Developing a Model for Successful Implementation of Customer Experience Management in Organizations: A Qualitative Study

Building a strong customer experience is currently one of the most important management goals. The explosion of potential touch points and diminishing control over the customer experience requires companies to integrate multiple business functions such as IT, operations of the service, logistics, marketing, human resources, and even external partners and supply chains to create and deliver a positive customer experience. The purpose of this study is to provide a model of the key components that affect the successful implementation of customer experience management in the organization.
 
To achieve the objectives of the research, a qualitative approach was adopted, employing the method of qualitative content analysis. Accordingly, the opinions of interviewees were collected, recorded, and scrutinized. The codes and concepts were extracted by MaxQDA software. This process involved conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews with 14 experts with an appropriate history of working on customer experience and key informants related to customer relationship management and loyalty. Finally, the key components affecting the successful implementation of customer experience management in the organization were identified and presented as a conceptual model.
After analyzing the interviews, the codes were extracted and labeled based on similarity and frequency of replication in 10 main themes, 32 categories, and 83 concepts. Finally, the results of the analysis were presented in the form of a table of key components, categories, and the conceptual model of the components. These 10 themes, which were considered as the key components, include customer experience-driven employee; customer experience design and implementation process; customer-centric culture; customer experience governance; management of organization and business processes; customer-focused leadership; customer experience-driven infrastructure, mechanization, and technology management; customer-centric strategic planning; customer experience insights management; and customer interaction management and organizing.
 
Analyzing the conducted interviews, a comprehensive model was presented concerning the components affecting the successful implementation of customer experience management in the organization. Considering the internal relationships of the key components, the results showed that the components can be organized into four layers. The most external of them is the layer of Leadership and Culture, which plays the driving role in implementation. The second layer is the Organizing and Governance layer which acts as the operational lever of implementation in the organization. The third layer is the Customer Experience process and infrastructure, where the customer experience is designed, implemented, and measured based on the required infrastructure and technology. Finally, the last and innermost layer of the model is the layer of Data and Touchpoints, where the customer interaction with the organization is formed. And the data and the experience are created afterward.