Managing the online customer experience and subsequent consumer responses across the customer journey: A Review and Future Research Agenda

The rise of the “post-pandemic new digital consumer” who cherishes personalization, demands trust and expects immersive online experiences has led brands to reexamine their online presence. Brand-driven, experiential and consistent online customer experiences are critical in this context, and it is a brand’s website that operates as a hub for its online presence. Understanding how websites can offer online customer experiences that will lead to the desired consumer responses is fundamental. Even though significant research exists regarding online customer experiences on websites, it is highly fragmented across the business and IT literature. Most studies either separately examine the stages of the customer journey or simultaneously examine more than one stages. There have been no attempts to critically review and synthesize the existing body of knowledge regarding how online customer experiences are constructed on websites and their subsequent consumer responses in each separate stage of the customer journey. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by synthesizing existing knowledge through a systematic literature review method and providing an overall direction for managing such online customer experiences. The findings indicate under-explored areas and serve as a resource for future studies and practice.