Title: What relationship does the French car industry have with its clients? The customer-experience concept applied to the websites of two manufacturers

Authors: Sandrine Ansart, Raffi Duymedjian

Addresses: 12, rue Pierre Semard – BP 127, 38003 Grenoble Cedex 01, France. ' 12, rue Pierre Semard – BP 127, 38003 Grenoble Cedex 01, France

Abstract: The automotive industry, like many other manufacturing industries, moves progressively from product-based to service-based processes. Some industries have operated this shift through the concept of customer experience to fully understand and give value to the whole producer-customer interaction. This exploratory study aims to apply such a concept to the car industry. It will focus on the websites of two large French OEMs, insofar as websites represent new ways to improve the producer-customer relationship. The purpose is to assess whether the concept of customer experience can be efficient for evaluating the maturity of the OEMs and for managing the service throughout the whole interaction process with their customers.

Keywords: customer experience; service economy; e-business; automobile industry; automotive customers; automotive websites; electronic business; France; services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJATM.2006.008936

International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, 2006 Vol.6 No.1, pp.59 - 79

Published online: 03 Feb 2006 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article