Customer experience creation: benefits of Design thinking tools to better understand customer participation

Florence JACOB

Summary: Because of the digital transformation of society, companies are forced to better conceive their customer experience in order to limit customers’ attrition. Some professionals propose to use design thinking to have a better customer-focused approach. In this paper, we show the benefit of this approach permitting to embrace the different facets of the customer participation and all the resources that he could engage. This design approach has also a creative and organizational interest for teams because it allows abductive and pragmatic work facilitating innovation and the transmission of this desired customer experience.

Key words: design thinking, customer experience management, customer participation

Florence Jacob

Ph.D. student, DRM team Ermes (UMR CNRS 7088)

Université Paris-Dauphine, France

Place Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny

75775 Paris cedex 16

E-mail: flocath.Jacob@free.fr

Mobile: + 33 6 64 94 39 91

Customer experience creation: benefits of Design thinking tools to better understand customer participation

Introduction

A 2014 IBM survey of marketing directors showed that their top priority was customer experience management and, more particularly, for 70% of them, "developing a coherent experience across channels customer”. A growing body of experts urges practitioners to create excellent customer journeys in order to develop a competitive advantage (Rawson et al., 2013; Rigby, 2011). Indeed, since 2010, the opening of new digital channels (website, e-commerce, and mobile application) has made it more complicated to design customer experience. The arrival of the mobile channel is largely erasing geographical and temporal barriers making implantation of classic strategies of customer lock-in even more difficult (Brynjolfsson, Hu, and Rahman, 2013). However, companies must define their strategies in an increasingly turbulent environment, particularly due to major technological changes that alter the configuration of the sales channels (Grewal et al. 2013). It has become necessary to better design customer experiences so as to reduce customer attrition and its capture by competitors.

Existing research (Caru and Cova, 2007) recognizes the critical distinction between the design of an experience by managers, the duration of the experience and the memory that customers have of it. Previous academic research focused mainly on experience duration and customers memory. Indeed, on customer side, the concept of experience relies on the seminal thoughts (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982) attached to understand the nature of the consumers experience. In France, the first papers were about the lived experience by customers in physical channels as retail stores (Helme-Guizon, 2001) and later e-commerce (Childers et al. 2001). Academics then turned to the study of "meta-experiences of consumption" (Anteblian, Filser, and Roederer, 2013) including interaction between physical and virtual channels (Collin-Lachaud and Vanheems, 2011). On the other side, the design of experience by marketers is a much more recent and less abundant research field. In 2002, Marc Filser recommended that academic research be also interested in the production of experience by companies. The company must create experiential contexts that are "joining stimulus (products) and stimuli (environment, activities) to create an experience" (Anteblian et al. 2013). Customer experience is designed, for a part, by the elements that the company can control, as for example, the service interface, the atmosphere in store, the product range or even the price (Verhoef et al., 2009). Another part can’t be managed by the company: other customers (Camelis and al., 2013), competitors…. Customer experience management is then defined as a corporate strategy to manage all company touchpoints that customers interact with (Grewal et al. 2009). Some authors consider that the production of these contexts also involves taking account of the resources brought by the customers and not only with the agents of change managed by marketers (Collin-Lachaud and Vanheems, 2011; Anteblian and al. 2013). Therefore, the production of customer experience entails that managers should build a customer journey while imagining future actions of the customer in the touchpoints. No previous academy study has investigated this managerial work while new professional practices are emerging to

better imagine customer participation. In addition, research on the subject has mostly been restricted by rarely querying business practices (Gronholdt et al. 2015), or by conceptual papers without application fields (Grewal et al., 2009; Puccinelli et al. 2009). Therefore, the research on Customer Experience Management is not sufficient when compared to the concerns expressed by managers as new strategic challenges emerge: many professionals wish to develop new practices based on the practices of designers and design thinking to create new customer experiences. These practices, more customer-focused, would better integrate customer participation (Kolko, 2015).

Why use design thinking to integrate the customer resources when companies design a customer experience?

The paper examines the logic followed by managers to build this experience, as well as the reasons for the implementation of design thinking. Our research is predicated on the tools used by managers to translate brand strategy in different stages into a customer experience only. On a theoretical level, this research allows us to better understand the use of design in marketing thought on the one hand and, on the other hand, to confront the literature from customer participation to experience production.

In the first section of this paper, we take an original path that keeps us away from Service Dominant Logic to use the framework of customer resources based on the concept of Customer participation in services marketing. We also present the theoretical interests of design in marketing. In a second section, we explain our methodology of qualitative research based on several interviews of managers, including the study of the diagrams or software tools used by professionals to design customer journeys. Finally, in a third section, we present our results and show that the professionals’ practices are partly based on the importation of tools used in the field of design and that they develop the logic of design thinking to better represent the elements of the desired customer experience and all types of resources brought by the customer when the latter makes a journey.

