Measuring customer experience in an international B2B machinery manufacturer: The influence of national culture
A strong alignment between a value proposition of a company and the needs of its clients is crucial for achieving a positive customer-company fit (Osterwalder et al., 2014). Klaus (2014) found that although 80% of CEOs claim to deliver exceptional customer service, only 8% of customers concur with this assertion.
Knowing that academics argue that the economy is shifting towards an emphasis on experiences and that industries centred around providing experiences are rising, the importance of understanding and studying experiences in today’s society is emphasized (Pine II & Gilmore, 1998, 1999; Wookey, 2017; Silva et al., 2021). Furthermore, it highlights the importance of suppliers actively seeking a thorough understanding of customer needs and continually striving to meet and exceed customer expectations in order to provide the best service.
Customer experience (CX) is a comprehensive and holistic concept. It encompasses not only the organizational structure but also the customer’s cognitive, emotional, sensory, spiritual, and social responses to the organization. The CX Quality model (EXQ) has been hailed as an important contribution to CX research (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016), and it has been valid for B2C and B2B. Accordingly to Klaus (2014), CX includes three dimensions: Brand, Service, and Post-purchase experience that can explain different outcomes: Share of category, Loyalty, Word of Mouth and Customer Satisfaction (SAT), as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – Conceptual model of customer experience quality. Adapted from Klaus (2014)
Although many studies examine this theme from a theoretical perspective, methods to help managers measure CX, quantifying the qualitative attributes and analysing the influence of the agents, years of experience and the national culture remain scarce.
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Silva, J. H., Mendes, G. H., Miguel, P. A. C., Amorim, M., & Teixeira, J. G. (2021). Customer experience research: intellectual structure and future research opportunities. Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 31, 893–931. doi:10.1108/JSTP-08-2020-0193
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Customer Experience; National Culture
