A Literature Review of Integrated Customer Experience in Marketing Mix

This literature review critically examines the existing research on integrated customer experience within the marketing mix. It highlights the increasing importance of customer service management in today's competitive global business environment. The review emphasizes aligning customer needs with business operations, leveraging technology for enhanced customer experience, and integrating customer feedback into business strategies. Key themes include brand management, employee engagement, data-driven decision-making, and the role of organizational culture in shaping customer interactions. The review also touches upon the challenges of outsourcing customer care and the importance of social relationships in building customer loyalty, ultimately concluding that a strong focus on integrated customer service is vital for business sustainability and competitive advantage. Desklib provides access to similar assignments and study tools for students.

Running head- MARKETING MIX
Marketing Mix
Name of student
Name of university
Author note

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Table of Contents
Part A: Project plan..........................................................................................................................2
Part B: Literature Review................................................................................................................2
Reference.........................................................................................................................................9

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Literature Review on Integrated Customer Experience
Part A: Project plan
The aim of the current project is to discuss and critically review about the existing
literature related to integrated customer service. The Peer reviewed journal will be analyzed for
the given literature review. The project will be able to highlight the existing gap in the literature
related to integrated customer service. The project plan will include search from relevant data
bases which consists of Peer reviewed journals related to marketing research. Special focus will
be given on articles which consists conducted research on marketing and sales.
Effective business communication is believed to be an essential part of integrated
customer service. Hence, it is important to focus on the past research work of integrated
customer service. It will therefore be possible for the project to highlight upon the customer
service experience, which is an essential element of training competitive advantage.
Proper keywords will be used in order to include more relevant articles in the literature
search. All development articles related to the marketing research, which do not focus on
customer service will be excluded for the current literature review. The main goal of integrated
customer service is to align the need of the customer along with that of business operational
process. This will be the key focus area of the current literature review. The IBIS world report
will used as a major source of information collection for the review of literature.
Part B: Literature Review
As the level of competition in the Global Business scenario is getting tougher, more
number of multinational corporations is focusing up on providing better quality of customer
service. The integrated Customer Service Management is an essential part of marketing strategy

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that focus upon providing better quality of customer service by integrating essential business
information (Schmitt, 2010). The customer experience is considered to be an essential element to
measure the success rate of business. It is therefore one of the main goal of integrated customer
service to align the stakeholder demand of business along with operation and Technology.
With the growing number of business opportunities, customers have the option to switch
over to more number of brands if they are not satisfied with the quality of product or service.
Hence, it is vital to collect proper information from the customer in the form of integrated
customer service, which will help to improve upon the existing opportunity. Mosley (2007), has
mentioned about the importance of innovative integrated customer service method, which can
make use of the latest technology to enhance customer service experience. The basic framework
of integrated customer service includes enhancement of quality production. This is a part of
internal operational service, which helps to focus on better level of customer satisfaction. The
element of customer loyalty can therefore be integrated with the marketing strategy, which can
help in the element of customer retention. The financial performance of an organization is
directly related to its ability to retain and attract new customers (Ibisworld.com, 2018).
Schmitt (2010), has mentioned that it is essential to link the organizational goal with that
of business process with the help of balanced scorecard. This is believed to be an essential
indicator of performance management within an organization that is measured by the value and
quality of customer service. The help of effective balanced scorecard it is possible to align the
customer requirement in evaluating performance management. In other words, it can be said that
the performance within an organization can be measured by the level of customer satisfaction.
Implementing effective business relationship is essential as a part of integrated customer service.
It is important to implement proper strategy map within the internal operational process, which