Theoretical framework

The resources brought by the customer

In the review of the literature on customer experience, some authors believe that to deepen the role played by the consumer, academics will have to keep abreast of Customer participation (Anteblian et al. 2013 p.96). Indeed, this idea, non-specific to the analysis of customer experience, raises the question of the co-production of company resources and of customer resources in the field of marketing service. This issue is fairly old and aims to determine the role of the customer in the creation and production of service (Kelley et al. 1990). There are several definitions of this concept (Pathak et al. 2010) and we take the most complete: "Customer participation is a behavioral concept that refers to the actions and resources supplied by customers for production and / or delivery." (Rodie and Kleine, 2000:111). This concept is used in

strategic thinking on business models in order to raise the question of the customer integration in the creation of revenues for the company (Pathak et al. 2010). This concept is interesting because it is not attached to usage and consumption but to the customer contributions during interactions with companies.

Six resources that can be mobilized by the customer are studied in this literature on multi-channel services marketing (Plé, 2013; Plé and al. 2010). The customer does not mobilize them all and not all at the same time. For each type of customer resources, we draw a parallel with literature on customer experience.

Informational resources consist in the information that customers provide to the company and/or mental efforts that customers make for co-production (Fliess, 2014). This participation has been addressed from two different focuses in the literature on customer experience. On the one hand, benefit of capturing customer informational resources and their link with the company's performance is treated (Verhoef et al. 2010), focusing particularly on issues of protection of personal data and quality of the data provided by the customer. On the other hand, some research work involves cognitive customer resources when using technological devices via 'ease of use' variable for the internet channel (Childers et al. 2001) or 'cognitive effort' for cellphone (Kleijnen et al. 2007). It seems that, in the context of the customer experience, its resources are dissimilar.

Emotional resources are all emotions lived during production and service consumption (Fliess et al., 2014; Rodie and Kleine, 2000): anxiety, anger, joy and delight (Menon and Dubé, 2000). The customer journey is a creator of emotions and symbols for customers (Anteblian et al. 2013), through the management of ‘atmospherics’ (Turley and Chebat, 2002). The Stimulus Organism Response framework (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) and all the subsequent research in this field reflect this logic.

Physical resources are physical and concrete customer efforts, including goods that customers bring during co-production (and Kleine, 2000 Rodie). In the literature on customer experience, some papers describe the customer’s physical resources as a part of the employees’ job: the “customer-worker” (Benoit-moreau and Bonnemaizon, 2011; Cochoy, 2014; Dujarier, 2008). No previous study in the field of customer experience has ever investigated the customer participation thanks to personal devices, like smartphones. But, due to digitalization, customers use more and more their own devices to connect with virtual channels.

Financial resources represent the price paid by customers to the company to obtain tangible or intangible co-production service (Bitner and al. 1997). The financial concept is almost not addressed in the literature on customer experience. This dimension is only mentioned in terms of the price variable by Bäckström and Johansson (2006).

Temporal resources show the duration of the customer participation, including the time customers spend to understand how co-production works (Plé, 2013). With the development of IT, this issue of temporal resources has been measured by the variable ‘Time convenience’ for the mobile or the internet channel to investigate the

customer’s feeling of the time spent during the experience in virtual retail channels (Kleijnen et al. 2007).

Relational resources present the customer’s state of mind resulting from past experiences when starting a new coproduction (Plé, 2013; Plé and al. 2010). Verhoef and colleagues integrate past customer experience in their model: "The model includes a dynamic component as we account for the fact that current customer experience at time t is affected by past customer experiences at time t−1 » (Verhoef et al, 2009: 33).

The role of design in marketing

No literature links design to customer experience management except the physical design of store atmospherics by interior designers with marketing positioning (see Hombourger-Bares, 2014). Quite naturally academics associate design practices with products, packaging, logos or brand image creation called Design Orientation, integrating the designers’ work within management (Bruce and Daly, 2007). Design can also define a ‘how-to’ for managers in management (Bolland and Collopy, 2004) by integrating designers’ tools and approaches to create new sources of values for customers. Design thinking is complementary to managerial decision when the problem is ‘wicked’ and all solutions contain advantages but also drawbacks (Kimbell, 2009; Martin, 2009). Design thinking is supposed to have similar points to management in the desire to create value for the customer and reduce costs. But Design thinking has also strong differentiation points that are sources of creativity for managers (Rylander, 2009): (1) viewing problems as wicked and without unique solution (Buchanan, 1992), (2) working pragmatically, iteratively and experimentally, and (3) visualizing solutions (Rylander, 2009). Finally, design thinking would could reach beyond product design to be applied to company organization design or organized systems design (Buchanan, 1992).

