Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on customer experience to develop a better understanding of the concept and propose a research agenda. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a thorough review of 69 full-text articles, 12 books and one published dissertation related to customer experience. Findings The review describes the relevance of experiential perspective, service experience and customer experience to attract, delight and retain customers. Customer experience is regarded as a holistic interactive process, facilitated through cognitive and emotional clues, moderated by customer and contextual characteristics, resulting into unique and pleasurable/un-pleasurable memories. The study provides a deeper understanding of the concept and research issues for customer experience. Research limitations/implications It provides important insights into the emergence, development, management and measurement of customer experience-related issues for future research. Practical implications Customer experience needs to be considered and managed as a holistic strategic process for creating customer value, differentiation, customer satisfaction, loyalty and competitive advantage. Originality/value The study contributes to the understanding of customer experience and research agenda based on a thorough review of literature spanning 25 years.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to develop a scale for measuring perceived service quality for public hospitals from the user's (patient's) perspective. The objective is to measure perceived service quality of public hospitals. Design/methodology/approach -Standard scale development research procedure recommended by experts was followed. First, literature review of studies to measure service quality was undertaken. Later, Delphi method (two iterations) was used. Interviews were conducted of experts and customers for understanding and generating items for perceived service quality for public hospitals. A survey was then undertaken first for development of the scale and later for validation purpose. Findings -A reliable and valid scale called public hospital service quality (PubHosQual) is developed to measure the five dimensions of hospital service quality: admission, medical service, overall service, discharge process, and social responsibility. Research limitations/implications -Since, this study was conducted in India only, the generalizability of the PubHosQual scale has to be tested in other countries. Practical implications -The proposed scale PubHosQual in this study could be used as a diagnostic tool to identity areas where specific improvements are needed, and to pinpoint aspects of the hospital's services that require modification. The paper is an attempt to develop an instrument to incorporate the "voice of the customer." Originality/value -Most relevant studies about perceived service quality for public hospitals either do not have stable factor structure or are relying on generic SERVQUAL scale to measure service quality. The new scale fills the gap of absence of a validated scale to measure perceived service quality for public hospitals.

Customer retention has become very important in the heightened competitive environment unleashed in India, post liberalization. Recently, some researchers have made attempts to evolve and link the service convenience construct to customer satisfaction and repeat purchase from a service organization. Service convenience — a multidimensional construct with five dimensions, involves aspects beyond locational nearness or convenient operating hours. The present study aims at validating the service convenience (ServCon) scale originally developed in the West, in the Indian organized food and grocery retail context, and develop linkage between service convenience on one side, and satisfaction/behavioural intentions on the other. Convenience samples, comprising of respondents from SEC A and SEC B with experience of shopping from organized retail food and grocery outlets, were drawn from various parts of Ahmedabad city. Through the scale validation process, five dimensions emerged, as in the original 17 items ServCon scale, though with 15 items (Seiders et al, 2007). Scale validity was evaluated using correlation and confirmatory factor analysis while neural networks were used for nomological model testing. Subsequently, using cluster analysis, an attempt was made to segment respondents based on their service convenience scores which resulted in four customer segments being identified: Aspirers Fatalists Balance-oriented Pre-purchase convenience seekers. Statistically insignificant differences were observed amongst these clusters based on demographics. In the Indian context, it is found that access, benefit, and decision convenience dimensions have more importance whereas dimensions like transaction and post-benefit convenience are less relevant. Hence, retail mall managers should focus on providing better access, benefit, and decision convenience rather than transaction and post-benefit convenience. In the same vein, shopping enjoyment appears to be having a major effect on service convenience as compared to customer involvement in product category implying that shoppers experiencing higher levels of shopping enjoyment should be accorded more importance by mall managers. On the other hand, it is found that higher the perceived service convenience level, the greater the impact on shopper�s behavioural intentions as compared to satisfaction. This implies that organized retail mall managers should focus on shoppers who perceive higher levels of service convenience from malls, as they are more likely to patronize such malls by way of either positive word of mouth or increasing their visit/purchase frequency.

Purpose -The opening up of the Indian retail sector has seen a proliferation of the corporate players through different retail formats and stores -the majority being in the food and groceries. This necessitates creating, building, and managing differentiated retail store brands, and image differentiation, to attract and retain shoppers. This research paper attempts to understand whether the Indian consumers differentiate the various store brands and images based on their experiences. Design/methodology/approach -The study was conducted in two stages -list of parameters of evaluation of retail store image (developed from the literature), discussed with middle-level managers from the retail sector to finalize parameters relevant for store image measurement in the Indian context and a questionnaire evolved for primary data collection, administered to 326 SEC A and B respondents (shoppers of food and grocery from modern retail stores). To assess the store image dimensions perceived by these shoppers, factor analysis was employed and for understanding various store image attributes used for differentiation of store brands one-way analysis of variance was employed. Findings -Results reflect that Indian shoppers have started identifying the dimensions of retail store image and are differentiating the various stores on the basis of functional attributes. Eventually, the stores would have to create differentiation based on psychological attributes.Research limitations/implications -The paper is limited to the organised modern food and grocery retail stores of Ahmedabad city. Originality/value -The paper can be helpful to Indian retail store chains to focus on elements to create a differentiated store image.

No abstract