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Customer Experience--An Emerging Frontier in Customer Service Excellence Madan M. Batra, Indiana University of Pennsylvania ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Customer experience (CX) has become a hot topic in the competitive business world today. This paper explains the nature of the CX industry, its emerging trends and challenges, CX evolution, managerial issues of CX, and a variety of CX tools and analytics. The discussion is useful for CX practitioners focused on customer service excellence, as well as academicians interested in carving out research agenda about an emerging customer experience topic that is triggered by the intricacies of consumer empowerment and technological disruption. Keywords: Customer Experience, Customer Experience Trends, Customer Experience Challenges, Customer Journey Mapping, Net Promoter Score System, Customer Sentiment Analytics, Big Data Analytics

INTRODUCTION Customer experience (CX) refers to a customer’s perceived overall quality of all the interactions and relationships the customer has with a company and its products and services (Borowski, 2016). The interactions include both pre-sale and post-sale interactions and can be either direct—for example, when a customer completes a sales transaction through a sales representative—or indirect, such as when a customer reads a social media blog about another person’s interaction with the company. A case in point, popularized by the social media and TV media, is the recent negative customer experience of a Vietnamese-American passenger at United Airlines who had paid for his airline ticket and was already seated in his allotted seat, but was physically dragged out of the airplane as the airplane was overbooked, causing significant injuries to the passenger. CX has become a hot topic in the corporate board room today. Since the mid-2000s, the term has been appearing with increasing frequency in a variety of corporate discussions on business strategy, marketing strategy, customer service, and general business management. The earlier corporate focus on customers, as traced by Lemon and Verhoef (2016), has been in the forms of customer satisfaction and loyalty (1970s), service quality (1980s), relationship marketing (1990s), and customer relationship management (2000s). However, as customers’ expectations from and interactions with businesses have been evolving at a rapid pace in today’s dynamic era of consumer empowerment and digital disruption, a variety of modern CX programs have been created, and more programs are in the making. New strategies and technologies provide a tremendous opportunity for practitioners to capitalize on this emerging frontier of CX. This paper explains the nature of the CX industry, its emerging challenges, trends and opportunities, managerial issues regarding CX, and a variety of CX emerging tools and analytics. The discussion is useful for CX practitioners focused on customer service excellence, as well as academicians interested in carving out research agenda about the important customer experience topic that is triggered by the intricacies of consumer empowerment and technological disruption.

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CX INDUSTRY: NATURE, CHALLENGES, AND TRENDS

Nature of the CX Industry The CX industry has three major players: (1) CX management and marketing practitioners (CX leadership, middle management, retailers, and front-line employees), (2) third-party digital-solution providers—for example, SaaS providers, and (3) industry analysts, experts, bloggers, commenters, and researchers. In the report titled “The Global State of Customer Experience 2016” developed by the CX Network (www.cxnetwork.com) in association with Forrester and CRMXchange, over 700 survey-respondents, from all three categories as stated above, provide insights into the trends, challenges, and investment priorities that may be shaping CX in the near future. CX industry leaders admired by the survey-respondents include Amazon, Emirates, First Direct, Metro Bank, KLM, Virgin, Starbucks Coffee, Apple, Facebook, Google, Nordstrom, Zalando, Australian Government, Vodafone, Bloomberg, The Ritz-Carlton, Zappos.com, Hilton, Chick-fil-A, CAT, USAA, British Airways, Hot Topic, John Lewis, eBay, Disney, BMW, Naked Wines, GE, and Samsung. In the aforesaid survey, the top CX investment priorities for the near future, as stated by the CX respondents, are customer loyalty and retention, customer relationship management (CRM), online customer experience, customer insights, customer centricity (creating a positive consumer experience at all customer touch points), customer experience data and analytics, customer contact-center solutions, Voice of the Customer (popularized digital customer feedback programs), digital marketing, customer acquisition, omni-channel integration, cloud services, and employee engagement. Table 1 provides these areas of CX investment in a systematic fashion.

