Bridging the gap between customer experience management and mobile shopping.
| Autor | San-Martin, Sonia |
1 Introduction
The rapid expansion of potential customer touch points and limited control over the mobile shopping experience is contributing to an increasingly complex situation in which firms create unique customer experiences and attempt to manage and control them successfully (Edelman & Singer, 2015). The technological development of emerging countries such as Mexico, where the penetration of smartphones stands at around 20% of the population, demonstrates the growing importance of mobility. In Mexico, 91% of smartphone users have searched for local retailer information and 51% have searched for local business addresses of retailers or directions to their physical locations. Earlier figures reveal the importance attached to the perceived distance to alternative physical retailers in customer evaluations. This is especially relevant in a geographically extensive country where perceived distance can play an important role in customer purchase decisions. Moreover, we should not forget that Mexico is the fourteenth largest country in the world and the third largest in Latin America (National Institute of Statistic and Geography [INEGI], 2018). In this context, the management of mobile shoppers' experiences is critical, because satisfactory customer experiences can help to improve mobile business performance (Puccinelli et al., 2009). However, there is little research on Customer Experience Management (CEM) in mobile contexts, because of its novelty (Joshi, Bhatia, Raikar, & Pall, 2017). Hence, the objective of this research is to study CEM in the mobile shopping context in more depth. More specifically, this paper aims to analyze the impact of human, mechanical, and technical clues of CEM on satisfaction and repurchase intention. This research contributes to the academic literature by applying CEM to the mobile shopping (m-shopping) context using information from 1053 real m-shoppers and it attempts to fill the gap concerning the role that perceived distance may play. Consequently, in our proposed CEM model, the moderating influence of shopper-perceived distance (near or far) from alternative physical retailers is considered. It also contributes to managerial practice by providing firms with recommendations regarding the clues they can use to offer a satisfactory experience. This study contributes to understanding which factors mobile vendors (m-vendors) could manage in different ways to engender satisfaction and repurchases via mobile.
The paper is structured into six sections. Following this introduction, in Section 2 we present the theoretical background. The justification for the proposed hypotheses is found in Section 3, and then the research method is detailed in Section 4. A discussion of the results follows in Section 5 and, finally, in Section 6 we end with our conclusions, their implications, and the limitations of our study.
2 theoretical framework for CEM
From an academic perspective, customer experience is a set of activities and states of human beings, called 'experiential consumption prospects' (Ranjan & Read, 2016). The study of customer experience in m-shopping is discussed in most cases using previously investigated theoretical perspectives [e.g. the Expectation Confirmation theory (Pappas, Pateli, Giannakos & Chrisskopoulos, 2014), the Technology Acceptance Model (Chong, 2013; GroB, 2015), and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Jaradat & Rababaa, 2013; Slade, Dwivedi, Piercy & Williams, 2015)]. However, as we have said before, research into mobile environments that incorporates the CEM framework is novel, as the vast majority of existing research contextualizes its analysis using physical retailers (Genlin & Jie, 2015; Grewal, Levy & Kumar, 2009; Joshi, 2014; Palmer, 2010; Sukwadi, 2015), with a few using web-based retailers (Fernandez-Sabiote & Roman, 2016; Pandey & Chawla, 2018).
CEM is the name given to the 'Total Customer Experience' strategic management process in a firm, which involves the firm's efforts to improve the quality of interactions with consumers in consistent and effective encounters (Joshi, 2014). An experience consists of individual contacts between the firm and the customer at distinct points in the experience, called touch points (Benzarti & Mili, 2017; Homburg, Jozi'c & Kuehnl, 2015; Puccinelli et al., 2009). CEM serves to structure the experiences offered to the customers, determining which clues can generate a participatory and lasting experience (Lipkin, 2016; Weber & Elfe rink, 2017). Interaction through mobile phones produces clues that should be consistent and cohesive for engendering lasting and satisfactory customer experiences (Berry, Wall, & Carbone, 2006; San-Martin, Prodanova & Lopez, 2016). These clues encompass not only the physical and concrete aspects of the firm, but also intangible elements (Kumar, Pozza, & Ganesh, 2013), such as mobile store environment, security, and employee reputation. According to Berry et al. (2006), customers experience a range of clues that help them generate a set of impressions that become experiences. These authors classified clues into human, mechanical, and technical aspects.
