The impact of knowledge management on
customer journey
Joram Jansen Student number: 11339799
University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Science
Thesis Master Information Studies: Business Information Systems Final version: August 22, 2017
Supervisor: ir. A. M. Stolwijk Examiner: dr. J. Brunner
Abstract. More and more organizations pay attention to their customers’ experiences. Many have been trying to measure customer experience resulting in a lot of data (Meyer & Schwager, 2007). The problem is that measuring customer experience does not tell managers how to improve it. In this study, the following question is central: How can Knowledge Management (KM) contribute to optimize the experiences (journey) of customers of service organizations? This research makes clear that KM can be used for optimizing the customer journey. By combining qualitative and quantitative research methods, a first step is taken in describing how service organizations can use KM to do this. By combining customer interviews, interviews at a marketing department and literature research, a customer journey for service organizations is defined. This journey consists of 10 important touchpoints which are influenced by at least 44 factors. The importance of these touchpoints and related factors is made clear by taking a survey (of 175 customers of a service organization). Discussing the survey results with involved employees of the customer journey results in different, for management important, relations between customer experiences and KM. One of the highlights is that customer experience can be optimized by providing accessible technical self-service information to customers. Also, up-to-date and precise appointment related information is important for customers. For front-office employees, the availability of technical-, and customer information is found as contributive to optimize a customer journey. Another important outcome is that changing technical tacit knowledge to more codified knowledge can lead to better customer experiences. This study can help managers to improve their customer journeys.
Keywords. Customer Journey, Customer Experience, Customer Satisfaction, Knowledge Management, Service Quality.
Table of contents 1. Introduction ... 4 1.1. Customer Journey ... 4 1.2. Knowledge management ... 4 1.3. Research objective ... 4 1.4. Research questions ... 5 2. Literature review ... 5 2.1. Service Design ... 6 2.2. Conceptual Framework ... 6
2.3. Customer Experience and Customer Journey ... 7
2.4. Customer Satisfaction ... 7
2.5. Service Quality ... 8
2.6. Knowledge Management ... 9
2.7. Customer experience and Knowledge management ... 9
3. Methodology ... 10
3.1. Open interviews with customers ... 10
3.2. Literature research ... 11
3.3. Open interviews service company ... 11
3.4. Analysing preliminary results ... 11
3.5. Survey ... 11
3.6. Analyzing survey results ... 12
3.7. Semi structured interviews ... 12
3.8. Customer Journey Mapping ... 12
4. Results ... 12
4.1. Customer Journey ... 13
4.1.1. Customer touchpoints ... 13
4.2. Influencing factors ... 13
4.2.1. Search for contact- and self-service information ... 14
4.2.2. Report a malfunction ... 14
4.2.3. Try to solve the malfunction itself ... 15
4.2.4. Make an appointment ... 15
4.2.5. Receive an appointment confirmation ... 16
4.2.6. Change the appointment by customer ... 16
4.2.8. The service appointment ... 16
4.2.9. Make a follow-up appointment ... 17
4.2.10. Receive confirmation and optionally invoice ... 17
4.2.11. Payment ... 18
4.2.12. Communication afterwards ... 18
5. Discussion ... 18
6. Conclusion ... 19
References ... 20
Appendix A: Customer perceptions of quality and customer satisfaction ... 22
Appendix B: I-Space framework ... 22
Appendix C: Customer Journey Mapping ... 23
Appendix D: Influencing factors of customer satisfaction ... 24
Appendix E: Homogenous subsets of the touchpoints ... 25
1. Introduction
1.1. Customer Journey
We are entering - or have already entered - the experience economy (Nenonen et al., 2008). Nowadays, creating a strong customer experience is an important leading management objective (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016). A recent study by Accenture (2015) shows that improving the customer experience received the most number one rankings when executives were asked about their top priorities for the next 12 months. Currently, organizational attention in customer management is mainly focused on customers’ value creation for organizations. The focus is mainly on metrics such as customer lifetime value (CLV) instead of value creation for customers (Kumar and Reinartz 2016; Lemon and Verhoef, 2016).
Customers now interact with organizations through many touchpoints in multiple channels and media (Verhoef et al., 2015). Their experiences are influenced by different factors such as peer customers (Brynjolfsson et al., 2013), which results in a reduced control of increasingly complicated customer journeys. The strongly increased potential customer touchpoints and the reduced control of the experiences require organizations to integrate different business functions to create positive customer experiences. Examples of these are information technology (IT), service operations, logistics, marketing and human resources. Overall, it has become more complicated for firms to create, attempt to manage and control the journey of its customers (Edelman and Singer 2015; Lemon and Verhoef, 2016).
1.2. Knowledge management
A concept that organizations can help to optimize their customers’ journeys is knowledge management (KM). Davenport (1994) defined KM as “the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge”. A more specific and one of the most cited definitions is created by the Gartner Group: “a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identify, capture, evaluate, retrieve, and share all of an enterprise's information assets” (Duhon, 1998). Currently, KM is considered as one of the most important management research issues (Serenko and Bontis, 2016). A reason for this is that it can positively influence innovativeness, organizational competitiveness and economic performance (Donate and Guadamillas, 2015, Serenko and Bontis, 2016).
1.3. Research objective
This study examines how KM can contribute to the optimization of customer journeys. To get more detailed results, the research concentrates on the service industry. It is plausible that especially in this kind of industry, each different customer requires specific (technical and non-technical) knowledge. Service organizations, from a customer perspective, can be divided in four quadrants (typologies) which show two opposites (figure 1). First, incidental and frequent customer moments of contact. Second, free available services and services which require switching costs. In literature, different quadrants are used to specify service typologies or organizations (e.g. Gallouj, 2002).