CX Challenges

The 2016 Forrester survey identifies two types of CX challenges: investment-related and overall. The top CX investment- related challenges include the difficulty in calculating and demonstrating ROI from CX products and solutions; finding budget for CX products, processes and solutions; broad level buy-in of CX focus throughout an organization; complicated internal sign-off process for CX products, processes and solutions; getting regional sign-off for CX products and solutions in a large organization; too much “noise” in the vendor market about CX products and solutions, but not enough bespoke products within budget; and, too much vendor choice. The top overall challenges for CX practitioners, as identified by the survey, include creating a customer-first culture throughout an organization, identifying CX-area priorities that are mutually-competing, ensuring consistency across communication and distribution channels within and across an organization, shifting the organizational mind-set from product-focus to customer- focus, engaging employees in the customer-focus, digitally transforming the business, linking CX initiatives to ROI, gaining senior management buy-in, understanding the customer expectations and experience in-depth, keeping up with the rapid changes in the mobile- and social-platform technology, and upgrading customer-focused legacy systems. Suggestions to overcome some of the above CX challenges include

• Increased awareness, at the corporate level, of the importance of CX

• Identification of strategy and tactics for organizational culture change to customer focus

• Better communication about CX across different units of the organization

• Better case studies demonstrating ROI of CX

• Best practices and better knowledge and understanding of the CX digital products and solutions that are available to support organizational CX needs

• Increased budget for CX programs, customer experience management development, and employee training about the implementation of CX programs

• Executive leadership working together to agree on key CX initiatives, determining how to fund them, establishing

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shared goals, defining success measures, and establishing governance processes

TABLE 1: EMERGING AREAS OF CX INVESTMENT AREAS WHICH CX PRACTITIONERS MUST PRIORITIZE SUBJECT TO THEIR GOALS

GOAL AREAS OF FOCUS 1. Overall CX Customer journey mapping Customer loyalty and retention Customer satisfaction measurement Multi-channel integration Online CX Training and employee engagement

Voice of the Customer (popularized customer feedback program)

2. Contact Center investment Dashboards and analytics Call recording and quality monitoring Knowledge management Live chat Self-service/Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Workforce training and supervision 3. Customer insight investment Business intelligence and reporting Customer and data analytics Customer segmentation Data mining Online CX Predictive analytics Social insights and analytics Social media monitoring 4. Digital and social investment Conversion rate optimization Customer insights for action planning Digital content development Digital design Mobile marketing Omni-channel engagement Customer personalization Programmatic marketing Social media engagement 5. Marketing investment Brand strategy Content marketing Customer insight/intelligence Customer relationship management (CRM) Data and analytics Marketing innovation Marketing effectiveness Mobile marketing and engagement Omni-channel engagement Social media monitoring, analysis, engagement

Source: Compiled from The Global State of Customer Experience 2016 report (www.cxnetwork.com)

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CX Industry Trends The trending CX areas, as identified by the CX practitioners in the Forrester survey, are customer loyalty and retention, online CX, CX data and analytics, customer relationship management, employee engagement, omni-channel, self-service/automation, churn reduction, digital marketing, and social media engagement. Further trends, as predicted by the CX digital solution providers, include mobile platforms, emotional intelligence, and trust in customer experience. An additional trend predicted by analysts and bloggers is evolving cloud services. Suggestions to prepare for the above industry trends include

• Seek advice from the experienced non-competitive peers

• Draw-up a short list of usable CX products and services based upon recommendations from digital solution providers

• Continually redefine the CX business model

• Communicate and internally market the CX transformation plan and roadmap

• Develop both digital and offline CX strategies

• Shortlist a few CX solution providers

• Research CRM alternatives, and invest heavily in online and self-service capabilities

• Build business cases to demonstrate tangible CX returns

• Engage with vendors and internal partners on CX best practices

• Conduct constant market studies to understand consumer behavior, consumer trends, and the voice of the customer

• Simplify CX scale and processes

• Use customer intelligence to target valued-customers

CX Technology Trends Within the larger domain of overall CX industry trends, CX technology trends need special attention as customers lately expect more from their company interactions because of the continually-evolving technological and digital innovations. Technological evolution has been taking place at an unparalleled pace for the last five years. Examples include the proliferation of mobile interfaces and devices, the commoditization of the “Internet of Things” via sensors and monitors, the rapid adaptation of tablets and touch-screen computers, micro- and mobile-payments, etc. Kolsky (2016) asserts that corporations need to tender to these technological evolutions at the same pace they are released to deliver innovative and satisfactory CXs. Further, note that the “social crises” and “social tantrums” generated by irate customers are on the rise. This reality is creating a movement to further empower customers and let them determine when and how they will engage with a brand (Kolsky 2016). Businesses need to constantly attempt to learn and understand that it is the customers who decide when, how, and why to interact with a brand and then attempt to meet or exceed customers’ expectations to have personalized, optimized, and in some cases, even automated interactions (Kolsky, 2016). In this new customer landscape, Edmunds, the Chief Strategy Officer of MaritzCX, observes six major technology trends that facilitate customer service excellence:

