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Understanding customer experience remains the holy grail in marketing and tourism theory and practice. Although research techniques continue to evolve and improve, capturing the depths of what customers experience while they experience remains an arduous task let alone what its roots are. In response, this chapter sets out and illustrates an autohermeneutic phenomenological approach that taps into the deeper levels of experience to comprehend its extremities and processes. It places experience at the center of (self-)observation and thereby grants direct access to the entire “lifeworld” experience spectrum in its ultimate and purest form from the subject's perspective (be it a consumer, a customer or a tourist) and thereby rendering a first-hand view of the deeper levels of the pre-core-post journey of experience. This thought piece advances the methodological underpinnings of experience by offering a novel perspective to researchers and practitioners. This is brought by a supporting framework composed of five methodological guidelines to examine the multifaceted characteristics of experience, starting with its inception including its twists, turns and evolvements over time, pertaining to the viscerally intensive experience realms such as tourism.

Customer experience has become a vital premise in service theory and practice. Despite researchers' and managers' growing interest, the customer experience remains a complex and multidimensional concept that is challenging for service providers to understand. This study aims to graph the experience in its multidimensionality by categorizing and proposing matching practices for service marketing managers to channel and foster customer experiences in customer journeys.

To support the predominantly conceptual nature of the study, an abductive approach underpinned by the authors' vast experience in academia and practice, real-life autohermeneutic phenomenological experience tales and theory on customer experience and its management by providers is deployed to craft a model that addresses and highlights the multidimensionality of experience.

This study introduces the “GraphEx” (Graph Experience) hip-pocket model, which expresses customer experience in a simple yet multidimensional fashion and offers managerial practices to foster the customer's experience. The model contains three dimensions (valence, type of experience and visceral intensity) and five managerial practices (urgent patchwork, restoring, activating and stimulating desire, bolstering and safeguarding appreciation).

This study contributes to the service literature by creating granularity in the multidimensionality of customer experience. This study advances customer experience management in practice by providing service managers with novel possibilities for understanding and managing customer experiences intelligently. This can help service providers streamline and innovate customer experience strategies during customer journeys and foster customer loyalty.