Journey to a fond memory: How memorability mediates a dynamic customer experience and its consequent outcomes

The customer experience literature has largely focused on experiences at a single service touchpoint. Comparatively little attention has been given to the customer experience across stages of the purchase journey. Building on memory-dominant logic, this study proposes a conceptual framework to investigate interrelationships between three dimensions of the service experience (i.e., brand experience, service provider experience, and post-purchase experience), memorability, subjective well-being, and repurchase intention. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 examined the conceptual relationships with a restaurant sample; Study 2 was conducted with a hotel sample to improve external validity. Results differed slightly across these studies: whereas the impacts of the service provider experience and post-purchase experience on memorability were consistently supported across both samples, the brand experience was not significant for the restaurant sample. Findings also revealed the mediating role of memorability. Implications for academics and practitioners are discussed.