Customer and managerial perspectives on personalization along the customer journey

Abstract

Advances in technology have transformed the way consumers engage with brands, enabling companies to manage an increasing number of connected touchpoints and collect vast amounts of customer data for personalization. In response, many companies strive to holistically implement personalization along the customer journey - tailoring each touchpoint to individual preferences and behaviors across the customer journey. While the potential benefits are substantial, including improved satisfaction, loyalty, and marketing efficiency, companies face significant challenges related to data integration, consumer privacy, and the complexity of orchestrating multiple touchpoints. Existing research has primarily examined personalization in digital environments, with little focus on comparing different touchpoints, and only a few studies have examined the extent to which consumer responses to personalized touchpoints change over time and across contexts. Against this backdrop, this dissertation addresses two overarching research questions: 1) How should companies implement personalization in their touchpoints across the customer journey from a management and consumer perspective? 2) What are consumer responses to personalized customer journeys? Three publications approach these questions from complementary methodological perspectives. Publication 1 combines a systematic literature review and conceptual synthesis to integrate existing personalization research with a customer experience (management) lens. It highlights the multidimensional nature of personalized touchpoints and how both positive and negative customer outcomes emerge. Publication 2 uses a qualitative research methodology - combining expert interviews and customer focus groups - to explore how managers and consumers perceive personalized omnichannel customer journeys. This work introduces two design concepts for personalized customer journeys: scope and intensity. It shows that personalization requires balancing company capabilities with consumer preferences, thereby viewing personalization as a co-created process rather than a purely company-driven initiative. Publication 3 uses scenario-based experiments with repeated measures and mixed ANOVA to examine how consumers evaluate the trade-offs of personalization (i.e., the personalization-privacy-calculus) across different touchpoints (branded vs. employee-operated; online vs. offline) and different customer journey stages. The results suggest that privacy concerns remain relatively stable over time but vary significantly by touchpoint type. The findings show that a one-size-fits-all approach to personalization across all touchpoints in the customer journey can lead to suboptimal results. Instead, effective personalization requires a nuanced, context-sensitive strategy that considers both business constraints (e.g., data integration challenges, resource availability) and consumer expectations (e.g., desired level of personalization, privacy protections). Collectively, these papers make a theoretical contribution by bridging previously separate areas of personalization, customer journey, customer experience (management), and omnichannel research. They offer novel frameworks to guide future empirical studies. Managerially, they provide practical guidance for tailoring personalization efforts, from identifying which touchpoints merit investment to dynamically adjusting personalization intensity to individual consumer preferences to transparently addressing privacy concerns. In doing so, this dissertation advances the theory and practice of holistic personalization along the customer journey - providing actionable insights for academics and practitioners alike.