The figure, used in this report is derived from a combination of these quadrants and is used to generalize the results. This research focuses on service organizations which require switching costs and which have incidental contact with customers. In this research, attention will be given to organizations which offer service and maintenance. The following definition of a service organization is used: an organization that offers service and maintenance within a contract or warranty. Customers are defined as owners of a service object which is serviced by a company.
Both concepts, customer journey and KM are discussed in literature extensively. However, there is limited research done about the effects of them on each other. This paper tries to gain better insight into the effects of using KM to influence customer journeys by focusing on the service industry. One objective of this research is to collect existing literature about these topics. Because the literature on this topic is limited, an extension will be made by doing empirical research (interviews and a survey).
Figure 1. Typologies of service. 1.4. Research questions
This research aims to make clear the effect of KM on customer journeys in the service industry. To give more insights in these effects, the following research question is answered in this study: How can Knowledge Management contribute to optimize the
experiences (journey) of customers of service organizations?
To be able to answer this question, the following sub-questions are answered first: • How does the journey look like for customers of service organizations? • What experiences are important for customer satisfaction?
• How is knowledge and information managed, shared and used in the customer journey of service organizations (front-/back office, service operations and knowledge systems)?
• How can Knowledge Management optimize offered services?
2. Literature review
In order to answer the research questions, an extensive review of literature related to the research questions is presented. First an explanation is given about Service Design. Second a conceptual framework is provided which shows the concept related to the
research scope and their relations. Finally, the different concepts are explained and discussd.
2.1. Service Design
In the last years, the traditional ‘product design thinking’ is strongly influenced by so called ‘Service Design thinking’. This change has an impact on society, industry and economy (Vargo & Lusch, 2008; Rodriguez & Peralta, 2014). The western world, delivers mainly products which are brought on the market in a service oriented way (Polaine et al., 2013). For example, most installation companies not only sell products, they also offer contractual services. Organizations in all kind of industries acknowledge the importance of ‘customer experience’ strategies to differentiate themselves from their competitors. (Teixeira et al., 2012; Shaw & Ivens, 2005; Polaine et al., 2013; Tjeng et al.,1999).
Service Design is a design discipline with the focus on offering the right customer experience on the right moment. It helps organizations to positively influence their customers’ experiences which can lead to a competitive advantage. The process to design the customer experience of a service or product in advance is a recent development in this field (Texeira et al., 2012; Bitner et al., 2008). In the Service Design discipline, different visualization techniques are used to design and evaluate services (Segelstorm et al., 2010). An important technique is customer journey mapping which will be explained later is in this literature review.
2.2. Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework, presented in this paragraph, shows the related concepts to the study. The ‘equal to’ lines visualize the aspects that form the concepts customer satisfaction and service quality. As discussed in this chapter, service quality impacts customer satisfaction and customer experience. Customer Satisfaction is a key element of customer experience which is shown with the single sided arrow. As later will be defined, the customer journey is the collection of all touchpoints to reach a specific goal for a customer. Thus, customer journey is a collection of different customer experiences. The relation between these two concepts is showed with a two-sided arrow because customer experience can be influenced by other experiences in the customer journey and vice versa. The goal of this study is to investigate how Knowledge Management can help optimizing customer experience (and thus the customer journey). For this reason, the relationship with KM and these two concepts is shown with a one-sided arrow.
Figure 2. Conceptual Framework
2.3. Customer Experience and Customer Journey
Companies nowadays focus on creating customer loyalty and a competitive advantage by creating favourable customer experiences (Badgett et al., 2007). Literature provide multiple visions on, and definitions of customer experience. In their research, Pine and Gilmore (1998) conceptualized the idea of experiences as distinct from goods and services. They state that instead of buying a product or service, a consumer purchases an experience to spend time enjoying a series of events that a company stages to engage him in an inherently personal way. Other researchers add to this that every service delivery, regardless from its nature and type, leads to a customer experience (Schmitt et al., 2015). Gentile et al. (2007) define the concept as “a set of interactions between a customer and a product, a company, or part of its organization, which provoke a reaction which is strictly personal and implies the customer's involvement at different levels (rational, emotional, sensorial, physical, and spiritual”. The definition of Meyer and Schwager (2007) corresponds to this.
As stated by Gentile et al. (2007), customer experience consists of one or more contacts between a customer and an organization or product. These moments of contact are called touchpoints (Homburg et al., 2015; Rosenbaum et al., 2017). The collection of all touchpoints to reach a specific goal for a customer is called a customer journey (Rosenbaum et al., 2017). Literature provides different factors that influences customer experience/journey (Jorritsma, 2010; Frow & Payne, 2007). A selection of these factors are used to compile a list of influencing factors of the customer experience of service organizations.
2.4. Customer Satisfaction
One key element of understanding and managing customer experience is the ability to measure and monitor the reactions of customers to organization offerings (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016). This can be described as customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction has drawn the interest of managers and academics for more than four decades because they see that customers are one of the most important sources of organizations’ revenue
(Tam, 2004). Customers are always aiming to get maximum satisfaction from the products or services that they buy (Tam, 2004). Satisfaction has been conceptualized as a result from a comparison of customer expectations and the delivered performance (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016). In line with this definition Churchill and Surprenant (1982) recognize that satisfaction is a result of comparing what customers receive against to what they give up to get a service. Other authors have a broader view, they see satisfaction as an emotional feeling, resulting from evaluating a service (Westbrook, 1981). Like different other studies, in this paper a combination of both views is used to define customer satisfaction: “an emotional response, that results from a cognitive process of evaluating the service received against the costs of obtaining the service” (Woodruff et al., 1991; Rust and Oliver, 1994; Tam, 2004).