Big data: Big data, in the past, meant the “storage” of large amounts of data; now, it means “quick access” to a large amount of a variety of data such as high quality data, relevant data, or even garbage data. Big data will become “bigger” in the future with the “Internet of Things” that collects and exchanges data from a variety of inter-connected smart computing devices-- thermostats, activity wristbands, cars, shopping carts, etc.--that previously were not connected. This means the view of customers will be derived less from traditional surveys, but more from operations data collected along the various touch points of the customer purchase journey.

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Software-as-a-service (SaaS): SaaS, also sometimes referred to as “on-demand software,” is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS has become a common delivery model for many business applications, such as payroll processing, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, human resource management, talent acquisition, etc. Marketing, operations, and service departments can “rent” access to software globally—all without major IT department budget or help, thereby, shifting power to non-IT departments. SaaS makes it cost effective for a variety of organizations to get engaged in modern digital customer experience programs. Mobile platforms: Consumers are buying, researching, and interacting more through their mobile devices, such as laptops, tablets and smartphones. This “anywhere, anytime” mentality drives the immediacy of CX programs, making them more impactful. Customer personalization: The technology has made it feasible to treat each customer as an individual, rather than a “number” in a market segment. A front-line employee in a service industry can have quick and instant access to a “360-degree” transactional view of a customer interaction, as all customer touchpoints are easily accessible digitally to the employee at the time of a specific employee-customer encounter. Application Programming Interface (API): API, a set of routines, protocols, and tools that allows other technologies to “talk” to it has been significant in strengthening CX programs through some common APIs, such as Google Maps APIs, YouTube APIs, Twitter APIs, Amazon Product Advertising APIs, etc. On their mobile devices, consumers typically use one piece of software, but share information with friends, family, and colleagues through another software by connecting to it, which is made possible through APIs. This makes the customer experience friendlier. Omni-channel integration: Today’s technology makes it feasible to have a longitudinal and 360-degree transactional-view of the customer through collecting data in multiple channels--online survey, print survey, phone survey, unsolicited customer feedback capture, CRM, financial data, operations data, etc. This facilitates the maintenance of wholesome customer experience data.

CX-RELATED MANAGERIAL ISSUES

Based upon an exploratory and unstructured interview with a CX senior manager, the author of this paper compiled numerous CX-related managerial issues that are shown in Table 2. Various CX managerial issues include setting CX corporate goals, capturing trust and emotions in CX, deciding and implementing CX tools and analytics, handling CX evolution, and crafting intra-organizational CX processes. Though the issues identified in Table 2 are self-explanatory, some of the issues therein are further elaborated below.

CX Tools and Analytics Lately, numerous CX tools and analytics have evolved based upon the latest technological advancements. CX practitioners should stay up-to-date with the latest trends in technology as new technologies enable companies to make better CX decisions that, in turn, drive customer acquisition, retention, and growth (Magee, 2016). Some of the recently evolved CX tools and analytics are discussed below. Customer sentiment analytics: Delighted customers who “love” a company’s brand tend to purchase more, stay longer, and recommend it to their friends, leading to faster organic growth (Magee, 2016). Traditionally, human feelings are captured through the self-reporting questions in traditional CX surveys (for example, benchmarking surveys, and new account booked surveys). Now, human emotions can be captured through the emerging sentiment analysis techniques that include text analytics and voice stress analysis. Text analytics: Earlier, businesses detected customer sentiments from the open-ended comments in traditional surveys. Lately, the increasing sophistication of text analysis algorithms enable computers to detect negative customer sentiment (causing customer anger) and positive customer sentiment or feelings (causing customer delight) hidden in the constant inflow of CX unstructured data (free-form words), either directly or by proxy, from numerous sources—survey verbatim, inbound customer

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communications (call center notes, completed web forms, email messages, comment cards), online customer review sites, and social networking/microblogging (Facebook, Twitter, customer videos, Instagram). Numerous text analytic techniques that have become popular are word clouds, word pairs, keyword extraction, pattern analysis, and entity extraction. These text mining techniques convert unstructured text into categorized information or structured data that can be further analyzed and explored. Conceptually, text analytic techniques identify the “why” root cause behind customer issues, spot emerging customer issues on the horizon, identify “hot button” customer issues, and predict customers’ future needs (Turner, 2016).