Several studies have documented contribution of design practices to traditional marketing allowing to improve the visibility of brand positioning (Beverland and al., 2015) or innovation product (Verganti, 2009). Design in organizations would may permit to(1) better understand the customers’ needs by focusing on the values in use

by qualitative studies, (2) break path dependency1 creating radical innovations and (3) restore the central place of branding as a marketing guide by developing creativity (Chen and Venkatesh 2013). Designer T. Brown gave following definition of design thinking: "a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technically feasible and what business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunities" (Brown, 2008: 85). It is the designer’s ability to reconcile the imperatives of technical feasibility with economic profitability and customer desirability. It is a pragmatic approach, centered in the main users’ problem solving. Design thinking covers two elements: Design-as-practice and Design-in-practice (Kimbell and Street, 2009). Design-as-practice is a ‘how-to’ method, close to strategy-as-practice concept represented by the double-diamond (UK Design

1 Path dependency describes company trajectory and performance. This trajectory is constructed day by day by the company story and routines: past choices condition future developments, new routines and narrow future strategic trajectories possible for the company (Brulhart and al., 2010)

Council): design work must undergo a problem solving method including a phase of inspiration when one broadens the concept and then ideas are reduced step by step in order to achieve a homogeneous vision which is eventually implanted by reducing again the different possibilities according to the implementation process but also the constraints of the organization. The Design-as-practice, therefore, describes the phases of work of design thinking (see Gruber et al. 2015). The Design-in-practice is the creation of artifacts and design production, such as storytelling or personas resulting from design thought (Kimbell, 2009).

Main tools of design thinking

Persona: « persona method is to describe likely users in a narrative, archetypal and customized form» (Brangier et al., 2012)

Composition: First name, photo, age, personal history, needs, motivations, skills, home type, IT devices, customer goals, customer pains...

Storytelling: ' The art of telling stories ' on the customer journey and its relation with the brand (Benmoussa and Maynadier, 2013)

Composition: the customer journey dreamed by marketers: touchpoints interaction but also with the environment, competitors…. presented in a video, cartoon, story board, film...

Empathy map (setting up the Xplane company) : what the customer will think, see, say, hear during his journey

Composition: We insert the persona’s photo, then describe what kind of company speech the customer will hear (HEAR), the emotions we want to create but also how the company responds to the customer fears and aspirations (THINK & FEEL), the elements that the customer sees (SEE), the customer actions and words (SAY & DO), a list of the difficulties the customer may have to face (PAIN) and finally the profit made (GAIN)

Flow task or Flowcharts: Journey with tasks performed by the customer in a chronological order

To answer our research question, i.e. to understand the interest for managers to use design thinking to produce new customer experience, we conducted an exploratory qualitative research limited to design practices of customer journey by practitioners. We evaluate the tools used, the approach and we are trying to identify the level and moments of integration of the customer in this process.

Research methodology

The creation of customer experience has never been studied, so, we conduct an exploratory qualitative research. The study population was limited to French managers and completed with two sources in order to increase the validity of the research: the study of schematic representations of customer journeys and professional documents (reports, strategic documents and consultants’ powerpoints).

Field and data collection

Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted between June 2014 and March 20152 with practitioners in key positions and in charge of customer experience: customer experience managers, CRM directors, cross-channel retail managers. We also interviewed customer experience consultants. The interview guide is divided in four themes: (a) definition and representation of customer experiences, (b) work stages to create a customer journey and the link with strategic thinking, (c) role of the customer in the customer journey design, (d) difficulties encountered.

This study has been supplemented by a study of 40 graphical representations of the customer journey3 designed by respondents or cited by them as references. The study of these cognitive representations was chosen mainly to address the way managers simplify market and give it meanings (Day and Nedungadi, 1994). The objective of a representation is the translation of actionable concepts (Chaney, 2010), which is particularly important in our study and allows us to understand the cognitive components of the object of research for managers (Courtney, 2001: 31). These representations are drawn on paper or modelled via specialized software. Those documents are difficult to get because marketing practitioners on the one hand consider that they are strategic choices drawings, and consultants on the other hand view them as the expression of their expertise in the analysis and presentation of strategic solutions. That is why many representations are obtained thanks to a confidentiality agreement. These two materials, interviews and drawings, give us a more complete comprehension because the verbatim account is complementary to the data based on patterns (Thietart, 2007). Then we crossed the information with secondary data cited by the professionals but also working papers and popular books written by respondents.

Analysis of the data

Our open encoding was completed NVivo 10 software (Mukamurera et al. 2006). segments were identified and then grouped and categorized to create meaning and discussing them with regard to the elements already identified in the literature. We

2 Respondents list is in Appendix 1

3 Schematizations list in in Appendix 2

accomplished a descriptive top-level talks and performances encoding, then we performed back and forth operations for a homogeneous descriptive encoding, then we achieved a thematic coding (Saldana, 2012) containing two questions presented in the first section.

Results

Professional’s interviews as well as representations of customer journey allow us to validate our theoretical framework and explain the emergence of new practices in design thinking.