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can suggest changes in the internal business environment for improving the quality of customer
service. With the help of the strategy map it will be possible to identify the key areas of business
operation which is directly linked with essential customer care service. The integration of
business communication with that of the technical services is highly essential to better connect
with the customers. Strategy map is an also effective tool to identify the internal strength and
weakness of a business organization, which is believed to have a direct impact upon the quality
of customer service. The element of market share can also be included in the strategy mapping
process, where the area covered by the external market will help to measure the success rate of
business (Ibisworld.com, 2018). It is also important to calculate the revenue growth and return of
sales return of sales that will help in the measurement of business growth in terms of customer
satisfaction rate.
Figure: Framework of Customer care service
Source: Schmitt (2010)
Yi and Gong (2009), have mentioned about the importance of raising the brand
consciousness among the customer, which is considered to be an essential part of integrated
customer service. It effective brand management it is possible to provide unique experience to

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the target customer as they make use of product and service of the respective company. With the
introduction of digital technology, the modern business operation on process has underground
rapid changes. It has revolutionized the way the brands communicate with their target customers
(Ibisworld.com, 2018). Companies are able to provide well structured information about the
quality of their product or service, which can help to increase the awareness level of the
consumers. This is integrated along with the digital marketing service, which help to better
connect the company with business operations. Lemke, Clark and Wilson (2011), have
mentioned that the multinational corporations are focusing upon improved employee
performance, which can help the workers to act as brand ambassador of the company. It will
therefore be possible to integrate customer service experience to every level of business
operation. As all the employees will be working directly to meet up the customer demand, the
companies will be better able to sustain and implement aggressive competitive advantage
policies. In other words, it can be said that the level of competitive advantage of a business
organization depends upon their ability to integrate customer service with internal business
operations (Ibisworld.com, 2018). It is however essential for the employees of the entire
department to get proper engaged in customer care service. This will also provide the
opportunity of the employees to feel accountable for improving the company's performance.
Bilgihan (2016), has added that chance of improving job satisfaction rate is also dependent upon
the employee's capability to better interact with the customers. As more number of employees
and stakeholders are involved in integrated customer service it is possible to generate new and
innovative idea of business operation to predict the future changes in the customer care service.
The effective level of customer care service is dependent upon use of essential data that
are directly related to essential business strategies implemented within the organization. As the

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customer service is integrated, it will be possible to generate advanced and latest forms of data
from customer surveys. The managers within an organization will directly be able to access that
information in order to integrate the same in business planning process. Hence, it will be possible
to maintain clarity in both internal and external business operation process and maintain high
level of coordination among the same. Lemon and Verhoef (2016), have mentioned that using
essential customer data will allow the manager to evaluate the performance level and changes in
business operation that need to be integrated. Through the feedbacks an opinion provided by the
customers, it will be possible to track the changes in the demand level of the consumers. This
will be a further integration of Change management process that is needed to maintain high level
of business sustainability in the rapidly evolving Global Business Environment.
Figure: Tree diagram of business processes linked to customer care goals
Source (Lemon & Verhoef, 2016)

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Homburg, Jozić and Kuehnl (2017), have mentioned about the fact that Innovation and
design is it essential in the context of modern day customer care service. The advancement of
digital technology it will be possible for the customers to have minimum amount of waiting
period as the raise complaint against the quality of a product or service. It is also important to
mention the Outsourcing business, which is a major business operational strategy for all
multinational corporations to provide better quality of customer service. Most of the
multinational corporations of the modern day use Outsourcing business facility to provide better
and Swift quality of customer service (Ibisworld.com, 2018). With advanced Outsourcing unit, it
is also possible for the business to gather essential data related to feedback of the customers
experience. Nevertheless, Khodadadi, Abdi and Khalili-Damghani (2016), have argued that with
Outsourcing customer care service, the risk of leaking essential information related to customer
data increases as company is more reliant up on outsourcing customer care service.
Bilgihan (2016), has mentioned about the importance of organizational culture an
element, which is believed to reflect highly upon the unique process of integrated customer care
service. It is therefore essential to promote the elements of organizational culture as a part of
customer care communication. This is believed to have significant effect of on the sustainability
level of a company as the company will be able to improve their relationship with the existing
customers. The customer loyalty level will also be dependent upon level of relationship the
company is able to maintain with existing and new customers. In the given context, Ali, Amin,
and Cobanoglu (2016), have suggested the model of social relationship that is highly required in
the process of maintaining effective customer care relationship. It is important for the business
strategy to directly focus upon the psychology of consumer behavior, what the advertisement
campaign of a company will directly be able to stimulate the decision making process of the