TABLE 2: Managerial Issues of CX

CATEGORY MANAGERIAL ISSUES General

Setting CX goals

CX Psychology Capturing emotion in CX Capturing trust in CX

CX Tools

Building a strong Voice of the Customer (customer feedback) program The basics of customer journey mapping

CX Analytics

CX basic analytics CX text analytics (more than analyze survey verbatim, for example, mine

insights from social commentary without getting overwhelmed by “digital exhaust”)

CX advanced analytics CX predictive analytics (revolutionizing the delivery of CX program

through greater visibility, faster insights, and proactive interventions)

Telling the CX story with dashboards Explore and utilize customer data mining tools available through digital

solution providers, that transform all the complex customer data into actionable intelligence (for example, Spotlight Customer Data Mining Tool by MaritzCX)

Explore the power of non-survey data: Augmenting CX understanding with social media, unsolicited feedback, and other forms of data

CX Evolution

The science of CX evolution CX evolution framework CX maturity models Mature CX program that goes beyond reacting to proactively problem-

solving, and linking metrics, outcomes, and incentives

Context-specific CX

CX in financial services Understanding luxury CX—luxury today can’t just be an upgraded

version of the usual normal. Luxury experience starts with a deep understanding of what each customer needs in the moment

Issues in international CX CX in the retail industry

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Intra-organizational CX

Communicating CX program internally Championing and managing CX change B2C/B2B CX management CX cultural change: Ways an organization can use its CX program to

change its culture throughout--from the front-line to the C-suite Conducting front-line workshops to educate and engage front-line

employees with the company’s CX program Hiring and training the front-line employees who can create the right CX Using CX on the front-lines: The biggest ROI on CX efforts is in the hands

of front-line employees. How to make sure that CX program is being executed effectively and profitably, especially, by the front- line employees

How to use CX program to drive profitability instead of over-rewarding temporary changes in employee behavior

Text analytic today is a combination of science and art. The science (primarily statistics-based) is well founded, but it takes the art of an experienced analyst to get the maximal customer understanding out of it (Turner, 2016). Stress analytics: Earlier, voice stress analysis that detected the tone, pitch, and timbre of the human voice was used for the purposes of law enforcement and lie detection. As the technology progresses, this analytic that focuses on the level of stress present in the human voice is expanded to analyze customer sentiment from recorded phone calls and to understand, for example, how customers feet at the end of a call vs. at the beginning of the call (Magee, 2016). Big data analytics: Big data in the context of CX not only means a lot of information storage about customer interactions, but also big calculations, big processing, and big predictions. As corporations become adept at capturing CX data, they can utilize the CX data through its embedding in their operational data, smartphone tracking, automatic analysis, and data-sharing enabling better understanding of the customer’s feelings (data embedding). By tracking unique signals from the communication signature of consumers’ phones via the cell network, Bluetooth or other communication protocols, big retail stores can track the store displays consumers pause to look at, paths they take through stores, and visits when they stop in stores without purchasing anything (smart phone tracking). Such location-oriented behavioral data makes possible the execution of geo- marketing tactics, such as the tailoring of store displays and store layouts, and popping up of store coupons on their in-store- consumers’ smart phones and wearables. Another area of development in big data is automatic analysis. For example, Google’s Automatic Statistician project is self-explanatory and eliminates the need to link data together or export it to an external tool for statistical processing. IBM’s Super Computer (Watson project) can read natural language and generate a hypothesis. Strategic data sharing partnerships by otherwise free-for-consumers Google and Facebook facilitate paid advertisements based on individual consumer interests. Lastly, through big data and artificial intelligence, the respective free channels, such as Google and Facebook, may provide longitudinal view of an individual customer’s journey paths in person, on the web, and on the smart phones (Magee, 2016). Net Promoter Score system: This CX metric was first developed by Frederick Reichheld and Laura Brooks in 2006 and then was later revised in 2016 (Reichheld, 2016). It asks customers just one question, using a 0 to 10 scale: “How likely is it that you would recommend X to a friend or colleague?” It analyzes the responses, and categorizes the respondents into three groups: Promoters (9--10 rating), Passives (8--9 rating), and Detractors (0--6 rating). The percentage of Promoters is then subtracted from the percentage of Detractors to obtain a NPS. NPS can be as low as -100 (everybody is a Detractor) or as high as +100 (everybody is a Promoter). So, if 25 % of customers selected a 9 or 10, and 25% selected anywhere in between 0 to 6, NPS score would be 25 minus 25 equaling 0. The metric has grown in popularity because it is simple to understand, is not copyrighted by its developers, and can be used as a benchmark vis-à-vis competition using the NPS score (Reichheld, 2016). Customer journey mapping: A customer journey map (CJM) is a visual representation of the beginning-to-end journey a customer makes with a company’s brand, products, services, and people that primarily includes three touchpoints from the customer’s point of view: key moments and evaluation points in the process, positive and negative components of the