Design thinking

Marketing literature rarely mentions tools to design customer experiences and those mentioned are already old, as the service blueprint schema (Shostack, 1987) or the hybrid grid (Moriarty and Moran, 1990).

Classical tools to create customer journey: Blueprint or Grid

Service Blueprint (Shostack, 1987) is composed of five elements: the actions performed by customers, material evidence of the service, the actions of front-office with the customer, the actions of back-office for the customer, the technical supports.

A hybrid grid integrates customer decision steps (Blackwell, 2005) in columns, which it combines with communication and transaction channels in lines. It indicates what channel can be used at every stage of customer purchasing decision.

Yet professionals make a practically systematic use of design tools. Classical tools are less used because they are time linear, they do not incorporate the variety of customer resources and represent only physical resources the customer uses (for example: moving in-store). The conceptual limits of these classical tools can be found in this verbatim quote: “I'm still not satisfied by my representation in table [in grid]. My customers should be better represented with their skills and their devices "[2].

To compensate these gaps, many consultants and few marketing managers complete grids or blueprints with design thinking tools. These practitioners’ schematizations are usually composed of several tools in A4 or A3 posters: a grid is associated with a map of empathy with gains or pains for each imagined customer journey. These composite representations also include personas. They were often cited by respondents. Professionals define them as an expected target to create an innovative target. This technique, which is difficult to implement, leads to more creativity than when using segmentation (Bornet and Brangier, 2013). According to one respondent, "when we create new journeys, large projects, we will apply personas. '' "This allows us to go further, it is not just a customer file, we define our customers deeply, we select three, four personas and we manage everything with it» [3]. Personas used by professionals are not based on reliable segmentations, they

are invented from scratch by practitioners from their field knowledge or after questioning personnel in front-office.

We explain these design thinking practices by joining together the theoretical concepts presented in the first section with the design tools developed by practitioners. The latter, by mixing conventional schematizations (blueprint and grids) and those of design thinking, seek to build their customer experience by integrating resources that the customer will use. Indeed, when we dissect a flow task drawing, we can notice that managers describe customer activities within his journey and the physical resources he consumes. We consider that each tool is only a part of the components of a customer journey and that each tool covers either the company’s contribution or the customer’s contribution to the construction of customer journey. In order to be more comprehensive, professionals use representations in A3 posters to incorporate several design thinking tools; they therefore embrace a more holistic view and represent as many customer resources as possible.

Table n ° 1. Theoretical constituents of customer journeys and representations used by practitioners

Tools Types of represented customer resources

Example

Blueprint Physical resources Customer phone call (after-sales service)

Persona Informational, emotional, physical, temporal and relational resources (customer)

Age, sex, hobbies, emotional qualities, time available for shopping, preferred transactional channel

Storytelling Physical and emotional resources Customers history via the company channels with the best way to submit services and the emotions expressed by customers and their successive states of mind

Map of empathy

Emotional resources, physical resources

Words that the customer should pronounce, actions that he should lead

Task flow Physical resources The successive tasks carried out by the customer such as searching the website and then taking his car, parking...

The manager will integrate in his approach, representation tools to better describe the contributions of each protagonist at each touchpoint, in order to coordinate, as much as much as possible, the company’s actions and the customer participation. If we consider that customer experience is a co-production, we should define the components involved upstream. For example, storytelling, by drafting a Storyboard telling the emotions that the company wishes to create when the customer lives his journey, would allow to define the crucial moments in the experience. This tool stages the company as the main actor. Thus, a marketing director says “we quickly produced videos, cartoons, with Paul and Sandra who live in Tours and want a new kitchen. In the cartoon we can see the customer interactions with our employees» [13]. If he wants to focus on the emotions that customer should live, it will be rather

use a map of empathy. Managers, through design thinking, have therefore sought to better integrate into their cognitive approaches the theoretical components of customer experience and the resources that the customer could mobilize.

Customer participation in design phase

Typology of customer’s resources was used to capture customer participation cited but a specific resource was not present: the financial dimension. We believe that the lack of treatment of financial resources can be explained because the services under scrutiny had fixed rates without any hidden costs.

During the theoretical phase, we issued a doubt about the approximation of two dissimilar elements under the name 'informational resources': the informational data provided by the customer and cognitive efforts deployed during the journey. No intellectual proximity was found between these two resources. On the one hand, the cognitive efforts are mentioned: "the web (...) is intellectualized, it takes time for brain, is given a centered time while in the store, you can do more tasks at the same time that one is able to do on the web. There may be existing even in multi-screen behaviors, it's more tv in the background. This define specific characteristics that should be taken into account for web from other channels” [1]. On the other hand, informational data resources are not mentioned by respondents but represented in graphical tools (for example, in the film created by [13], describing an ideal purchase experience by Sandra and Paul for a kitchen in the furniture retail store where Sandra describes her current kitchen and forms a mental picture of her life in her future kitchen).

