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  • Creating a Customer Journey Map for Improvement of B2B Customer Relations and Interaction: A Case Study for Fronius International

Creating a Customer Journey Map for Improvement of B2B Customer Relations and Interaction: A Case Study for Fronius International

Student: Macher Michaela

Supervisor: Sergey Alexandrovskiy

Faculty: Faculty of Management (Nizhny Novgorod)

Educational Programme: Global Business (Master)

Year of Graduation: 2019

In the course of the last decades, growing competition through globalisation and the abundance of products and services have led companies to think about new ways to persuade customers besides their product or service portfolio. Therefore, the so called “experience economy” was born, which describes the growing trend towards staging value-adding experiences for customers in order to win over their lasting loyalty. So far, this phenomenon has been largely examined in the context of B2C companies. However, recent academic literature increasingly points out that B2B firms wanting to excel in their sectors also need to reflect on their so-called customer journeys, which describes the sum of touchpoints the customers encounter while directly or indirectly being in contact with the firm. The aim of this thesis is to examine possibilities to improve B2B customer relations and interactions through the help of a visualizing tool, the so-called customer journey map. As a real business case example, the Upper Austrian company Fronius’ solar energy department is examined. This is done by combining a qualitative and a quantitative research approach: Firstly, three internal interviews with company representatives from different departments are conducted to see how the current customer journey is perceived from different internal perspectives and what discrepancies exist. Secondly, an online survey is sent out by the company to B2B customers in order to get an external perception of the customer journey and detect possible deviations from the internal view and resulting suggestions for improvements. The results show that already on the internal level, certain discrepancies exist. Especially the importance attached to different digital and analogue touchpoints differs substantially depending on which department the interviewee is operating in. The survey results mainly stress that digital touchpoints such as the website and branded online tools and apps lack clarity and user- friendliness according to some respondents. The quality of personal tech support is perceived as predominately positive by the respondents, those from the American and Australian market are less satisfied though. According to the survey, social media channels play no relevant role for Fronius’ customers at the moment.

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