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experience, and attitudes and emotions (lows and highs) that may come into play. At a much broader level, the CJM should be derived from an organizational level detailed and process-oriented customer-centric service blueprint that also links CX with financial outcomes (Inman, 2006).

The customer journey map-making involves identifying and listing a customer’s discrete steps with the help of a shared discussion of company’s internal stakeholders—a process which enables the embedding of organizational culture in the CJM. Steps of the customer journey may involve elements regarding customer’s desired outcomes, time or duration of the journey, customer attitudes and thoughts, customer’s emotional needs and responses, customer pain points, areas of weaknesses and strength in the journey, importance of each step, and satisfaction with each step (Inman, 2006).

This initial framework should be validated by customers through a series of qualitative research sessions. Customers may be asked to develop a collage, drawings or photos that illustrate how they feel about the experience that they have when dealing with the brand, product, service, or people. Customers may also be asked to share metaphors that describe their emotional needs, highs and lows (Inman, 2006).

The next phase of the customer journey mapping process takes the form of enterprise-level discussions during which the customer journey map is reviewed and absorbed. This phase should aim at identifying three or four top CX design criteria that serve as the essence of what customers need in any experience they have with the organization. The new customer insights gained in this phase may be utilized to design a better CX framework (Inman, 2006).

CX Evolution Trusted companies: CX has gradually moved beyond an isolated department focused on customer satisfaction to a corporate strategy that involves every facet of an organization. It is about building “trusted” companies. A competitor can easily copy an organization’s product, advertising, or pricing strategies. However, a trusted customer relationship is unique, and impossible to imitate. Trust turns “the” company into “my” company, and fickle customers into loyal advocates (Driggs, 2016).

Technology-driven business movements: Many new technology-driven business movements have flourished in the last few decades—for example, growth and evolution of personal computing, enterprise-wide software such as CRM and ERP, personal business applications such as word processing and spreadsheet software, networking, mobile devices, cloud computing, and even customer sentiment scoring. CX is one of these latest business movements that may help a company to become more efficient and grow faster (Clark, 2016). CX evolution in the last 30 years occurred somewhat like this (Salem, 2016). In 1985, a customer usually called a toll-free number to talk to a live human being, whereas 10 years later in 1995, the customer typically emailed the company to get help (sometimes, used the fax technology). In 2005, the customer usually visited a company website, and perhaps did an online chat to engage a company representative, and, in 2015, in addition to any or all of the communication channels above, the customer engaged companies via social media, mobile applications, and text messaging.

CX Maturity Model According to Jeremy Cox (2016), a firm goes through 4 levels of CX maturity: Level 1: Tactical customer-feedback enterprise (departmental silos, fragmented). Most enterprises fall into this category. They or one of a few departments have some form of customer feedback mechanism, but do not do much with it. Firms at this level of maturity lack coherence as an enterprise, and their relevance or value to the customer is negligible. Level 2: Optional customer-feedback enterprise (customer feedback from some, and not all, channels). At this level, a team of analysts, in a part of an organization, continually gathers and analyzes customer feedback and offers quick “fix-it” solutions. If it is effective, the other departments may opt-in as well. This is a step in the right direction, but is not adequate to create consistently positive CXs. Level 3: Customer-focused enterprise (CEO and board level sponsorship, enterprise-wide commitment, high up on leadership team’s agenda). At this level, an enterprise is focused on customer journey mapping, integrated omni-communication-channels, 360 degree customer view/context, and performance metrics, such as CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Index), NPS (Net Promoter