Different researchers stated that factors such as (perceived) service quality, product quality and pricing can affect customer satisfaction (Wilson et al., 2008; Agbor, 2011). Wilson et al. (2008) provided a model that shows relevant factors of customer satisfaction and their relationships (see appendix A); service quality, product quality, pricing, a situational- and a personal factor. Because of the fact that the focus of this study is specifically on service organizations, not all factors (i.e. product quality) are relevant.
The National Business Research Institute (NBRI) also provided some relevant dimensions to measure customer satisfaction: service quality, innocently, speed of service, pricing, complaints or problems, trust in employees and the closeness of the relationship with contacts in your firm (NBRI, 2009). Some of these dimensions correspond with the model of Wilson et al. (2008).
2.5. Service Quality
Different researchers discovered an important relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction (Meyer & Schwager, 2007; Tam, 2010; Agbor, 2011; Tavanazadeh and Aligholi, 2014). Service quality is defined by different researchers as the extent to which customer perceptions of service match with their expectations (Parasuraman, 1988; Zeithaml et al., 1990). Thus, service quality can intend how customers are served in an organization which is important for organizations (see paragraph 2.4).
One of the most used measurements of service quality is the SERVQUAL model by Parasuraman et al. (1985). In this model, 97 attributes are identified which have an impact on service quality. These attributes were condensed into ten dimensions which are later, because of corresponding ones, grouped in five dimensions (Parasuraman et al., 1988). The dimensions are important to access customer’s expectations and perceptions on delivered services (Agbor, 2011; Kumar, 2009). The five dimensions are listed below:
• Tangibility: physical facilities, equipment, and appearance of personnel • Reliability: ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately • Responsiveness: willingness to help customers and provide prompt service • Assurance: knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire
trust and Confidence
• Empathy: caring individualized attention the firm provides to its customers Kang en Bradley (2002) argued that customers are well able to perceive and estimate the quality of an information service. Although confusion between the expected and the adequate quality can lead to ambiguity (De Vries, Kasper and Van Helsdingen, 1999),
this research focuses only on the desired service. This prevents the potential disadvantage. The dimensions and attributes of the model are used to make survey questions to study influencers of the satisfaction and experience of service organizations’ customers.
2.6. Knowledge Management
Weggeman (2000) defined knowledge as “the, partly unconscious, ability that allow people to perform certain tasks”. This is a combination of explicit knowledge, which is knowledge that is noticeable, stored and not dependent on people (information). and explicit knowledge which is personal knowledge and therefore more difficult to share (experience, skills and attitude). In this report, the definition of Duhon (1998) is used: “ a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identify, capture, evaluate, retrieve, and share all of an enterprise's information assets”. According to Duon, these assets may include databases, documents, policies, procedures, and previously un-captured expertise and experience in individual workers.
Boisot (1999) believes that knowledge and information flows can be divided into the degree of structure and to its degree of diffusion. He argues that these are positively correlated, the more information is structured, the faster and more extensively it can be shared. Tacit knowledge (low codification) flows very slowly between employees and often only in face-to-face situations. Codified knowledge, by contrast, can diffuse rapidly throughout a population. In line with this vision, Boisot (1999) developed the Information Space framework (I-space framework) which represents the degree of structure of knowledge (abstraction and codification) to its diffusion within a population of agents. The framework can help organizations in assessing how its knowledge is currently being structured and shared. A more detailed description of the framework is provided in Appendix B.
2.7. Customer experience and Knowledge management
Different authors described relationships between KM and customer satisfaction (or related concepts i.e. service quality). In this paragraph, these relations are discussed.
KM can improve customer satisfaction through self-service capabilities. By offering self-service tools, for example a FAQ page on the website of an organization can eliminate the need to speak directly with an employee. This helps customers to rapidly find the information they want. According to an international survey in different industries conducted by Van Belleghem (2013), 70% of consumers expect a self-service option for handling questions and complaints. This indicates a relationship between KM and customer experience.
Skarzynski (2016) argues that KM impacts the efficiency of customer service of organizations. KM makes it possible to handle questions and service requests faster than without KM. This positively affects customer experience.
Maoz (2016) describes that ineffective KM can lead to a reduced productivity and poor customer satisfaction for organizations. He describes that an improved delivery of contextual knowledge to employees or customers reduces the time to answer. Effective KM can lead to more informed and knowledgeable internal and external customers which has a positive effect on the customer experience.
3. Methodology
In order to answer the research questions, a combination of qualitive and quantitative research methods was used. According to Gable (1994), “combining the main strength of survey research (generalizability/external validity) with the main strength of case studies (discoverability) can yield a superior piece of research”. Figure 3 visualizes the research process, in this chapter the different used methods are explained.
Figure 3. Schematic representation of the process
For this research, a case study was done at Feenstra, one of the biggest service companies in the Netherlands. The biggest and most important division of the company is the one that services heating systems. To scope the research and to find useful and comparable data, this study only focused on this division. The scope was further specified by only focussing on B2C customers who own a heating system. Only the malfunction solving process was considered. This specification was done because otherwise the data was not well comparable. Within the focus group, customers can have a contract type A (cheaper, but only labour and travel costs are included) or a contract type B (more expensive, but all possible costs are included). In this research, customers with both contracts were included.
