How can luxury brands strategically and successfully manage customer touchpoints to deliver luxury experiences?

Abstract

The increase of market competition and well-informed consumers who seek more unique experiences, the rise of social media and the trend toward digitalization have added a significant number of opportunities through which brands can manage customer interactions. Brands need to decide where to be present, knowing that being present at every point is not a compelling strategy.
Research connecting the topic of customer touchpoints and luxury brands consists only of papers related to specific touchpoints and how they create value to the customer or identify the “must have” touchpoints. What research does not reveal is how luxury brands can successfully manage omnipresence and proliferation of touchpoints and yet maintain the brand consistent and powerful. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to provide a deep understanding to how luxury brands can strategically manage customer touchpoints to deliver luxury experiences.
To tackle this topic, a qualitative approach was the most indicated type of research, specifically the use of case studies supported both by primary data from semi-structured interviews and secondary data from companies’ documents, published articles, interviews from credible sources, blogs and podcasts.
The results show that the strategic approaches brands are implementing are becoming customer centric; providing seamless experiences through an omnichannel approach and a consistent message; providing service excellence through excellent client advisory, data driven insights, clienteling, convenience, and post-purchase service; and lastly providing frequent and relevant content.

Date of Award	26 Jan 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Laure Leglise (Supervisor)