Definitions of Customer Experience

There are numerous ways to understand and define customer experience (Kim &

Kim 2007, 47). The most relevant definitions from the perspective of this study are presented in a table 1. As there are numerous definitions and perspectives related to customer experience, many similarities and differences exist. From the table 1, it is easy to realize the novelty of the concept of customer experience: most of the definitions are clearly from 21th century. Moreover, it can be seen that most of the definitions are from the last decade.

Customer experience is typically seen as a complex, multifaceted construct (for example Verhoef et al. 2009, 32; Gentile et al. 2007). In addition, customer experience is holistic by nature (Verhoef et al. 2009, 32; Lemke et al. 2011, 846, Grewal et al. 2009, 1; Voss et al. 2008, 249). Every scholars’ definitions presented in the table point out the fact that customer experience cannot be created

individually, only by a customer or by company. Some scholars are using the concepts of direct encounter, interaction, touch point or contact to refer this issue.

In practice these situations can be for example when customer calls for a customer service, send to an email to a company or makes a contract. Even though these words are not mentioned in every definition (Berry et al. 2002; Fisher

& Vainio 2014), it can be interpreted that the assumption of some kind of interaction exists behind the actual definition. Even though company can affect on a customer experience happened in these encounters, it cannot control them thoroughly. According to Löytänä and Kortesuo (2011, 11) company can affect on what kind of customer experiences it does create. This view can be easily being agreed with, as company is another party in customer experience process. A little bit differing understanding of a role of a company is presented by Gentile et al.

(2007, 395). The scholars think that company is creating a framework for customer experience, and the customer is the final creator of the experience.

Meyer and Schwager (2007), Lemke et al. (2011) and Klaus & Maklan (2013) include the concept of indirect encounters to their definitions of customer experience. These indirect encounters mean unplanned, random touch points that happen between customer and company. To give some examples, indirect encounters may be a result from news seen regarding the company, recommendations or criticism given by customer’s friends or advertisements seen.

These indirect encounters are important and challenging from a company’s point of view, as these cannot be directly controlled. Though, these may be somewhat important in the formulation of customer experience. From these issues it can be deducted that as company can not control every customer experience, it should aim at creating a superior customer experience platform. Moreover, a need for customer experience management has arisen: company’s actions should be carried out accordingly. (Meyer & Schwager 2007; Lemke et al. 2011; Klaus &

Maklan 2013).

Customer experience should not be defined to be seen as a separate construct from company’s other actions: according to Verhoef et al. (2009, 32) customer experience is formulated during search, purchase, consumption, and the phases

related to after-sale activities. Meyer and Schwager (2007, 117) have similar idea behind their understanding of customer experience: they see that customer experience is also included to factors such as organization and it’s facilities, service process, and interaction with other employees as well as with other customers. This holistic understanding of customer experience can be seen to be linked to indirect encounters; both perspectives are viewing customer experience as a more comprehensive, and multifaceted way. In order to understand these issue better from company perspective, the discussion of customer experience management is needed. The chapter 2.6 is discussing about customer experience management with more in-depth.

Even though there are two parties needed, the final customer experience is occurring in customer’s mind. Customer’s subjective expectations affect on customer experience (Fisher & Vainio 2014, 9). All presented scholars are discussing the role of cognitive or emotional elements in customer experience, except Grewal et al. (2009). Individuality, emotions and uniqueness are integral part of customer experience. One may regard a similar kind of interaction situation superior, whereas another may think it is under one’s expectations.

The most interesting difference between the understanding of the concept is that some scholars regard customer experience are a result of a single encounter (Voss et al. 2008; Meyer & Schwager 2007; Voss et al. 2009; Fisher & Vainio 2014) whereas other scholars underline that customer experience is a result from all encounters occurred between company and a customer. Like stated in the chapter 1.4, in this study the understanding is that customer experience is a consequence of a single encounter. As there are almost always some previous experiences existing, these may affect to the current experience to some extent.

Another interesting difference is that Gentile et al. (2007) are the only ones discussing about value creation in their definitions. This is quite surprising, as customer experience is very clearly part of the value creation. However, it could be that other scholars see that the connection to value creation is that clear, that it is not important to mention in a short definition.

No the definitions, neither the studies behind the definitions, unequivocally take any stance on the actual, concrete time frame of customer experience: how long does customer experience is actually seen to endure. This finding was quite surprising: customer satisfaction is seen to be a consequence from a longer time perspective, whereas customer experience is a result from a shorter time. In this study the customer experience is seen to be a consequence from every touch point between a company and a customer. Some touch points are more important than to the other ones, and the importance does vary between different touch points.