3.1. Open interviews with customers
To define the different touchpoints in the customer journey, two open interviews were done with a senior marketer and a business analyst at Feenstra. Because measuring human feelings can be difficult, different researchers argue that the best way to know how customers feel and what they want is to ask them (Levy, 2009; Agbor, 2011). Open interviews allow the researcher to understand respondents´ perception of their experience as an interpreter (Sofaer, 1999). As input for these interviews, a draft with touchpoints, based on the experiences of the researcher was presented. After discussing these touchpoints, a first version of the customer journey map (CJM) was made. A more specific description of the customer journey mapping method is provided in appendix C.
3.2. Literature research
To find a list of influencing factors of the touchpoints, literature research was done about related concepts. Especially attention was given to the way that these concepts can influence each other. Examples of relevant keywords used to search in literature databases (e.g. Ebsco and Catalogue Plus) were knowledge management, customer journey, customer experience and service quality. The found determinants and attributes were used to compile a list of influencing factors of the customer experience in the service industry.
3.3. Open interviews service company
Next to the literature study, 5 open interviews were done with customers in different age groups (21,35,58, 74 and 86). The different touchpoints were explained to the customers and there was asked what they find important during these moments. First, the questions were asked without showing the previously collected factors, but when customers experienced difficulties with considering factors, examples were given.
3.4. Analysing preliminary results
Combining the found factors and dimensions with the outcomes of the interviews and the literature review resulted in a list of 65 customer experience influencers, sorted by moment of contact. Before testing the factors, the list was analyzed and discussed again with a senior marketer from Feenstra. After discussing, the list was shortened to prevent a too long survey (with negative effects on the response). After removing irrelevant factors to KM (e.g. the clothing of the mechanics and their politeness), the list had a total of 44 influencing factors (see appendix D).
3.5. Survey
To test the importance of the factors, a survey was set up. For each touchpoint, a matrix question with associated factors was made. Also, a question was added to test the importance of the different touchpoints. For the questions about the factors a variant of the Likert scale was used (see paragraph 4.2). For the used scale was chosen to prevent that respondents only answer ‘very important’.
The survey was designed and was taken in the online survey designing platform SurveyMonkey. This platform was chosen because SurveyMonkey offers many possibilities in designing a survey and analyzing the results. First the survey was tested by sending it to 25 test respondents (Feenstra employees, and other selected people). After testing, the formulation of some questions was changed. The final version of the survey was sent by e-mail to 1.000 randomly selected customers with contract type A and 1.000 randomly selected customers with contract type B. The survey was sent on Tuesday evening, the for this survey optimal moment (Checkmaret, 2017). To reach the highest number of respondents possible with the available resources, 4 gift cards were given to randomly selected respondents and a reminder was sent. The response was 175 people which is 8,75%.
3.6. Analyzing survey results
The results were analyzed separately in SPSS. For each question, a ‘one-way ANOVA’ test was performed to measure if the factors or touchpoints differed significantly from each other. For the questions for which the ‘one-way ANOVA’ showed significant differences, a post-hoc test was used to localize the differences (Field, 2009). To measure the effect size of the measured differences, Partial Eta Squared was calculated. The Partial Eta Squared was calculated to gain insight into the effect size of the found differences. Hereby Cohen’s rule of thumb was used: .02(small effect size), .13(medium effect size) and .26(large effect size) (De Vocht, 2013).
3.7. Semi structured interviews
After analyzing the survey results, all involved people in the customer journey were listed and discussed with a business analyst from Feenstra. For every direct role in the customer journey, a Feenstra employee was interviewed (telephone operator, web care employee, planner, marketer, engineer and administrative worker). The goal of this round of interviews was to investigate the information and knowledge needed during every step in the customer journey. This information was used for making a CJM. Another goal of the interviews was to investigate how KM can contribute to optimize the customer experience at the different touchpoints. To reach these goals, an in-depth, semi-structured with open-ended questions interview was most appropriate. In-depth interviews contain open-ended questions and follow-up probes to obtain an in-depth understanding of participants’ experiences, perceptions, opinions, feelings, and knowledge (Rosenthal, 2016). During the interviews, the results of the survey were presented. After transcribing the interviews, the interviews were coded to relate KM statements to the touchpoints. The different factors related to the touchpoints were used as a code. Other interview questions for these semi-structured interviews were based on the I-Space framework (Boisot, 1999) which is discussed in appendix B.
3.8. Customer Journey Mapping
Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) was used to visualize the information and knowledge flows in the defined customer journey. The created CJM was used (see appendix F) to understand the organization’s customer experience better and to determine the importance of KM in this process. In the column ‘customer’, not only the information and knowledge is shown, but also the physical evidence of the services. This is what a customer receives after purchasing a service.
4. Results
In the first paragraph of this chapter (paragraph 4.1), the created customer journey is shown. In addition to this, an analysis of the different touchpoints related to the journey is given. For each touchpoint, different influencers (factors) of customer experience are defined. In paragraph 4.2 for each touchpoint, the most important factors are described according to the survey results.
4.1. Customer Journey
In the studied malfunction solving process, there are different exceptions possible. For example, in some cases a service appointment must be changed. In one of the open interviews, a business analyst of Feenstra argued that these exceptions (situational factors/moderators) could be an important factor, this is in line with the research of Verhoef et al. (2009). The most common exceptions are included in the following journey. The horizontal figure shows the different phases in the process and the text above represents the customer touchpoints.
