The interplay of customer experience and commitment STRUCTURED ABSTRACT Purpose -This research examines the customer experience through the lens of customer commitment and provides a framework for future research into the intersection of these emerging streams of research. Design/methodology/approach -This research contributes to theoretical and practical perspectives on the customer experience (CE) and its measurement by integrating extant literature with customer commitment and customer satisfaction literature. Findings -The breadth of the domains that encompass the customer experiencecognitive, emotional, physical, sensorial, and social-makes simplistic metrics impossible for gauging the entirety of customers' experiences. These findings provide strong support of the need for new research into CE and customer commitment. Practical implications -Given the complexity of the CE concept, managers are unlikely to track and manage all relevant elements of CE. This research provides a framework identifying empirically the most salient attributes of the CE with particular emphasis on those elements that enhance commitment to the firm or brand. This should offer insight into service design to correspond with specific commitment and experience dimensions. Originality/value -This research is the first to examine the customer experience through the lens of customer commitment-a key factor in customer loyalty, positive word of mouth and other desired outcomes for managers and marketers. We provide a framework for future research into this emerging topic. The interplay of customer experience and commitmentCustomer Experience Management (CEM) is being hailed as the next competitive battleground for firms to grow market share. In fact, research by Gartner finds that by 2017, 89%of companies plan to compete primarily on the basis of the customer experience (CE) (Gartner, 2016). Moreover, a new industry of CEM professionals has recently emerged to address the rapidly growing demand by businesses for expertise in the field.Despite this emphasis, however, there is no general consensus among managers or academics regarding what comprises the CE. As a result, it is difficult to ascertain its boundaries (e.g., how it differs from customer engagement, customer value, etc.). Consequently, there exists no consensus regarding the aspects of the CE that require assessment and metrics.This article addresses these issues by investigating the experience construct. We do this by building on the definition of CE of De Keyser et al. (2015): "Customer experience is comprised of the cognitive, emotional, physical, sensorial, and social elements that mark the customer's direct or indirect interaction with a [set of] market actor[s]" (p. 1). Specifically, we focus on customer assessment in the cognitive, emotional, physical, sensorial, and social domains as they relate to CE and, where possible, describe metrics designed to measure these assessments.Since the overriding goal of companies' efforts to enhance the CE is to engender commitment ...

PurposeResponding to an increasing call for a more comprehensive conceptualization of customer delight, the purpose of this paper is to expand the theory of customer delight and to examine the implications of such an expanded view for service theory and practice.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents the results of three qualitative studies. The first study explores customer delight through self-reported consumption experiences in customer-selected contexts, followed by one-on-one in-depth interviews. The second involves focus groups and the third examines self-reported incidents of delightful customer experiences.FindingsThis research finds that customer delight goes beyond extreme satisfaction and joy and surprise to include six properties that—individually or in combination—characterize customer delight. An expanded conceptualization of how customer delight can be defined is proposed in which customer delight is associated with various combinations of six properties – the customer experiencing positive emotions, interacting with others, successful problem-solving, engaging customer’s senses, timing of the events and sense of control that characterizes the customer's encounter.Research limitations/implicationsIt is clear from the findings of this research that there is no single property that is associated with delight. Through the facilitation of multiple properties, managers have the potential to create a multitude of routes to delight. It is recommended that future research (1) identify and explicate these alternative routes for engendering delight using the six properties identified, and (2) develop a general typology based on service context and characteristics, customer segment, etc. that further stimulates scholarship on delight, and offers more industry-specific insights for managers.Practical implicationsInsights from this investigation will encourage managers and service designers to think more broadly and creatively about delight. Doing so will open up new opportunities for achieving customer delight, beyond merely focusing on extreme satisfaction or surprise and joy strategies currently dominating discussions of customer delight.Originality/valueThis paper makes several contributions to the service literature. First, it extends current conceptualizations of customer delight and offers an expanded definition. Next, it demonstrates how this new understanding extends the existing literature on delight. Finally, it proposes an agenda for future delight research and discusses managerial implications, opening up new opportunities for firms to design delightful customer experiences.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to combine the evolving fields of customer delight and positive psychology to investigate a broader conceptualization of customer delight. Furthermore, to investigate antecedent variables that impact this broader conceptualization. Design/methodology/approach This research employed structural equation modeling in a hedonic context. Findings Key findings indicate that aside from joy and surprise, gratitude also has a positive impact on customer delight. Furthermore, psychological sense of brand community (PSBC) and transcendent customer experiences (TCE) were shown to positively impact the proximal antecedents of customer delight. Research limitations/implications Extending the domain of customer delight beyond joy and surprise contributes to the theoretical discussion on what customer delight represents to the service firm. Further, this research identifies new theoretical relationships between PSBC/TCE and customer delight. Practical implications By offering the broader conceptualization of customer delight, this research contributes to the discussion of whether delight is possible or even profitable. Namely, by moving past joy/surprise, this research suggests that managing gratitude can be a strategic lever that the modern service firm can utilize. Originality/value This is the first research to evaluate gratitude as an antecedent to customer delight. Further, by combining positive psychology and delight research this research identifies new predictors of positive customer experiences.

This study represents a novel attempt to investigate the cascading effects of COVID-19 perceptions onto behavioural patterns towards fashion brands on Instagram and across two generations technative vs tech non-native) in a Sub-Saharan African context. We drew our study on a sample of 338 Instagram users that experienced fashion brands on Instagram in two Sub-Saharan African countries: Uganda and Nigeria. We used partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypothetical model. We found that COVID-19 perception positively predicted enjoyment and usefulness, leading to more satisfaction with fashion brand accounts on Instagram and hence greater intention to follow and recommend those accounts. Finally, running a multigroup analysis (MGA), we found the effects of COVID-19 perceptions pronounced into both intentions to follow and intention to recommend via the sequence of mediators: enjoyment and satisfaction were only valid amongst the tech-native generational cohort. Our research suggested a new generational categorisation based on technology nativity -offering a new direction of generational studies in digital marketing communications.

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