Berry et al. (2006) characterized human clues as those emanating from people, while Lipkin (2016) affirmed that they consisted of relational elements in the context of new technologies, such as interactions with other customers and the employees of the firm. According to Fatma (2014), customers' interactions with the employees of a firm affect customer perceptions. According to Berry et al. (2006), this clue refers to the behavior of providers, in our case reflected in the employee reputation of the m-vendor firm. Reputation can clearly reflect the past performance of an m-vendor's customer service, which would suggest that m-vendor employees gain knowhow in managing satisfactory experiences (Choi & Nazareth, 2014). Consumers may be more likely to buy when m-vendors have employees (e.g. customer service) with a good reputation for providing satisfactory m-shopping experiences (Gonzalez-Hernandez & OrozcoGomez, 2012). In contrast, Hillman and Neustaedter (2017) pointed out that a lack of social clues (e.g. reputation) from the employees in mobile commerce reduced mobile shopping development. Thus, it is especially important to consider the human attention provided during the customer mobile experience.
Regarding the mechanical clue of CEM, Berry et al. (2006) described it as comprising diverse environment clues that concern the 'sensory' presentation of the service (e.g. design, ambient conditions, signs, and symbols). Kimbell (2011) noted the importance of design issues when developing or managing customer experiences. Likewise, Simons, Hampe, and Guldemond (2014) stated that paying greater attention to the details of the mechanical artifacts involved in a service experience will impact on customer satisfaction. According to Blut, Chowdhry, Mittal, and Brock (2015), these factors show a greater impact on the perception of service quality than the intangible aspects of the environment. Customers will usually first perceive the clue that helps to create an initial positive impression (Berry et al., 2006). In our study, this clue will refer to the mobile website (m-site) environment or design, i.e., the sum of the virtual mechanical signals that the user perceives during the shopping experience on the mobile website.
The technical clue of CEM refers to customer perceptions of the technical performance of the service that is provided and is known as the functional part of the CEM framework, which includes the calculative perception of quality (Berry et al., 2006; Mbama & Ezepue, 2018). It refers to "the subjective probability with which consumers believe that their personal information will not be viewed, stored, and manipulated during transit and storage by inappropriate parties in a manner consistent with their confident expectations" (Flavian & Guinaliu 2006). According to Mai, Yoshi, and Tuan (2014), in emerging markets, customers' trust in virtual transactions is not strong. Therefore, the mission of web designers is to create an attractive interface, updating the latest information, and the security systems, thus enhancing the perception of usefulness among customers. However, few studies have investigated the above-mentioned cognition related to determinants of trust and satisfaction in online contexts in emerging markets.
In addition, the psychologically perceived distance to physical stores can make differences in the impact of previous clues of CEM on satisfaction and repurchase intention. Darke, Brady, Benedicktus, and Wilson (2016) state the importance of this perceived distance. Although to the best of our knowledge there are no works addressing this influence of perceived distance in an online shopping context, it is considered here as a key variable when speaking about shopping online or offline.
3 Proposed hypotheses
One of the most crucial variables in CEM is satisfaction, as it is the result of a good and complete experience (Joshi, 2014). Satisfaction is a relational variable that has been studied in the context of mobile commerce (Chi, 2018; Deng, Lu, Wei, & Zhang, 2010). It implies fulfilling expectations as well as a positive affective state, based on the result of maintaining a relationship in the mobile context (Fernandez-Sabiote & Roman, 2016). Satisfaction also impacts on customer loyalty as well as purchase intention (Kuo, Wu, & Deng, 2009). In mobile commerce, which is a new and still unexplored medium of buying and selling for many customers, satisfaction is key if relations are to be maintained, bearing in mind that initial commercial experiences may set the tone for a firm's success or failure in this medium. Several studies have highlighted the importance of exploring determinants of m-shopper satisfaction (Choi, Seol, Lee, Cho, & Park, 2008; Kuo et al., 2009). On this point, Sharma...
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