Customer experience research: intellectual structure and future research opportunities

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to synthesize and integrate current research on customer experience (CX), identifying the intellectual structure of the field, systematizing a conceptual framework and identifying future research opportunities.

Design/methodology/approach

To analyze 629 articles published in peer-reviewed journals in almost four decades, this study employs both bibliometric co-keyword and thematic literature analysis in a complementary way.

Findings

This article maps the CX literature by describing its intellectual structure in terms of three research domains (customer, organizational and technological), their corresponding most relevant research themes and topics. Moreover, this study develops a conceptual framework and research propositions to summarize and integrate the CX literature. This work recognizes technology as an important driver for the development of CX research. Lastly, this article provides future research opportunities for moving the field forward, considering an integrative view among domains.

Originality/value

This paper complements other reviews on CX by using a novel methodological approach (co-keyword and thematic analysis) that enables the identification and visualization of the CX intellectual structure. In addition, the study explores the increasing connection between technology and CX research, by raising evidence that technology, by continuously modifying services and consequently CX, has become a transversal component in the research field. These outcomes may be useful for academics and practitioners.

Citation

Silva, J.H.O., Mendes, G.H.S., Cauchick Miguel, P.A., Amorim, M. and Teixeira, J.G. (2021), "Customer experience research: intellectual structure and future research opportunities", Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 31 No. 6, pp. 893-931. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-08-2020-0193