Influence of determinants of customer experience in microfinance

Abstract

The emergence of customer experience as the new competitive differentiator has made creating and offering superior customer experience a major objective for the survival of service organisations. However, despite the current scholarly and managerial attention, understanding of the customer experience construct is fragmented. Also, literature has not properly addressed the relationships or role of variables in creating and measuring superior customer experience in various service contexts. This study, therefore, contributes to the understanding of customer experience by evaluating the influence of the determinants of customer experience in microfinance service context to promote effective management. The descriptive case study research design is utilised to harvest customer assessment with the use of questionnaires through non-probability sampling of 466 customers of Grooming (People for Better Livelihood) Centre in Osun State, Nigeria. Findings suggest seven experience determinants, namely, memory, social environment, retail atmosphere, service interface, product assortment, multichannel interactions and brand image influence microfinance customer experience in varying degrees of significance. The findings also suggest the mediating influence of goal and location on the determinants in varying levels of significance. From the study, memory was found to have the most significant influence on microfinance institution customer experience while multichannel interactions was found to have the least significance. Also, goal was found be a more significant in mediator on the determinants of microfinance institution customer experience than location. The originality of the study is that it contributes to the understanding and conceptualising of customer perspective on the impact of determinants in the measurement of microfinance customer experience. Practically, policy makers and microfinance managers can use the findings to deepen understanding on customers and strategically design experiences that will be positive and memorable.