Embrace the Experience : A multiple case study of customer experience strategies within the Swedish retail market

Abstract: The concept of customer experience has an increasing interest among organizations today since customers have become picky and demands for an experience are an existing fact. In the early 2000s, a paradigm shift was found, where focus from a goods-dominant logic was moved to a service-dominant logic which came to have a great impact on how to manage customer experiences today. Digitalization in society has increased which has created both opportunities and difficulties for organizations. A new norm has emerged where organizations implement an omnichannel strategy. In turn, omnichannel marketing can improve the customer experience. However, omnichannel marketing makes the customer journey highly individual and more complex to understand. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to explore how Swedish retailers on a strategic level manage the customer experience and if there are any differences in the strategies between price segments. The empirical findings were conducted using a qualitative multiple case study of five cases in the Swedish retail sector. The data was gathered from semi-structured interviews and was analyzed and compared to existing theory.  The conclusion of this thesis shows customer insights as a common theme that emerges frequently throughout the semi-structured interviews. Through customer insight, retail organizations have a chance to meet their customers’ demands and face the complexity that occurs with technology and new channels. In the conclusion, there are also found differences in how to manage customer experiences between price segments. A common factor among the cases within customer experience is quality. Although, quality has a different meaning depending on which price segment. Further, the quality can be staged into three levels connected to each price segment.