We envisage, in the same way, that physical resources can be split into two: on the one hand, the physical effort made by the customer and on the other hand the equipment the customer owns and that can be inserted in the customer journey: “What people actually do with their Smartphones, how they already use them in their journey” [13]. For a long time, the main concern was only the car or the computer, now marketers are attentive to the various technological objects purchased by customers. Following the arrival of the computer and the Internet connection in the 2000’s, managers are now focused on the use of tablets, smartphones and connected objects. However, in academic research on customer experience the distinction does not exist (see for example González et al. 2013).

Emotional resources are mostly detailed in the design thinking tools. It is an important contribution of design thinking because it allows to think about delight moments or highly emotional moment. Emotional resources are mobilized in the operationalization phase to show the teams how important certain stages of the customer journey are. They are rarely mentioned by respondents.

The temporal resource is hardly ever used by the respondents except one: " Stéphane [a persona] is pragmatic, he has a job and goes shopping only to fill up his fridge or his cupboard but this must be very fast; what is important to him is his

leisure time, doing sport or spending time with his family. His first factor is time, it must not take too much time " [15] and this is represented only once in a composite poster:

Figure 1. Pictograms of temporal resources of the customer and its staging in a task Desonance flow screenshot

The relational resources, i.e. the customer behavior, is difficult to formalize, " a customer who is very sensitive to price and to electricity bills and a customer that doesn't even look at the total amount of the bill or barely We do not handle the same interactions with these two types of customers because they do not behave in the same way" [19], Storytelling films and personas expose these resources. This resource expresses the 'passive' background relationship between company and its customer and it results from the accumulation of relational interactions. This type of resource is only represented once, in persona created by [18]:

Figure 2. Capture from the bottom of a persona

However, relational resources are based on customer’s expectations, which is an essential point in research on the customer experience antecedents. According to Anteblian and al. (2013), 4 expectations exist in literature: economic expectations, hedonic expectations, convenience expectations and the expectations of social interactions. We consider that some elements in the personas reflect this logic:

Figure 3. Expectations of Suzanne, a persona created by [11]

We observe, however, that there is a clear disparity between professionals’ interviews on customer participation integration in design process of the customer journey and representations they use. In their discourses, they are aware that they must take into account customer resources as, for example, their digital devices: “the main device used by customer gives a very logical key to define how we will interact with him and what we are going to propose” [3]. However, this element is still not put forward by managers in the schematic representations of journeys. Similarly, temporal resources are mentioned: "If I take Disneyland Paris, they thought about their mobile strategy on the basis of the fact that the mobile is interesting and becomes critical when customers are in the park because they will take their cellphones out of their pockets and search the web to optimize the waiting time when lining up. They will not do it beforehand or afterward" [5], whereas only a consultant [11] and a retailer [10] actually work on the integration of the periods of time that customer will spend in his journey and represent them.

While academic and practitioner literature has advocated for a long time to be more 'customer-centric', managers’ discourses and representations of the customer journey remain still slightly turned towards customer participation in design experience and marketers do not consider customer as an acting power during his journey.

Improvement of marketing teams work thanks to design thinking

Design thinking practices by managers when designing the customer journey can also be explained by the desire to find mental schemes enabling them to cope with the complexity of the customer experience production work.

First, design thinking allows them to focus their attention on customers by thinking about their needs through a persona, to better understand the targeted journey and avoid path dependency and be more creative. On the one hand, persona becomes a common totem for design teams: "persona is really a handy tool for this. This serves to involve employees and understand their role in customer experience creation: digital touchpoints, physical contact, human touchpoints, etc. Thus the role of each is clear in his customer experience contribution" [15]. On the other hand, persona breaks customer stereotypes in companies and in contextualizing all customers’ behaviors, which allows to develop creative spaces: “it brings out Storyboards and movies that enable to realize that, indeed, people’s lives are not simple and retailers do not meet today’s people’s needs”' [18].

Secondly, design thinking facilitates and develops transmission capability with the creation of aesthetic and simple schematizations to solve complex problems. Design creates the 'simplexity' advocated by the designer Ora-Ito and therefore the ability of design thinking tools to disseminate, within companies, this vision of targeted experiences: "when we use a comic, everyone understands our desire of company change " [11].

Finally, representations allow managers to define the points of improvement in current journeys. They are also used extensively to communicate strategic interest of this approach and to transfer their vision because they allow quick understanding of customer journey scenarios for leaders in strategic phase, "if we want to avoid burdensome processes where people are demobilized, we must share customer journey visualization tools. Nothing annoys more steering committee than to see a customer journey split up in numerous stages and micro-tasks. Visualization tools have this power"[15]. Similarly, they become internal communication media for front-office staff to adapt the work process, “we created seven scenarios that were notified to our employees. To show a store customer journey, I consider that the movie is the best support because a service that has no physical existence has nothing palpable "[18].