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consumer. Social relationship model mainly focuses up on improving the understanding of
changes in consumer behavior. Frequent modification in the branding strategy will help the
organization to retain its existing customer. It will possible for the company to provide different
forms of customer care service with innovative style of experience (Lemon & Verhoef , 2016).
The customer experience relationship with the branding strategy can be measured in
Holistic pattern, which includes element of business to customer communication. The brand
value of an organization is believed to have a significant impact on the exact quality of customer
experience. The service dominant logic can be used in order to support the fact that the customer
experience is highly dependent upon the value of product and service that are generated from
branding strategy of an organization. In other words, it can be said that feedback and customer
experience are few of the key elements that decides upon the brand value of an organization. It is
therefore essential to generate value model for customer care experience, which can be used as
an essential marketing tool improve on the brand value and brand awareness level among the
target customer (Ali, Amin & Cobanoglu, 2016).
Conclusion
The existing literature has clearly described about the importance of integrated customer
service in the context of the modern Global Business Environment, and most of the companies
are focusing up on improving the level of customer experience and satisfaction. This is believed
to be one of the essential parameter for measuring the performance of a business. Higher level of
business sustainability is also directly linked with the concept of customer satisfaction rate. The
literature has therefore highlighted essential models of Customer Care Management, which
mainly aims to collect essential information from the market to able to integrate the same in
business strategy.

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The future research work needs to focus on designing advanced model of customer care,
which can be integrated with business operations. It is also important to integrate the flexibility
nature in the internal and external business operations, which can help to fulfill all type of
changes in the customer demand level. Advanced form of business to customer communication
also needs to be integrated with business operations that can help to improve upon the quality of
customer service.

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Reference
Ali, F., Amin, M. & Cobanoglu, C., (2016). An integrated model of service experience,
emotions, satisfaction, and price acceptance: an empirical analysis in the Chinese
hospitality industry. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 25(4), pp.449-475.
Bilgihan, A., (2016). Gen Y customer loyalty in online shopping: An integrated model of trust,
user experience and branding. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, pp.103-113.
Homburg, C., Jozić, D. & Kuehnl, C., (2017). Customer experience management: toward
implementing an evolving marketing concept. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 45(3), pp.377-401.
Ibisworld.com. (2018). Business Process Outsourcing Services (US) – Industry Report. [online]
Available at: https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/specialized-market-research-
reports/advisory-financial-services/outsourced-office-functions/business-process-
outsourcing-services.html [Accessed 20 Apr. 2018].
Ibisworld.com. (2018). CRM System Providers (US) - Industry Research Reports | IBISWorld.
[online] Available at: https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/specialized-market-
research-reports/technology/computer-services/crm-system-providers.html [Accessed 20
Apr. 2018].
Khodadadi, P., Abdi, F. & Khalili-Damghani, K., (2016). An Integrated Model of Customer
Experience, Perceived Value, Satisfaction, and Loyalty in Electronic Stores.
International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems (IJEIS), 12(4), pp.31-46.
Lemke, F., Clark, M. & Wilson, H., (2011). Customer experience quality: an exploration in
business and consumer contexts using repertory grid technique. Journal of the Academy
of Marketing Science, 39(6), pp.846-869.

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Lemon, K.N. & Verhoef, P.C., (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the
customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), pp.69-96.
Mosley, R.W., (2007). Customer experience, organisational culture and the employer brand.
Journal of brand management, 15(2), pp.123-134.
Schmitt, B.H., (2010). Customer experience management: A revolutionary approach to
connecting with your customers. John Wiley & Sons.
Yi, Y. & Gong, T., (2009). An integrated model of customer social exchange relationship: the
moderating role of customer experience. The Service Industries Journal, 29(11), pp.1513-
1528.