Abstract

Customer experiences, whether pleasurable or unpleasurable, create long term memories influencing present and future behaviours of the customers. Pleasurable experiences not only lead to customer satisfaction or delight, and nostalgia, but also result in patronage or loyalty to the brands or stores, thereby, creating sustainable competitive advantage. It is a very effective strategy for differentiation and customer retention in an era of competition based economy. Creating pleasurable customer experiences involve a deeper understanding of customers’ experiential journey and touch points. The present paper analyzes customer experience in different stages of consumption, proposes a conceptual model for customer experience creation and provides insights for marketing strategy.