the understanding of the practical nature of the document, the idea that CI is a performance that is unnecessary at particular points of the B2B relationship, and that a more powerful company need not spend time on CI if collecting data from a stakeholder that is perhaps perceived as less important than other stakeholders. The findings indicate that organisations should consider questionnaires as a vehicle to promote CI, and as stakeholders to consider the document in terms of their relationship with the issuing company.

This study proposes that qualitative inquiry is required to further determine how questionnaires are understood as a corporate touch point by stakeholders.

This paper considers the relationship between questionnaire appearance and stakeholder perceptions in the context of CI.