Customer journey partitioning: A customer-centric conceptualization beyond stages and touchpoints

Abstract

Understanding customer experiences through customer journeys has become a managerial priority. The customer experience literature divides customer journeys into stages, but these divisions disregard the customer’s perspective. Research has shown that individuals partition extended processes—such as customer journeys—into events, thereby influencing how they subsequently remember their experiences. Therefore, this paper seeks to conceptualize customer journey partitioning and its influence on the remembered experience. Based on the event segmentation and experienced utility literature, we propose that customers partition their journeys when they encounter distinctive changes, and that the interaction of customer journey partitioning and the sequence of lived experiences influences the remembered experience. We then discuss implications for customer journey design and present boundary conditions that provide nuance to these implications. This paper contributes to the customer experience literature by conceptualizing customer journey partitioning, understanding its influence on the remembered experience, and proposing new dimensions for customer journey design.