Customer Experience Management – Touchpoints, Context & Qualities (TCQ) and Loyalty

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms from the lecture on Customer Experience Management, the TCQ framework, audits, and loyalty concepts.

Customer Experience (CX)

A customer’s journey with a firm over time during the purchase cycle across multiple touchpoints, resulting in a value judgement by the customer.

Touchpoint

Any individual contact between the brand/firm and a customer that serves a purpose such as information gathering, payment, usage, etc.

Brand-owned touchpoint

An interaction fully designed and controlled by the firm, e.g., advertising, website, packaging or price.

Partner-owned touchpoint

A customer interaction jointly designed, managed or controlled by the firm and one or more partners (e.g., agency-run campaign, multi-vendor loyalty program).

Customer-owned touchpoint

Actions within the experience that the customer controls and the firm cannot influence (most critical during consumption/usage).

Social / external touchpoint

Influences from ‘others’ such as peers, bloggers or independent information sources affecting the customer experience.

TCQ Framework

A model stating that Customer Experience is shaped by Touchpoints (T), embedded in Context (C), and marked by Qualities (Q).

Pre-purchase stage

Phase where customers recognise needs, consider options and search; associated touchpoints influence decision-making before purchase.

Purchase stage

Stage where choice, ordering and payment occur; involves brand-, partner-, customer- and social-owned touchpoints tied to the transaction.

Post-purchase stage

Phase involving consumption, usage, service requests and engagement; frequently neglected but critical for returns and loyalty.

Context (general definition)

The conditional state that determines the internal and external resources a person can draw on at a given moment.

Individual context

Transient personal state of the customer (emotional, cognitive, normative, physical and economic factors) at each touchpoint.

Social context

Social rules and norms activated by relevant social groups that influence customer behaviour.

Market context

Conditions created by market-related actors such as competitors and substitutes surrounding the customer experience.

Environmental context

Macro-level factors (PESTEL: political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, environmental, legal) affecting CX.

Injunctive norm

An individual’s perception of what behaviours other people approve or disapprove of – ‘what you should do’ – backed by anticipated sanctions.

Descriptive norm

An individual’s perception of what most people actually do – ‘what most people do’ – usually without explicit sanctions.

Qualities (in CX)

Attributes that reflect the nature of customer responses to interactions, including participation level, dimensionality, valence, ordinariness and timeflow.

Participation level

How active the customer’s responses are to firm stimuli, ranging from passive (low effort) to active (high effort).

Dimensionality

The variety of response types (emotional, sensorial, cognitive, social, behavioural) elicited by a touchpoint.

Valence (CX)

The positivity or negativity of the customer’s emotional response; together with arousal forms emotion.

Ordinariness

The perceived commonness of the experience; ordinary experiences are generally low in intensity, extraordinary ones high.

Timeflow

How customers perceive the duration and dynamics (tempo, rhythm, speed) of an experience.

CX Audit

A systematic assessment that streams touchpoints, recognises context, evaluates delivered qualities, and benchmarks for action.

Touchpoint connectivity

The ease with which a customer moves from one touchpoint to another and the consistency of CX across them.

Cohesion of touchpoints

Thematic alignment of multiple touchpoints around a central idea (e.g., ‘outfitting’ theme in retail).

Consistency of touchpoints

Uniform branding, look & feel, ease of use and messaging across all touchpoints.

Omnichannel experience

A customer experience where all channels (store, web, mobile, phone, social) are available and integrated seamlessly.

Customer loyalty

Repeated buying behaviour rooted in positive attitudes towards the brand; ideally combines behavioural and attitudinal elements.

True loyalty

High level of both favourable attitude and repeat purchase, reflecting genuine attachment rather than inertia.

Behavioral loyalty

Observable repeated purchase behaviour by a customer toward a firm or brand.

Attitudinal loyalty

Positive psychological commitment or resistance to competitors’ offerings, independent of purchase volume.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Metric derived from ‘likelihood-to-recommend’ scores, classifying promoters (9–10), passives (7–8) and detractors (0–6).

Loyalty model

Company-specific curve depicting the (often non-linear) relationship between customer satisfaction scores and loyalty outcomes.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

The present value of forecasted future profit from a customer across the entire relationship with the firm.

Spurious loyalty

Apparent repeat purchase caused by inertia, lack of alternatives or switching barriers rather than genuine attachment.

Customer centricity

Strategy of focusing resources on high-value customers, using offensive (acquisition) and defensive (retention) tactics.

Confidence (retention factor)

Feelings of security customers derive from their provider, often cited as a main reason for staying.

Core service failure

Errors or breakdowns in the fundamental service performance (e.g., mistakes, billing errors, service catastrophes).

Service encounter failure

Negative personal interactions with employees, such as being uncaring, impolite or unresponsive.

Response to service failure (double deviation)

Additional dissatisfaction that occurs when a firm mishandles a failure through poor or absent recovery actions.

Involuntary switching

Customer departure caused by factors beyond either party’s control, such as relocation or provider closure.

Alliance orientation

A firm’s consideration of co-occurring experiences customers have with other competing or non-competing firms.

Loyalty–profitability paradox

The finding that loyal customers are not always the most profitable and may sometimes impose higher costs or demands.