Figure 4. Customer Journey of the malfunction process
4.1.1. Customer touchpoints
For the part of the survey that considers the importance of the touchpoints, the following Likert scale is used; 1: little influence, 2: moderate influence, 3: a lot of influence, 4: very much influence and 5: decisive. The survey shows that ‘the service appointment’ is the most important touchpoint for customers. This touchpoint is significantly more important than all other touchpoints except for ‘report a malfunction’. This touchpoint, together with ‘make an appointment’, is significantly more important than the other touchpoints. The found Partial Eta Squared of 0.150 indicates that the effect size of the differences between the importance of the touchpoints is medium. The power of the test is 1.00. An overview with all touchpoints and how they significantly differ is shown in appendix E. The most important touchpoints are listed below:
• The service appointment • Report a malfunction • Make an appointment
• Make a follow-up appointment • Change the appointment by company
4.2. Influencing factors
For the part of the survey that considers the importance of the single factors, the following Likert scale is used: 1: not important, 2: moderately important, 3: important, 4: very important and 5: crucial. To show the importance of the factors relative to each other, the factors are divided by their sample means in the following classes: <3.00:
somewhat important (20% least important factors), => 3.00 and <3.72: medium important and =>3.72: highly important (20% most important factors). An overview of the found factors and their importance is shown in appendix D.
4.2.1. Search for contact- and self-service information
The ANOVA and post-hoc tests indicate that it is significantly most important that customers can find organization’s contact information in an easy way. Relative to all other factors, this factor is highly important. The possibility to choose a communication channel and the availability of self-service information are significantly less important. Both factors do not significantly differ from each other and are indicated as medium important. The Partial Eta Squared of 0.184 indicates a medium effect size. This means that differences between the factors differ moderately. The power of the test is 1.00.
In the interviews, no direct relations with KM are given. However, the interviewed business analyst argued the importance of a ‘contact us’ page to provide an overview of all supported communication channels. This is in line with Matthew (2015). When firms store all used contact information of customers, KM can be used to recognize customers during upcoming service requests. In this situation, customers can be helped faster which positively affects their experiences.
4.2.2. Report a malfunction
The most important factor within this moment of contact is a well-accessible customer service with minimal waiting times. This factor is significantly more important than all other factors within this touchpoint and relative to all other factors, the factor is highly important. The factor of directly coming into contact with the right person and the factor about technical-, product- and customer related knowledge of the customer service employee are significantly less important. The last two discussed factors are indicated as medium important. The found Partial Eta Squared of 0.135 indicates that the effect size of the differences between the importance of the touchpoints is medium. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ moderately from each other. The power of the test is 1.00.
During the interview with the telephone operator, she emphasized that waiting times can be minimized by making available self-service information for customers. According to the interviewed business analyst, the number of incoming service requests was reduced since simple technical knowledge is available via a tool on the website. In this tool, customers can search on fault codes. He added, using self-service information positively affects customer experience because of shorter waiting times.
The telephone operator also discussed another KM solution to optimize customer experience: a tool that provides technical knowledge to customer service employees. Based on object types and fault codes, the tool shows possible solutions for customers and other relevant information such as images of the service objects. Having this information has positive effects on the efficiency of phone calls. The interviewee adds that using a knowledge bank with question scripts and other training information combined with the described tool, helps telephone operators with rapidly locating problems and formulating them clearly for engineers.
An outcome of the interview with the web-care employee is that managing and sharing information about customer contacts can also contribute to an optimized customer experience. She emphasized that it is important that all front-office employees see both social media contact and other customer history (i.e. by phone or service visits).
According to her, using different systems with different user rights to see information, leads to irritated customers (because of ignorant employees) and inefficient contacts. The telephone operator agreed to this and added that automatically identifying customers by their phone number also leads to fewer necessary questions (about their identity etc.) and thus less irritated customers and more efficient phone calls (see paragraph 4.2.1). 4.2.3. Try to solve the malfunction itself
Within this touchpoint, customers find it significantly most important that employees know exactly how their heating system looks like and where all buttons are located. Also getting personal assistance is indicated as highly important. Both factors are indicated as medium important. The found Partial Eta Squared of 0.115 indicates that the effect size of the found differences is small. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ little from each other. The power of the test is 1.00.
As described in paragraph 4.2.2, a tool with technical knowledge for customer service employees which contains information and images of the service objects, can positively influence the most important factor of this moment of contact: the technical knowledge of customer service employees.
4.2.4. Make an appointment
Within this touchpoint, customers find it most important that an engineer will be on location the same day or maximum one day later. This factor is indicated as one of the most important factors in this study. Receiving a cost indication and getting a precise time indication for the appointment (maximum blocks of three hours) are significant more important than other factors but less important than the first discussed one. Also, the possibility of making an appointment during the first moment of contact is one of the most important factors of this test. The last three factors are, relative to all other factors, indicated as medium important. The found Partial Eta Squared of 0.130 indicates that the effect size of the found differences is medium. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ moderately from each other. The power of the test is 1.00.
The interview with a planner and telephone operator made clear that it is not possible to give a precise cost indication before the service appointment has taken place. It is not possible to know exactly what the problem is before an engineer has analyzed it. This makes giving a cost indication at this moment unreliable and not relevant. However, it is possible to inform customers about their contract conditions (what costs are included and what costs not). According to the interviewees, this also affects the customer experience positively. For this reason, it is important that the front office employee can easily see the customer’s contract terms when making an appointment.
As described above, an important factor is receiving a precise time indication for an appointment. According to the planner, appointments are made in blocks of a few hours because it is difficult to predict how long an appointment will take place. According to the interviewed engineer, KM can be used to optimize this. For example, it is clear that many morning appointments take place at the end of the morning. Making this information insightful for customers will have a positive impact on their experience. These customers don’t have to stay at home the first hours of an agreed appointment block.