Discussion and conclusion

This current study was designed to show design thinking tools contributions to managers in customer experience production.

On the one hand, these tools represent different resources that the customer should bring during the experiment. This should extend Customer Participation scope. These design tools added to classical ones, grids and blueprints, permit to better understand expectations and possible customer behaviors. On the other hand, it seems important to discuss design emergence in these practices. Representing customer journeys seems to be a structuring element in strategic work: "Utilise mapping tools to improve the customer experience: Both TNT and Guinness mapped out the perfect customer experience to understand and identify opportunities for improvement. Several tools can be used to undertake this task including: process mapping, service-blueprinting, customer activity cycles and customer-firm touchpoint analysis. These techniques are useful in highlighting opportunities for improving customer experience, identifying failure points, re-engineer processes and support

differentiation. Another outcome can be enhanced employee understanding of their role in achieving a perfect experience for their customers” (Frow and Payne 2007, p.98).

In managers’ practices, we can find inputs of the 'cognition fit' model which concludes that graphic representations can develop mental representations and aid to strategic decision (Lurie and Mason, 2007; Vessey, 1994). Representations of studied customer journey tools permit to combat path dependencies by facilitating the reconfiguration of customer journey through mental representation (Helfat and Martin, 2015). Finally, design thinking can provide artifacts, objects created by man, setting in a creative and abductive logic what 'should be' customer experience. This approach claims to represent ‘Sciences of the artificial’ scientific paradigm. Design thinking is practice-oriented and seeks pragmatic solutions (Rylander, 2009). Design thinking would fill the lack left by the missing complete customer experience design tools. However, a number of limitations need to be considered. First, design thinking tools are not always properly run, especially for personas, and some consultants use it to submit their customer-centricity. Second, design thinking also entails a particular design-in-practice double diamond approach: we did not observe this approach. Professionals use a classical marketing approach. The double diamond approach is long and quite complex to carry out, in co-creation with the customer, and most interviewees do not master this type of technique.

This qualitative study has only examined customer experience production but not the co-production step and this brings about various research avenues: co-production often requires to have exchange standards as well as standards to define resources governance and processes and requires meeting platforms (Frigant, 2005). According to professional discourses customer experience design also involves organizational thought on its implementation and necessary capabilities and skills.

1

Références bibliographiques :

Antéblian B, Filser M et Roederer C (2013a) L’expérience du consomateur dans le

commerce du détail. Recherche et applications en marketing 28(3): 84‑113.

Antéblian B, Filser M et Roederer C (2013b) L’expérience du consommateur dans le commerce de détail. Une revue de la littérature. Recherche et applications en marketing

28(3): 84‑113.

Bäckström K et Johansson U (2006) Creating and consuming experiences in retail store environments: Comparing retailer and consumer perspectives. Journal of Retailing and

Consumer Services 13(6): 417‑430.

Benoit-moreau F et Bonnemaizon A (2011) « Au boulot cher client »: une approche interprétative de la participation ordinaire du consommateur. In: Congrès international

de l’Association Française de Marketing, Bruxelles, p. 1‑29.

Beverland MB, Wilner SJS et Micheli P (2015) Reconciling the tension between consistency and relevance: design thinking as a mechanism for brand ambidexterity. Journal of the

Academy of Marketing Science: 589‑609.

Bitner MJ, Faranda WT, Hubbert AR, et al. (1997) Customer contributions and roles in

service delivery. International Journal of Service Industry Management 8(3): 193‑205.

Blackwell R, Miniard D et Engel J (2005) consumer behavior. South-Western College Pub.

Bornet C et Brangier É (2013) La méthode des personas: principes, intérêts et limites. Bulletin de psychologie.

Brangier É, Bornet C, Bastien J, et al. (2012) Effets des personas et contraintes fonctionnelles sur l’idéation dans la conception d'une bibliothèque numérique. Le travail humain.

Brown T (2008) Design thinking. Harvard business review June: 85‑86.

Brulhart F, Giueu G, Maltese L, et al. (2010) Théorie des ressources: débats théoriques et

applicabilités. Revue française de gestion (204): 83‑87.

Buchanan R (1992) Wicked problems in design thinking. Design issues: 5 ‑ 21.

Chaney D (2010) L’apport des cartes cognitives à l'analyse des représentations mentales. Recherche et applications en marketing 25.

Chen S et Venkatesh A (2013) An investigation of how design-oriented organisations

implement design thinking. Journal of Marketing Management 29(15-16): 1680‑1700.

Childers TL, Carr CL, Peck J, et al. (2001) Hedonic and utilitarian motivations for online retail

shopping behavior. Journal of Retailing 77(4): 511‑535.

Cochoy F (2014) Consumers at work, or curiosity at play? Revisiting the prosumption/value cocreation debate with smartphones and two-dimensional bar codes. Marketing Theory

32(4): 1‑21.

