Guest article by Carlos Velasco & Anders Gustafsson.
In this article, we reflect on customer experience management and the contribution of their new initiative in the area; a podcast for researchers and practitioners working on experience design and management.
Customer experience management
What is an experience? This is a fundamental question that has fascinated us, humans, for as long as we have been able to reflect on it. Although the answer to this question is not easy, experiences, broadly speaking, refer to impressions formed by a specific events or occurrences. The second aspect that is always present is that all humans know experiences as we have them all the time which in turn makes all experiences unique and individual.
In business research and practice, there has been increasing awareness of the importance of, and interest on, managing customer experiences. This relatively new, though fast-moving area, is about series of processes designed to track and measure, administer, and coordinate the different interactions between customers and a given organization, that leave specific impressions on the customer. The interest is probably evoked by the fact that organizations are now able to track more of the interactions compared to what was possible in the past.
Given the long-standing tradition of inquiry on experiences, understanding customer experiences requires a multidisciplinary approach. Fields as diverse as philosophy, marketing, psychology, neuroscience, and human-computer interaction, just to mention a few, all have key insights when it comes to customer experiences. Importantly, given the fast-moving pace of this area, with multiple studies and industry initiatives taking place every day, capturing the diversity of knowledge ins aid world is challenging.
Structuring the customer experience management podcast
As part of our initiatives to address the aforesaid challenge, we have recently developed a podcast at BI Norwegian Business School, entitled Customer Experience Management Podcast. This podcast is a companion to both bachelor and masters’ courses on the topic. However, we have designed it in a way such that it can be listened by anyone interested in the topic. Our main goal with the podcast is to facilitate a space by and for both academics and practitioners working on customer experience management.
Developing the podcast has been an experience itself. From the beginning, we wanted to have an informal, conversational, space. As such, we typically have conducted semi-structured conversations around a research article or business case. Our guests are usually given some guiding questions before the podcast, which aim to articulate the discussion around a theme (e.g., chatbots, emotions, sensehacking).
However, during the podcast, spontaneity is favoured and the conversations typically develop beyond the initial questions. Every guest, though, is asked three common questions: 1) What are customer experiences?, 2) What is in the them they are talking about?, and 3) What sort of recommendations they can give to people working with experiences. The idea with these questions is to show the diversity of thought in customer experiences, the specificities of a given podcast theme, as well as the possible implications that each podcast has.
The first season, which is ongoing, has included several leading researchers and consultants, and topics ranging from the fundamentals of customer experiences, through some of the psychological mechanisms of experiences, to how digital transformations influence experience management. We have already started to plan for the next season and we welcome suggestions of topics and people we should cover/reach out to.
Lessons from the customer experience management podcast
There have been many lessons developing the customer experience management podcast. First, people in academia and industry are excited to share their insights on customer experience management. Second, audiences appreciate having the authors and/or developers of an initiative sharing, in their own words, their developments. As Dr. Ana Javornik at Bristol University indicated, “I’ve read the papers that are discussed but listening to researchers talking about them makes the work come to light in a different way.”.
The podcast format has been of particularly appreciated by our executive students, who can listen to the podcast on the go. Consequently, we find that 75% of all the listeners use their mobile phone to listen to the podcast
Third, although we all hear much about customer experiences, there are not many courses or spaces that merge and discuss research and practice on the topic. Therefore, having a space for conversation like this one, appears to be of value.
What is next
In December, we will complete the first season. We still have upcoming podcasts on art in customer experiences, non-fungible tokens, multisensory experiences, and ethics. In 2022, we will have a new season, and we already have secured conversations with guests from industries as diverse as entertainment, retail, food, art, and extended reality, among others. We hope that the customer experience management podcast becomes a reference for those interested in the experience economy and experience management.
Carlos Velasco, Associate Professor
Anders Gustafsson, Professor
Department of Marketing, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway
