The Customer Journey in Omnichannel Retail. An exploratory requirements analysis for a customer journey modelling and analysis tool

Master's Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,7, , language: English, abstract: The customer journey is a central topic for all retailers to consider to be able to successfully manage customer experience and to thereby ensure the survival of a business. Hence, managing and influencing customer journeys has been of importance since the emergence of retailing. However, to successfully manage customer journeys has become increasingly complex with the development of omnichannel retail. Classical techniques to analyze and influence customer journeys are insufficient for today's customers who are seamlessly using multiple devices and switching between different channels during their purchase journey while expecting a uniform and personalized customer experience. This research paper studies the topic of customer journey analysis in omnichannel retail and discusses which requirements need to be fulfilled to successfully model, analyze and influence the respective customer journeys. By conducting a systematic literature review it was proven that a tool is needed to model and analyze individual customer journeys in omnichannel retail in real-time, making use of online and offline customer data. Through the method of semi-structured interviews, requirements that are related to developing and deploying such a tool were collected in an exploratory way. This is from scientific importance as until now few research has addressed the topic of ways to model and analyze customer journeys in omnichannel retail. Additionally, with rising customer expectations and an increased competition between retailers, the importance of successfully managing customer journeys is indispensable in retailing. The findings of this paper imply a high probability of an increasing need to deploy a customer journey modelling and analysis tool by omnichannel retailers. However, further in-depth analysis and specification of characteristics that this tool requires to fulfill are needed to successfully develop it.