Customer experience

Overview of the Lecture

  • Speaker: Dr. Amira Mukendi

  • Topic Focus: Customer Experience in Marketing Communications in the Digital Age

  • Date: November 21, 2025

  • Venue: Strathclyde Business School

Lecture Outline

Topics Covered

  • Customer experience

  • Customer experience and web development

  • Web development from a marketer's perspective

Objectives

  • Examine the impact of customer experience on website development

  • Understand the process of creating effective websites

  • Learn key principles of user experience

Discussion Starters

Reflective Questions

  • Recall any positive experience with a brand.

  • Remember a negative experience with a brand.

  • Which type of experience is more memorable?

The Experience Economy

  • Concept Overview

    • Key industries: hotels, airlines, restaurants

    • Customers prioritizing experiences over products

  • Statistical Insights

    • 58% of consumers willing to pay more for a better customer experience (CX)

    • Customer experience predicted to become the primary brand differentiator, overtaking price and product (Forbes, 2020 & 2022)

    • Questioning the enduring truth of this statement

Importance of Experience

Positive vs. Negative Experiences

  • Literature notes the influence of past experiences on future expectations.

    • Source: Brehm and Brehm (1981)

Implications of Customer Experience

  • After one bad experience, 30% of customers would cease shopping with that company (PWC, 2017)

  • After several bad experiences, the figure rises to 55% (PWC, 2025)

  • 32% of customers abandon a brand due to inconsistent experiences (PWC, 2025)

  • Businesses potentially lose $3.8 trillion in sales globally due to poor customer experiences (Qualtrics, 2024)

Customer Experience & Web Development

Quotes

  • Steve Jobs: "You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around."

  • Effective online experiences should positively impact a customer's emotional and cognitive responses (feelings and thoughts).

Definition of Customer Experience

  • A holistic process involving the customer journey through various touchpoints with an organization (Voss et al., 2008)

  • A customer’s internal, subjective response to direct or indirect interactions with the organization (Mayer and Schwager, 2007)

Customer Purchase Journey

  • Described as the process customers navigate across all stages and touchpoints that comprise their experience (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016, p. 71).

Customer Experience Dimensions

  • Five distinct dimensions of customer experience (Schmitt, 1999 & 2011):

    • Sensory experiences ('sense')

    • Emotional experiences ('feel')

    • Cognitive experiences ('think')

    • Physical experiences ('act')

    • Social identity experiences ('relate')

  • Emphasizing the idea that while brands cannot fully control a customer’s experience, they can shape it.

Shaping the Online Customer Experience

Factors for Consideration

  • Products: pricing, promotions, range.

  • Interactivity: tools and communication methods.

  • Service: responsiveness, empathy, and reliability.

  • Design: visual appeal, layout, assurance, trust, and credibility.

  • Usability: ease of use, usefulness, navigability.

  • Information Quality: relevance, currency, and appropriateness.

  • Performance: speed, availability, and dynamic elements.

Website Design Considerations

Questions

  1. What constitutes good website design?

  2. What constitutes bad website design?

Types of Websites

  • E-commerce

  • Blogs (personal or business)

  • Portfolios

  • News and magazines

  • Cultural and educational websites

  • Social media platforms

  • Games

  • Events

  • Financial services

  • And more

Customer Journey Design

  • A comprehensive online presence strategy should consider:

    • Ease of locating the site via search engines

    • Services provided by partner websites

    • Quality of communication (e-newsletters)

    • Processing of inbound communications (e-mail)

    • Integration with offline touchpoints as part of multichannel marketing strategy

Website User Experience

Key Questions for Designers

  • Who are the key users?

  • What is their purpose in accessing the site?

  • How often will they return?

  • What prior experiences influence them?

  • What specific information are they seeking (download, print, read)?

  • Which browsers, speeds, and screen sizes are they utilizing?

Website Design Process

  1. Pre-development tasks

  2. Analysis & Design

  3. Content Development & Testing

  4. Publishing / Soft Launch

  5. Pre-launch Promotional Communications

  6. Launch

  7. Ongoing Promotions

User-Centric Design Principles

Business Requirements

  • Marketing-led design that focuses on:

    • Consumer acquisition (clear value proposition)

    • Conversion (turning visitors into customers)

    • Retention (encouraging repeat visits)

    • Service quality (efficient navigation, performance)

    • Branding (effective online brand interactions)

Principles of User Experience

  • User-centricity

  • Consistency

  • Usability: facilitates tasks

  • Accessibility: inclusive design

  • Localisation: tailored information per locality

  • Mobile responsiveness

  • Visual hierarchy

  • Additional considerations

Nielsen’s Usability Principles (2013)

  1. Learnability: Ease for users to perform basic tasks.

  2. Efficiency: Speed of task completion once learned.

  3. Memorability: Users’ ability to recover proficiency after a hiatus.

  4. Errors: Frequency and severity of errors; ease of recovery from errors.

  5. Satisfaction: Overall pleasantness of design use.

Usability Testing

Expert Review

  • An evaluation of a website prototype by an experienced usability expert, who identifies deficiencies using web design principles.

Usability Testing Steps

  1. Identify target users and their tasks.

  2. Have users perform the tasks.

  3. Observe the success and challenges encountered.

Accessibility Considerations

POUR Principles (WCAG)

  • Perceivable

  • Operable

  • Understandable

  • Robust

  • Referencing the Equality Act 2010 as part of accessibility standards.

Localisation Strategies

Supporting Diverse Customers

  1. Different product preferences based on geography.

  2. Language considerations.

  3. Cultural variances.

Levels of Localisation

  • Standardised websites

  • Semi-localised websites

  • Localised websites

  • Highly localised websites

  • Culturally customised websites

Mobile Responsiveness

  • A review of mobile marketing tactics: convenience, speed, ease of access, and adaptability across devices.

Mobile Design Approaches

  • Responsive design: one website design adapting to various resolutions.

  • Adaptive design: offers tailored experiences; suitable for larger businesses due to higher costs.

  • Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP): streamlined loading of web pages using less intensive coding.

  • Progressive Web Apps (PWAs): a blend of mobile apps and websites for enhanced user interactions.

Elements of Site Design

  • Site and page design, content layout.

Information Architecture

  • Definition: The organization, labeling, and navigation schemes within an information system.

Related Components

  • Creation of a site map to logically group information and support user findability through search engines.

Website Navigation Strategies

  • Narrow and Deep: Fewer choices requiring more clicks to find content.

  • Broad and Shallow: More options with fewer clicks to access content.

Prototyping

Development Stages

  1. Analysis of audience and business needs.

  2. Design features necessary for the site.

  3. Development of web pages and dynamic content.

  4. Testing and review of site functionalities.

Guiding User Experience Through Visual Hierarchy

  • Techniques for guiding user focus on the webpage include using size, color, shape, contrast, buttons/links, spacing, repetition, proximity, texture, simplicity, and alignment principles.

Visual Design Considerations

  • Elements to address include site personality, downloading speed, screen resolutions, browser types, and devices used (adaptive and responsive designs).

Examples of Site Personality

  • Hugo Boss: Mid-range luxury brand with German tailoring heritage.

  • Tagline examples: "You go your own way"; "Be Your Own Boss"

Award-Winning Websites Discussion

  • Examination of various website URLs for first impressions, ease of navigation, mobile optimization needs, and goals of site design (e.g., sales vs. engagement).

Interactivity in Web Design

Stages of User Engagement

  • Awareness through learning and demonstrations

  • Consideration via support and reviews

  • Buying process simplification

  • After-sales support through FAQs and feedback tools

The Impact of Website Aesthetics

  • Importance of credible elements such as quality images, design coherence, typography, accreditations, and policies.

Bounce Rate Analysis

  • Definition: Percentage of sessions that do not trigger any engagement beyond 10 seconds, leading to increased bounce rates being undesirable.

Contributing Factors

  • Reflection on possible reasons behind a high bounce rate.

Key Takeaways

  • Considerations shaping the online customer experience, design principles of usability, and understanding of bounce rates relative to website effectiveness.

Additional Reading

  • Chapter 8, "Designing Digital Experiences" in
    Chaffey, D., & Smith, P. R. (2022). Digital Marketing Excellence (6th ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.