According to the interviews it is important to include all engineers in a central planning instead of creating separate ones for each region. KM can be used to consider the skills and knowledge of engineers, the material in their vans, and their location to
make a more flexible and efficient planning. In this way, KM can help to make fast appointments and to give more precise time indications.
4.2.5. Receive an appointment confirmation
The studied factors within this touchpoint differ significantly from each other. Customers find receiving an appointment confirmation more important than the availability of information about the engineer. Relative to the other factors, receiving the confirmation is indicated as medium important. Providing the engineer’s name and photo is indicated as somewhat important. The found Partial Eta Squared of 0.197 indicates that the effect size of the found differences is medium. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ moderately from each other. The power of the test is 1.00.
According to the telephone operator, sending an appointment confirmation is a good method to share all relevant information about an appointment. This will prevent miscommunication about service appointments.
4.2.6. Change the appointment by customer
Within this touchpoint, two factors are studied which differ significantly from each other. When changing an appointment, for customers the most important factor is that it is possible to change their appointment at all times without costs. This factor is indicated as medium important. Less important than this is to let customers choose which communication channel they use when changing their appointment which is indicated as somewhat important. The found Partial Eta Squared of 0.068 indicates that the effect size of the found differences is small. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ little from each other. The power of the test is 0.997.
For this moment of contact, the same KM related suggestions are relevant as described in paragraph 4.2.4. In the interviews, no specific suggestions were given about changing an appointment.
4.2.7. Change the appointment by the company
Focusing on changing an appointment, respondents find it most important that they are informed directly when an appointment has to be changed and that it is possible to directly make a new appointment. Both factors belong to the most important factors of the study, the other two factors are indicated as medium important. Because of the Partial Eta Squared of 0.131, the effect size of the differences is medium. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ moderately from each other. The power of the test is 1.00.
Also for this moment of contact, the same suggestions given in paragraph 4.2.4 are relevant. According to the interviewed planner, for this touchpoint it is extra important that customers are contacted as quickly as possible. This is in line with the survey results. When calling, the planner has to have access to customer information, customer history and the availability of the engineers to be able to directly make a new appointment (see CJM appendix F).
4.2.8. The service appointment
For the service appointment, the most important factor is that the engineer acts professional. Significantly less important is that the malfunction is fixed during the first appointment. However, both factors are still indicated as highly important. The factor
about being on time and receiving a message fifteen minutes before arriving are significantly less important and indicated as medium important. The effect size of the differences is large when looking to the Partial Eta Squared of 0.453. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ greatly from each other. The power of this test is 1.000.
As described above, customers find it the most important that the engineer acts professional. The interviews with the engineer and the business analyst make clear that when engineers need technical information or help on location, in most of the times they call each other. The open interviews with customers show that this has a negative effect on their professionality because it looks like the engineer does not have enough skills and/or knowledge. By providing technical information to engineers via a knowledge system, the number of phone calls can be reduced and engineers look more professional.
A KM related suggestion to optimize the first-time-fix percentage of malfunctions was given by the interviewed planner. The mainly reason that a malfunction cannot be fixed during the first appointment is the absence of needed parts of service objects. To reduce the number of these cases, it is important to compare the stock parts of engineers with the presumably broken ones. For this reason, planners need information about the stock of the engineers and the type of the customer’s service object when making appointments. The previously described supportive tool with technical knowledge (paragraph 4.2.2) can be supportive for identifying presumably broken parts.
The engineer also argued that the availability of customer information and the malfunction history of a specific service object enables him to predict what the problem is more thoroughly (see CJM in appendix F). When having this information, he can directly take the right material with him to fix the malfunction in an efficient way. Also, the availability of product- and price information is necessary to give customers a cost indication. Both affect customer experience positively.
4.2.9. Make a follow-up appointment
The two most important factors associated to the making of a follow-up appointment still differ significantly from each other. Most important is the possibility to directly make this appointment with an engineer. The less important factor is that the customer can choose a moment for the appointment from different options. Both factors are indicated as medium important relative to the other factors. The measured effect size is with an Partial Eta Squared of 0.182 determined as medium which means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ moderately from each other. The power of the test is 1.00.
Because customers find it most important to directly make a new appointment, it is needed that the engineers have information about possible moments for appointments. In his interview, the business analyst argued that engineers can be equipped with a planning tool to make appointments independently instead of first contacting the planning department. Thus, engineers act more professional.
4.2.10. Receive confirmation and optionally invoice
For this touchpoint, significantly most important is making clear what work has been done. This factor is indicated as highly important. Showing how the total price is calculated is significantly less important but still indicated as medium important. The found Partial Eta Squared of 0.191 shows that the effect size of the found differences is medium. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ moderately. The power of the test is 1.00.
To reach an optimal customer experience at this point, it is important that engineers describe their performed work and used materials correctly and upload this information to the service management system directly. When this is described clearly, it is possible to directly send a confirmation which shows the performed work, used parts and prices. According to the survey results, this has a positive impact on the customer experience. 4.2.11. Payment
The different factors related to the payment do not differ significantly from each other. The possibility to choose how to pay and the support of modern payment methods are both indicated as medium important. The effect size of this test is medium with an Partial Eta Squared of 0.127. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ moderately from each other. The power of this test is 0.984.
According to the administrative employee, at this point of the journey it is recommended that one single system is used for the registration and administration of service appointments. When separate administration systems are used, a delay in the communication between them (after finishing a case, it has to be synchronized first) can cause problems. One of the problems is that it is not possible for customers to pay directly after an appointment. This leads to limited payment possibilities.
