The Role of Touchpoints in Shaping the Customer Experience throughout the Customer Journey

Abstract

Purpose: Customer journeys in today’s markets are “multitouch” and multichannel. Thus, the significance of studying customer journeys reflects the need to understand how the customer goes in an ongoing cycle of experience through dealing with the different touchpoints. The paper aims to understand the connectivity between how the touchpoints shape the customer experience and how it evolves throughout the customer journey from pre-purchase to purchase to post-purchase. The objective of the paper is understanding how the customer experience is shaped in multiple touchpoints, online and offline; in other words, brand-owned and social/external touchpoints. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study is generated using qualitative approach using interviews to investigate customers who purchase from high-street fashion stores in Egypt; the study focused on five stores which are: Zara, Mango, Pull and Bear, Bershka and Stradivarius. The data were collected from conducting twenty-five interviewees. The twenty-five interviews were digitally recorded and then fully transcribed. All the interviewees were informed about the confidentiality, anonymity of their identity. After a certain point, interviews reached semantic saturation in the data collection process where no or little new information was added (Gummesson, 2005). The interviewees were delivering no new themes regarding the study, and that emerged between the twenty and twenty-two interviews, in a total of twenty-five interviews. Findings: The finding reveals that there is empirical evidence to support the idea that touchpoints shape the whole customer experience in the pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase stage.