Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify the practices used by service providers to manage the customer service experience (CSE) across multiple phases of the customer journey in a business-to-business (B2B) setting.Design/methodology/approachThis study comprises an ethnography that investigates in real time, from a dyadic perspective, and the CSE management practices at two service providers operating in knowledge-intensive service industries over a period of eight months. Analytically, the study concentrates on critical events that occurred in phases of the customer journey that in some way alter CSE, thus making it necessary for service providers to act to keep their customers satisfied.FindingsThe study uncovers four types of service provider practices that vary based on the mode of organization (ad hoc or regular) and the mode of engagement (reactive or proactive) and based on whether they restore or bolster CSE, including the recurrence of these practices in the customer journey. These practices are conveniently presented in a circumplex typology of CSE management across five phases in the customer journey.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper advances the research in CSE management throughout the customer journey in the B2B context by showing that CSE management is dynamic, recurrent and multifaceted in the sense that it requires different modes of organization and engagement, notably during interaction with customers, in different phases of the customer journey.Practical implicationsThe circumplex typology acts as a tool for service providers, helping them to redesign their CSE management practices in ongoing service and dialogical processes to keep their customers more engaged and satisfied.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to infuse a dyadic stance into the ongoing discussion of CSE management practices in B2B, in which studies to date have deployed only provider or customer perspectives. In proposing a microlevel view, the study identifies service providers' CSE management practices in multiple customer journey phases, especially when the situation becomes critical.
Highlights
Understanding the customer experience is key in all service businesses (Helkkula, 2011; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2010)
While the extant literature highlights the importance of reactiveness in service recovery (Parasuraman et al, 1988; Virlee et al, 2020) as a distinct process in customer journeys (Van Vaerenbergh et al, 2019), we show that service providers can bolster customer service experience (CSE) through a proactive mode of engagement consisting of constructively exploring solutions for emerging problems in the customer journey
4.1 Identifying service provider practices Our findings show that the practices conducted by service providers in managing CSE are multifold and occur in different phases throughout the customer journey
Summary
Understanding the customer experience is key in all service businesses (Helkkula, 2011; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2010). Service businesses find it challenging to manage a desired customer service experience (CSE) in ongoing service processes and customer journeys. Ellway and Dean, 2016; Helkkula, 2011; Helkkula et al, 2012a; Yakhlef, 2015) Such studies show that CSE is a lived and subjective experience and, in a sense, a multifaceted construct (Becker and Jaakkola, 2020) that is difficult to grasp, let alone manage CSE is susceptible to changes across the multiple phases and touchpoints of the customer journey (Patrıcio et al, 2011; Zomerdijk and Voss, 2010; Lemon and Verhoef, 2016) and even beyond (Gr€onroos, 2017)
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