Customer experience management: asking the right questions

Purpose: Customer experience is more critical than ever to firms’ successes and future growth opportunities. Typically measured through aggregate satisfaction scores, businesses have been criticised for oversimplifying what experience means. The article provides a new perspective on experience management and offers a novel way forward for customer-centric strategizing.Design/methodology/approach: Mapping the current digital technologies being used across businesses in all sectors to engage and connect with customers more effectively, this article outlines some of the fundamental challenges of experience management as well as future opportunities to enhance business practice.Findings: Businesses are capturing what they know about customers, rather than what a customer thinks and feels about the firm. Many experience management initiatives create customer pains (not gains), while for businesses, decision-making can be jeopardised by fake customer data. A framework based upon the five experience dimensions is presented for optimal customer-driven decision-making.Originality: Businesses are seeking to grow intelligent customer experience analysis capabilities to disrupt traditional business models towards greater customer-centricity and to track the digital spread of positive and negative experiences. Examining how this is being done and where the weaknesses lie by bridging management practice and the scientific literature, this article provides new knowledge to advance customer-centric strategies for growth and profitability.Practical implications: Going beyond aggregate satisfaction scores that serve as an output rather than an input into businesses strategizing, the article presents an actionable framework for targeted investments and enhanced experience management practices.