Customer Experience Journeys: Loyalty Loops Versus Involvement Spirals
Anton Siebert, Ahir Gopaldas, Andrew Lindridge, Cláudia Simões
Journal of Marketing · 2020 · Volume 84 · Issue 4
Abstract
Customer experience management research is increasingly concerned with the long-term evolution of customer experience journeys across multiple service cycles. A dominant smooth journey model makes customers’ lives easier, with a cyclical pattern of predictable experiences that builds customer loyalty over time, also known as a loyalty loop. An alternate sticky journey model makes customers’ lives exciting, with a cyclical pattern of unpredictable experiences that increases customer involvement over time, conceptualized here as an involvement spiral. Whereas the smooth journey model is ideal for instrumental services that facilitate jobs to be done, the sticky journey model is ideal for recreational services that facilitate never-ending adventures. To match the flow of each journey type, firms are advised to encourage purchases during the initial service cycles of smooth journeys, or subsequent service cycles of sticky journeys. In multiservice systems, firms can sustain customer journeys by interlinking loyalty loops and involvement spirals. The article concludes with new journey-centered questions for customer experience management research, as well as branding research, consumer culture theory, consumer psychology, and transformative service research.
Keywords
attention economy, customer experience management, customer involvement, customer journey design, customer loyalty, experience economy, experiential involvement, service design
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