Collin-Lachaud I et Vanheems R (2011) Comment le parcours cross-canal du consommateur transforme- t-il son expérience de shopping ? In: Colloque Etienne Thil, p. 33.

Courtney JF (2001) Decision making and knowledge management in acquiring organizations: toward a new decision. Decision Support Systems 31(1): 17.

Dujarier M-A (2008) Le travail du consommateur: De Mac Do à eBay: comment nous coproduisons ce que nous achetons. La découve. Paris.

Fliess S, Dyck S et Mailin S (2014) Mirror, mirror on the wall–how customers perceive their

contribution to service provision. Journal of Service Management 25(4): 433‑469.

2

Frigant V (2005) Vanishing hand versus Systems integrators-Une revue de la littérature sur

l’impact organisationnel de la modularité. Revue d’économie industrielle 109: 29‑52.

Frow P et Payne A (2007) Towards the ‘perfect’ customer experience. Journal of Brand

Management 15(2): 89‑101.

Gonzalez C, Huré É et Picot-coupey K (2013) Validation d’un modèle d'intention de magasiner avec le smartphone. Rennes.

Grewal D, Levy M et Kumar V (2009) Customer Experience Management in Retailing: An

Organizing Framework. Journal of Retailing 85(1): 1‑14.

Grewal D, Roggeveen A et Runyan R (2013) Retailing in a connected world. Journal of

Marketing … 29(2009): 263‑270.

Grønholdt L, Martensen A, Jørgensen S, et al. (2015) Customer experience management and business performance. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences 7(1):

90‑106.

Gruber M, De Leon N, George G, et al. (2015) Managing by Design. Academy of

Management Journal 58(1): 1‑7.

Helme-Guizon A (2001) Le comportement du consommateur sur un site marchand est-il fondamentalement différent de son comportement en magasin? Proposition d’un cadre d'. Recherche et Applications en marketing 16.

Holbrook, M. B., & Hirschman EC (1982) The experiential aspects of consumption: consumer

fantasies, feelings, and fun. Journal of consumer research: 132‑140.

Hombourger-Bares S (2014) La contribution du design de l’espace de vente à l'évolution du positionnement de l'enseigne: une analyse longitudinale. Université de Bourgogne.

Kelley SW, Donnelly JH et Skinner SJ (1990) Customer participation in service production

and delivery. Journal of retailing 66(3): 315‑334.

Kimbell L et Street P (2009) Beyond design thinking: Design-as-practice and designs-in-

practice. CRESC Conference, Manchester (May): 1‑15.

Kleijnen M, Ruyter K De et Wetzels M (2007) An assessment of value creation in mobile service delivery and the moderating role of time consciousness. Journal of Retailing

83(1): 33‑46.

Kolko J (2015) Design Thinking Comes of Age. Harvard business review.

Lurie NH et Mason CH (2007) Visual Representation : Implications. 71(January): 160‑177.

Menon K et Dubé L (2000) Ensuring greater satisfaction by engineering salesperson

response to customer emotions. Journal of Retailing 76(3): 285‑307.

Moriarty R et Moran U (1990) Managing Hybrid marketing Systems. Harvard Business Review (December).

Mukamurera J, Ph D et Couturier Y (2006) Des avancées en analyse qualitative : pour une transparence et une systématisation des pratiques. Recherches qualitatives 26(1):

110‑138.

Plé L (2013) How does the customer fit in relational coordination? an empirical study in

multichannel retail banking. 16(1): 1‑30.

Plé L, Lecocq X et Angot J (2010a) Customer-Integrated Business Models. Management

13(4): 226 ‑ 265.

Plé L, Lecocq X et Angot J (2010b) Customer-integrated business models: a theoretical

framework. M@ n@ gement 13(4): 226‑265.

3

Puccinelli NM, Goodstein RC, Grewal D, et al. (2009) Customer Experience Management in

Retailing: Understanding the Buying Process. Journal of Retailing 85(1): 15‑30.

Rawson A, Duncan E et Jones C (2013) The truth about customer experience. Harvard Business Review (September).

Rigby D (2011) The future of shopping. Harvard business review: 65.

Rodie AR et Kleine SS (2000) Customer participation in services production and delivery. In:

Handbook of services marketing and management, p. 111‑125.

Roederer C (2008) L’expérience de consommation : exploration conceptuelle, méthodologique et stratégique. Université de Dijon.

Rylander A (2009) Design Thinking as Knowledge Work: Epistemological Foundations and

Practical Implications. Journal of Design Management: 1‑20.

Shostack G (1987) Service positioning through structural change. The Journal of Marketing

51: 34‑43.

Verganti R (2009) Design driven innovation: changing the rules of competition by radicallyinnovating things mean. Harvard Business School Press.

Verhoef PC, Lemon KN, Parasuraman a., et al. (2009) Customer Experience Creation:

Determinants, Dynamics and Management Strategies. Journal of Retailing 85(1): 31‑41.

