The utilization of customer journey mapping in the automotive industry

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing grade: 12 Leipzig Graduate School of Management course: Service Retail and Marketing language: English abstract: Commoditized products and volatile market environments frame the setting that companies are facing today. Thereby the importance of differentiation as key to companys growth is more relevant than ever. It is widely assumed that differentiation often refers to products or market positions. However more recently the concept of Experience Based Differentiation (EBD) emerged as an idea for companies to build sustainable relations and loyalty by delivering a superior differentiated experience to customers. Managers have become increasingly aware that customers are their most valuable assets. However pure Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is not sufficient anymore. Thus Customer Experience Management (CEM) takes CRM to the next level by integrating customer experience (CEx) and emotions during interactions into consideration (Fatma 2014). Tracing the considerably increasing number of customer touch points and derive so called customer journey maps helps companies to understand the broader reasons of performance gaps and thus address root causes. A recent study by McKinsey & Company (2013) revealed that companies that are able to map and optimize relevant customer journeys reinforce superior CEx reduce churn and increase revenue and as a result built sustainable relationships. In addition greater employee satisfaction and an increased effectiveness of cross-functional collaborations have been observed. However most companies fail to strategically align and manage the CEx across all touch points and miss a great opportunity to differentiate. This gives relevance to a study on the potential of Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) as a way for the marketing management to understand CEx during all interactions. In the process of the