Abstract/Summary

Customer experience has been identified as a strategically important component of a retailer’s performance. Given the steep rise in online sales, this means that understanding online customer experience (OCE) in terms of what creates good experiences (the influential factors) and what results (the outcomes) is now crucial. The results of this study support a definition of online customer experience that views it as the outcome of an interaction between the customer and an organisation’s website. There are six potential components of an experience which are: sensorial, emotional, cognitive, pragmatic, lifestyle and relational. The relevance and importance of each will vary depending on the purchase context. Work conducted by researchers within the Henley Centre for Customer Management identified the factors that influence a positive OCE using a quantitative survey and the development of an OCE measurement scale. Six factors were identified and validated as having a positive influence upon the creation of a positive OCE: Connectedness; Personally Satisfying; In-Control; Simplicity; Aesthetically Pleasing; and Beneficial. Each of these can be linked to the experiential components Managerial implications are that e-retailers should move from a focus upon the marketing mix elements that they can control to the creation of online environments that generate appropriate experiential responses within the customer.