Abstract : Customer interactions with an organization’s website create opportunities for positive experiences that can lead to long-term relationship building. The range of potential interactions is now quite diverse, including product information search, purchase transaction and/or service delivery. The domain of customer experience (CE) is well developed in the face-to-face context, but little attention has been paid to exploring the concept in the online context. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the online consumer literature in order to inform understanding of the antecedents and consequences of online customer experience (OCE) in the purchase context. The paper offers four important contributions for both academics and practitioners. First, it adds to understanding of OCE in the purchase context and, second, specifically recognizes and discusses the antecedents of OCE by drawing on existing literature relating to online consumer purchase. Third, it proposes the potential consequences of OCE and provides a framework for future testing. Finally, the paper addresses a problem of relevance to both academics and practitioners, and proposes future research and managerial implications.
? A significant number of online studies exist which can help one identify the likely drivers of online customer experience (OCE).
? This enabled the researchers to identify quickly the overall nature of existing research, its epistemological assumptions and methodological features.
? The first key difference between the two contexts is the degree of personal contact, which can range from very intensive in a face-to-face context to nonexistent online.
? Online, the brand is presented in a predominantly audio-visual way, whereas offline opportunities exist for the brand to be experienced via a range of artefacts such as staff and their presentation, buildings and facilities, vehicles, livery and other tangible elements.
? This paper enables us to address a problem of relevance and interest to academics and practitioners alike and to propose future research.
? The paper extends understanding of the factors that potentially impact OCE and provides a discussion not found so far in the literature.
? They provide a useful structural model which is centred upon the cognitive view of experience and which tests the relationships between various internal customer components (such as computer skill and control, level of arousal or degree of attention) that impact the user’s experience of the website.
? Therefore, we suggest a strong interactive effect between antecedent factors and their impact upon OCE.
• They propose seven key elements which enhance consumers’ experience of M-commerce.
• They propose that the customer is involved in reviewing incoming information in relation to past, present and potentially future experiences.
• The third set of proposed antecedents of OCE relates to skill (SK) and perceived control (PC).
• The literature so far does not suggest this proposition and, to this extent, is weak in its linkage between proposed antecedents.
• This model proposes trust and satisfaction to be outcome variables that both independently and together have a direct influence upon customer loyalty.
? Online customer experience therefore becomes an important concept for e-marketers responsible for the online B2C environment, and particularly in the context of online purchase, given the increasing performance in online sales.
? The creation of the subjective response is via the customer’s interaction with the various components of the organization’s offer, which includes the performance of the product itself, packaging, pricing, advertising, retail environment and customer service handling.
? Managerial effort tends to focus on the former in terms of the development of website performance.
? Such frameworks provide practitioners with clear direction in the development of effective websites that provide efficient and effective customer experience, thereby leading to a positive emotional state.
|