The interviewee also argued that customers using an automatically direct debit, commonly want to know at what time a payment is collected. Using a system that makes this information insightful for customers and/or engineers leads to a better customer experience.
4.2.12. Communication afterwards
Both factors about this touchpoint differ significantly. Receiving information about discounts and tips is less important than receiving a request for feedback. Both factors are indicated as somewhat important. The Partial Eta Squared of 0.060 indicates a small effect size of this difference. This means that the factors, related to this touchpoint, differ little from each other. The power of this test is 0.993.
According to the business analyst and the marketer, KM can be used to personalize e-mails, advertisements, etc. based on the type and age of service objects for example. However, the limited influence of this touchpoint and associated factors minimize the effect on customer experience.
5. Discussion
From the previous chapter, it became clear that there are 44 KM related factors that can influence the customer experience of service organizations. The different factors are tested on importance using a survey of 175 respondents, which make this part of the study robust. The power of all tests is around 1.00, which indicates that the chance of not finding differences in the importance of the factors is nil.
According to Wilson et al. (2008), next to the found factors, customer satisfaction is also influenced by a situational- and personal factor. Both factors are hard to include in a model because they describe unforeseen circumstances. A factor affects the customer experience more when something during a touchpoint goes wrong. Based on the statistical part of the survey, the importance of factors in the most common situations
(which are situated in a single company) are considered. Future research at other companies can give a general confirmation of this view.
To get clear conclusions, the scope of the study covers the most important- and common touchpoints for the researched company. Examples of less important touchpoints which can be optimized by using KM are handling (different kinds of) questions at the customer service (Skarzynsk, 2016). To get a more complete overview of the customer journey, other touchpoints can be researched in the future.
The results of the survey are discussed with involved employees of the customer journey which are seen as experts of the processes because they are daily involved with them. By doing this, it has become clear that KM can positively affect the customer journey. Because of the fact that only one organization is in the scope, in future work, interviews with more technical KM experts (from other organizations) can possibly make clear the existence of new relations. It is recommended to focus on the organizations discussed in paragraph 1.3 (figure 1) first. Because these organizations have similar characteristics, it is plausible that the different results can be generalized.
The study makes clear that organizations can use KM to improve their customer journey. Suggestions to do this are given. The extent to which the different suggestions affect the journey can be studied in new research.
6. Conclusion
This study shows that the customer journey of solving malfunctions at service organizations can consist of 10 moments of contact (touchpoints). Based on the survey, it can be concluded that the customer experience in the researched company is most influenced by the following moments of contact: the service appointment, reporting a malfunction, making an (follow-up) appointment and changing an appointment by the company.
Combining customer interviews, interviews at a marketing department and literature research, resulted in a list of 44 factors which influence customer experience at the different touchpoints. A survey is used to categorize the factors on importance. Because the most important factors are covered in the most important touchpoints, it can be concluded that these results strengthen each other. By discussing the tested factors with the interviewed experts, different relations with KM are found. The interviews make clear that providing accessible self-service information to customers can have a positive effect on customer experience. Problems can be fixed rapidly, and waiting times can be reduced. These results are in line with Van Belleghem (2013).
Other interviews show the importance of the availability of usable technical information and customer contact information for front-office employees. This can lead to an efficient handling of service requests which affects customer experience.
Another interview showed the importance of continuous monitoring planning(s) and providing up-to-date and precise information about appointments to customers. The survey shows that customers find it highly important that engineers act professionally. Changing tacit technical knowledge to more codified knowledge, leads to a more rapid diffusion of knowledge between engineers (Boisot, 1999). This can result in more professional services which improve the customer experience.
A final found relation is that using an overall system, instead of different smaller systems, could prevent synchronization-delays and for example not supportive payment
methods. This also has an impact on the customer experience. These results show how KM can contribute to the optimizing of the customer journey of service organizations.
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Appendix A: Customer perceptions of quality and customer satisfaction
Customer perceptions of quality and customer satisfaction (Wilson et al., 2008)
Appendix B: I-Space framework
Using the I-Space framework (Boisot, 1999) results in four types of knowledge (Boxer, 2006):
- Public knowledge, such as textbooks and newspapers, which is codified and
diffused.
- Proprietary knowledge, such as patents and official secrets, which is codified
but not diffused. Here barriers to diffusion have to be set up.
- Personal knowledge, such as biographical knowledge, which is neither
codified nor diffused.
- Common sense – i.e. what ‘everybody knows’, which is not codified but widely
The original framework is three-dimensional and considers the degree of codification, abstraction and diffusion. Different researchers use different kinds of the I-space model, also two-dimensional versions are used (Leong, 2005; Child et al., 2014). In this paper, the attributes of the two-dimensional version are used (figure 3) to get clearer and simpler results.
Two-dimensional I-Space framework (Boisot, 1999)
Appendix C: Customer Journey Mapping
Customer journey mapping (CJM) is a strategic management tool to understand an organization’s customer experience. The method is popular by both academics and practitioners and many service organizations employ it (Rosenbaum et al., 2017). The idea behind CJM is to make a visualization of the sequence of events through which customers may interact with a service organization during a service exchange process. The method lists all possible customer touchpoints during the process. By understanding these touchpoints, for organizations it is possible to improve the customer experience associated with each touchpoint.