Verhoef PC, Venkatesan R, McAlister L, et al. (2010) CRM in Data-Rich Multichannel Retailing Environments: A Review and Future Research Directions. Journal of

Interactive Marketing, Elsevier B.V. 24(2): 121‑137.

Vessey I (1994) The effect of information presentation on decision making: A cost-benefit

analysis. Information & Management 27(2): 103‑119.

4

Appendix 1 : Respondents

N° Fonction Company type Privacy

1 CEO Web consulting no

2 Cross-channeldirector Integrated services no

3 CEO CRM consulting no

4 IT project manager Retail no

5 CEO CRM consulting yes

6 Europ retail manager Luxe no

7 Cross-channel manager Integrated service no

8 CEO Strategy consulting no

9 Marketing director web and mobile consulting no

10 CRM Director Retail no

11 CEO CX design consulting no

12 CEO Mobile marketing consulting no

13 Marketing director Services no

14 UX project manager Services yes

15 CEO CX consulting no

16 CEO Mobile marketing consulting no

17 CRM Marketing Director Services no

18 service design Director Retail yes

19 CX consultant Strategy consulting yes

20 CX Consultant CX consulting yes

5

Appendix 2 : Schematizations

N° Name Creator From

Privacy

Type

(blueprint…)

quote by

(respondent

number)

R1 Matrice de points

de contact

Converteo

consulting

Book no Grid [1] [2]

R2 Carte d'empathie Xplane Book no Empathy map [18] [11]

R3 Cartographie de

l'expérience client

Practitioner Book yes grid [3]

R4 Customer decision

journey

Cabinet Mac

Kinsey

Consulting

Scheme

no Workflow [19]

R5 Customer journey Design thinking

makers, UX

consulting

Consulting

Scheme

no Poster [18]

R6 User journey map Business model

creativity

Consulting

Scheme

no Poster [16]

R7 Représentation Created by [2] Company

representation*

no grid [2]

R8 Carte matrice Created by [7] Company

representation

yes grid [7]

R9 Customer journey

mapping

Design thinkers

academy

Company

representation

no Poster [11]

R10 Customer journey

canvas

service design

thinking company

Book no Poster [11]

R11 Matrice de

parcours client

Created by [3] Software yes Grid [3]

R12 Tracker de

l'expérience client

KPAM, CX

consulting

Software No - [15]

R13 Cinématique de

distribution

ParKéon Company

representation

no Workflow [2]

R14 Customer

experience map

Desonance,

Design service

consulting

Consulting

Scheme

no Poster [18]

R15 Back-up user

journey

Orange business

Service

Company

representation

no Poster [3]

R16 Touchpoint

dashboard

Software no Blueprint [15]

R17 Mirabeau journey Software no Blueprint [15]

R18 SMG sample

customer journey

map

Software no Grid [15]

R19 Key journey step nForm Consulting

Scheme

no Grid [18]

R20 Purchase journey

map

Heart of the

customer, CX

consulting

Consulting

Scheme

no Poster [15]

R21 Customer journey

map: cellphone

Cap gemini Consulting

Scheme

no Poster [1]

6

R22 Customer

experience map

Sunrun Consulting

Scheme

no Poster [2] [3]

R23 Parcours client

cross-canal

Created by [8] Company

representation

yes Grid [8]

R24 Powerpoint client Created by [11] Meeting

documents

yes - [11]

R25 Customer Circles Forrester Consulting

Scheme

no ELdermann [15]

R26 Customer journey Mac Kinsey Consulting

Scheme

no Workflow [19] [8]

R27 Customer

experience view

print

Lightswitch Consulting

Scheme

no Workflow [11] [15]

R28 Tableau de bord

de l’expérience

client

Created by [7] Company

representation

yes Scorecard [7]

R29 Matrice de flux de

client cross-canal

Created by [8] Company

representation

yes Workflow [8]

R30 Processus client Created by [10] Company

representation

yes Workflow [10]

R31 Persona Suzanne Created by [11] Company

representation

yes Persona [11]

R32 Carte des attentes Created by [11] Company

representation

yes Scorecard [11]

R33 Bande-dessinée

de l’expérience

client

Created by [11] Company

representation

yes Storytelling [11]

R34 Film de formation Created by [13] Company movie yes Storytelling [13]

R35 Représentation

parcours client

Created by [15] Company

representation

yes Eldermann [15]

R36 Persona Léa Created by [17] Company

representation

no Persona [17]

R37 Film de formation Created by [18] Company movie yes Storytelling [18]

R38 Matrice SNCF Created by [20] Company

representation

yes Grid [20]

R39 Matrice parcours

client

Created by [20] Company

representation

yes Grid [20]

R40 workflow Created by [20] Company

representation

yes workflow [20]

R41 Matrice Created by [19] Company

representation

no Grid [19]

*Company representation: Schematization created by manager himself