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Score), eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score), or Net Easy Score. A high degree of organizational coherence and cross- organizational collaboration exists in the enterprise to create a seamless, positive, and cross-channel CX. Sentiment analysis from solicited and unsolicited feedback on social networks or customer communities is routinely monitored. A customer journey map is crafted to design more rewarding CXs, and customer interaction analytics are embedded throughout the journey to drive relevancy to customer. Level 4: Customer-adaptive enterprise (CEO and board level sponsorship, enterprise-wide commitment, high-up on leadership team’s agenda, and more). An enterprise is focused on the strong ability to deliver Right First-Time customer experience (RFTcx), continuous customer-focused innovation at the top of leadership agenda, continual anticipation of the future CX trends, and utilization of currently-evolving “mind of the customer” programs. Core attributes at this level include visionary leadership that commits to the customer (for example, hiring a customer-experience executive, or setting up an office of the customer), engaged workforce that is empowered and buys in to the overall customer purpose, a highly collaborative culture across and beyond the organization, and a highly adaptive enterprise architecture with a focus on the customer. Such an organization is less of a machine with a lot of moving parts and more like an organism able to sense, respond and adapt (Cox, 2016). An organization is “coherent” at levels 3 & 4, as it has a pervasive commitment to the customer that is embodied by the leadership and cascaded throughout the organization with highly engaged and equally committed employees. Cox (2016) proposes that the more coherent an enterprise, the more “relevant” it is likely to be to the customers it hopes to serve. Proposition for Future Research: The higher the CX maturity level, the higher the business outcomes in terms of customer acquisition, customer retention, customer profitability, and business growth. Also, the higher the CX maturity level, the lower the operating costs. The general rationale is something like this: the higher CX maturity levels lead to happier and engaged customers who churn less, buy more, are willing to pay more, and recommend products to friends (Rawson, Duncan, & Jones 2013). Demonstrating the causal connection as stated in the proposition may be somewhat problematic. The connection can be shown through correlations easily; however, conducting an experiment actually manipulating the CX to determine the effects of that manipulation cannot be done. For example, assigning customers to groups—intentionally treating some customers poorly while giving others the normal level of service, and comparing the different business outcomes of those groups—will never happen and should not happen (Ensing, 2016).

CX in International Context On the one hand, with the advancement of digital technology, CX programs are more targeted toward a dialogue and engagement with the individual customer. On the other hand, personal data and data-protection regulations across various nations globally are becoming more restrictive. Accordingly, multi-country CX programs require experts and consultancy, not just in technology, analytics, industry expertise, and program management, but also in data-protection legislation and information security. Industries like financial services are likely to face even stricter regulations about personal data collection. As per Thun (2016), illustratively, countries may require that private data physically remain in the country of origin (this could be a big problem for social-media companies), data collection may only be allowed in-country, and all private data about an individual must be made accessible to the person for review, editing or deletion. Thun (2016) predicts that, in the immediate future, technologically and digitally advanced customer feedback measurement programs will turn into CX management tools. This means that more companies will continuously engage with customers (a) at all relevant touchpoints along the customer life cycle (rather than after a sales and service event only), (b) with short and meaningful dialogues (providing value to customers) rather than long “one way street” surveys, (c) in a more personal way (focusing on enhancing the individual customer relationship), and (d) by acting and responding in real time. To accomplish all this, large corporations need to implement CX technology globally by (a) using systems with dashboards that provide a global view, as well as a local view of the business, (b) synthesizing data from multiple sources across the nations, (c) using big data analytics to make better decisions faster, (d) using automated text analytics that work in a multi-lingual environment, and (e) providing frontline staff action tools to act fast on a local level.

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CONCLUSION

In the second half of the twentieth century, customer centricity in an organization focused on customer buying behavior process models, customer satisfaction and loyalty, service quality, relationship marketing, customer relationship management, customer life time value, and customer equity. The most current focus in the twenty-first century is on customer experience that can be attributed to consumer empowerment (primarily through the direct control over social media), which in turn is sourced from digital and technological advancements. The field continues to grow at a fast pace; so, to be competitive, the digital advancements have to be continually monitored and emerging CX tools and analytics have to be tried, which requires significant financial investment. Small organizations typically lack financial resources; thus, they will become sincere CX participants only in the future rounds of CX advancements when CX tools become less expensive because of the scale economies.

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