In a customer journey map, customer touchpoints are typically depicted horizontally according to a process flow. On the vertically axis different categories, depending on the purpose of the map, can be depicted with strategical information associated with the different touchpoints. Different academics dismiss the importance of the vertical axis and see CJM only as a visualization of the customer touchpoints associated to an organizational process (Rosenbaum et al., 2017). Academics with an opposite opinion argue that although a CJM without a vertical axis can help managers to understand the customer experience, it is not useful for helping them to promote innovation within a service system (Rosenbaum et al., 2017). Therefore, they think for these purposes, a CJM with only a horizontal axis is useless. Another group of academics encourage managers and researchers to set up the vertical axis as an emotional journey of customer feelings, emotions and thoughts that cannot be observed directly (Lingqvist et al., 2015). A last group of CJM academics see the vertical axis as a space where managers can plan
activities such as design opportunities, customer objectives and employee tasks (Elzinga et al., 2009; Dasu & Chase, 2010). Critics argue that this type of CJM expands vertically and becomes more complex.
Organizations should regard the vertical axis of a customer journey map as specifying the key components of the entire service system, showing how marketing, human resources, operations, and information technology can work together to meet customer expectations at every touchpoint (Bitner et al., 2008). In this paper, a version of this specified CJM is used. Using customer, front-office, back-office, operation and information-/knowledge systems the information flows that are needed during the customer journey can be visualized. This visualization is used to discuss the importance of KM in the customer journey. By doing so, the CJM process is inherently linked to the service blueprinting process, another service innovation tool.
Appendix D: Influencing factors of customer satisfaction
# Factor Moment of contact Importance
1 Contact information is easy to find Search for contact- and self-service information
Highly important 2 The customer service is well accessible with minimal waiting
times
Report a malfunction Highly important 3 Receiving a cost indication with contact information Make an appointment Highly important 4 An engineer will be on location the same day or maximum one
day later
Make an appointment Highly important 5 Possibility to directly make a new appointment Change the appointment by the
company
Highly important 6 Company contacts customer directly about the change Change the appointment by the
company
Highly important 7 The malfunction is fixed during the first appointment The service appointment Highly important
8 The Engineer acts professional The service appointment Highly important
9 It is possible to directly make a follow-up appointment with the engineer
Make a follow-up appointment Highly important 10 It is clear how the total cost price is calculated Confirmation and invoicing Highly important 11 Self-service information is available Search for contact- and
self-service information
Medium important 12 Customer can choose communication channel Search for contact- and
self-service information
Medium important 13 The customer service employee has enough technical knowledge
to analyze the problem
Report a malfunction Medium important 14 The customer service employee knows which type of service
object a customer has and the history of it
Report a malfunction Medium important 15 The customer speaks directly to the right person Report a malfunction Medium important
16 No menu when calling the company Report a malfunction Medium important
17 The customer service employee knows exactly how the service object looks like and where are the buttons are located
Try to solve the malfunction itself Medium important 18 The customer gets personal guidance Try to solve the malfunction itself Medium important 19 Supporting documents and videos are available Try to solve the malfunction itself Medium important 20 Customer gets a precise time indication for the appointment Make an appointment Medium important 21 Making an appointment at night or during the weekend is
possible
Make an appointment Medium important 22 It is possible to make a possible during the first contact Make an appointment Medium important 23 It is possible to choose a moment from different options Make an appointment Medium important 24 Possible preparations for the customer are communicated clearly Make an appointment Medium important 25 Receive an appointment confirmation Receive an appointment
confirmation
26 It is possible to change an appointment without costs Change the appointment by customer
Medium important 27 Company contact customer personally, without automatic
messages
Change appointment by Company Medium important 28 The cause of the change is communicated clearly Change appointment by Company Medium important
29 The engineer is on time The service appointment Medium important
30 Possible to choose a moment from different options Make a follow-up appointment Medium important
31 The performed work is explained clearly Payment Medium important
32 Possible the choose the payment method Payment Medium important
33 Modern payment methods are supported (e.g. contactless paying and iDeal)
Payment Medium important
34 Possible to pay directly or after the appointment Payment Medium important
35 Possible to choose which communication channel is used (omnichannel)
Try to solve the malfunction itself Somewhat important 36 Get information about what work should be performed Make an appointment Somewhat important 37 Know which engineer is coming by name and photo Receive an appointment
confirmation
Somewhat important 38 Possible to choose which communication channel is used
(omnichannel)
Change the appointment by customer
Somewhat important 39 Receive a message 15 minutes before the engineer arrives The service appointment Somewhat important 40 Engineer asks how the customer experienced the appointment The service appointment Somewhat important 41 For both appointments, the same engineer is deployed Make a follow-up appointment Somewhat important 42 Possible to choose to receive the invoice digital or hardcopy Receive confirmation and
optionally invoice
Somewhat important 43 Company asks for feedback to improve her service Communication afterwards Somewhat important 44 Receive information about discounts and tips Communication afterwards Somewhat important
Appendix E: Homogenous subsets of the touchpoints
The following table shows the different touchpoints of the studied customer journey with associated importance. The percentage represents the respondents that answered that the touchpoint has a lot of influence on their satisfaction.
Touchpoint 1 2 3 4 5 =>3
Communication afterwards 2.68 54,36%
Search for contact- and self-service information
2.77 59,33%
Payment 2.80 2.80 74,66%
Receive an appointment confirmation 2.90 2.90 69,33%
Change the appointment by customer 2.90 2.90 70,00%
Try to solve the malfunction itself 2.92 2.92 70,66%
Receive confirmation and optionally invoice 2.93 2.93 2.93 67,78%
Change the appointment by the company 3.13 3.13 77.33%
Make a follow-up appointment 3.27 3.27 84,00%
Make an appointment 3.49 93,33%
Report a malfunction 3.60 3.60 89,34%
The service appointment 3.92 96,66%
