Managing digitalized touchpoints in B2B customer journeys

Abstract

Business-to-business (B2B) suppliers need to develop specific capabilities to successfully manage digitalized touchpoints in B2B customer journeys. As digitalization leads to shifts in touchpoints, new demands arise regarding a supplier's ability to manage these touchpoints. Developing capabilities for managing digitalized touchpoints is becoming a key aspect for suppliers in designing and managing attractive B2B customer journeys. Although extant research has highlighted the importance of managing touchpoints in the form of capabilities, this area has received surprisingly little research attention. Similarly, the B2B context in customer journeys remains under-researched. The present study investigates supplier capabilities for the management of digitalized touchpoints in B2B customer journeys. Through an exploratory in-depth case study, this research identifies seven key supplier capabilities for the management of digitalized touchpoints in B2B customer journeys: preparing customer resources, integrating customer resources, enabling collective actions, supporting customer actions, balancing activation levels, hybridizing environments, and merging digital environments. These capabilities are structured around a theoretically derived conceptualization of touchpoints as consisting of resources, actions, and environments. From a capability perspective, this study also demonstrates the key role of touchpoint control, as well as approaching touchpoints as sequences to ensure consistency across, and seamlessness between transitions of, touchpoints.