Customer experience management research is increasingly concerned with the long-term evolution of customer experience journeys across multiple service cycles. A dominant smooth journey model makes customers’ lives easier, with a cyclical pattern of predictable experiences that builds customer loyalty over time, also known as a loyalty loop. An alternate sticky journey model makes customers’ lives exciting, with a cyclical pattern of unpredictable experiences that increases customer involvement over time, conceptualized here as an involvement spiral. Whereas the smooth journey model is ideal for instrumental services that facilitate jobs to be done, the sticky journey model is ideal for recreational services that facilitate never-ending adventures. To match the flow of each journey type, firms are advised to encourage purchases during the initial service cycles of smooth journeys, or subsequent service cycles of sticky journeys. In multiservice systems, firms can sustain customer journeys by interlinking loyalty loops and involvement spirals. The article concludes with new journey-centered questions for customer experience management research, as well as branding research, consumer culture theory, consumer psychology, and transformative service research.

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PurposeReligion's influence in consumer research remains under‐researched. This paper aims to explore religiosity's effect on culture and consumption by comparing Indians living in Britain, with Asian Indians and British Whites. The paper is relevant to both academics and practitioners who wish to understand the role of religion's influence regarding culturally determined consumer behaviours.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire measuring family, self‐identity, materialism, possessions as status symbols and reference groups was administrated in London and Mumbai. Religiosity was measured by religious institution attendance and the importance of religion in daily life. A total of 415 questionnaires were submitted to factor analysis, identifying six factors. These factors were then submitted to Multinomial Logistical Regression (MLR), with the two religiosity themes used as influencing variables on the factors.FindingsThe analysis indicated that Indians living in Britain and British Whites sample groups were culturally less group‐ and consumption‐oriented than Asian Indians. Declining levels of religiosity produced mixed results for Indians living in Britain, when compared to Asian Indians, indicating that: attendance at a religious institution is not akin to viewing religion as an important aspect of daily life, a diversity of religiosity determined consumer behaviours across the Indian sample groups, and religion is an acculturation agent. The research, however, is limited owing to the small sample group and the need to maintain cross‐cultural methodologies.Originality/valueMarketing practitioners should recognise the importance of religion in culture in Eastern cultures, while in Western cultures they should focus on the centrality and the need to use consumption to maintain the individual's sense of individuality.

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Andrew Lindridge is a lecturer in marketing at Manchester School of Management, UMIST. His research interests lie in the relationships between culture, identity and consumption, particularly in their manifestation within ethnic minority groups, with a number of journal papers currently under review. His teaching involves both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Manchester and undergraduate courses in Singapore, with the latter offering research opportunities to explore further cultural inter-relationships in other Asian countries. others. Sally has undertaken consultancy and delivered executive training programmes for a wide range of companies, including Barclays, HSBC, ICI, JCB, McDonald's, Midlands Electricity and AstraZeneca. AbstractThis paper investigates whether culture can be used to segment a market. Using Indians, resident in Britain (British Indians) as an example, previous research suggests that culture's manifestation within buyer behaviour provides sufficient evidence to justify its use as a market segment variable. Using brown goods (television sets, video equipment, music systems etc) a comparative quantitative study examined the impact of a range of cultural values upon the buying behaviour of British Indians and British Caucasians, to identify significant differences between the two. Although a significant difference was found, the amount of similarity between the two sample groups suggests culture should not be used as a segmentation variable. This research has implications for organisations seeking to develop ethnic minority orientated marketing strategies.