The growing importance of customer-centric support services for improving customer experience

Customer support service is emerging as a vital component of superior customer experiences; nonetheless, it is often considered a post-purchase touchpoint. A dearth of research endeavors focuses on the multifaceted roles of customer support service across customer experience journeys (CEJs). Hence, adopting the tenets of customer journey and customer experience, this study harnesses the mental models of 46 leading industry practitioners through the theories-in-use (TIU) approach while exploring the customer perspectives through two focus group studies. The framework developed from the key insights suggests that customer support should be incorporated into the business strategy, focusing on support needs at every point of the CEJ. The study also identifies key roles of customer support service, such as information and insight, facilitating decision-making, relationship building, value-added upselling, reselling, and cross-selling throughout the journey. This research contributes to developing a support framework aligned to the customer journey to provide a superior support experience.