Okonkwo Prelims

affects future visits. The online experience also affects the consumer’s over-

all perception of the brand, which will determine the direction of future inter-

action with the brand.

The stages of the Experience Hierarchy model begin from the moment a

potential online shopper clicks on the homepage, to his post-purchase evalu-

ation process. The model is presented in the Figure 6.4.

This customer experience assessment highlights the need for luxury fash-

ion brands to create a compelling, memorable, enjoyable and positive total

customer experience for online shoppers. The website should also be consis-

tent with the overall brand strategy in order to maintain a parallel customer

perception of the brand associations. Fortunately, the high brand awareness of

several luxury fashion brands provides a fast route for online luxury

consumers to attain the level of ‘Brand Evangelists’.

The key to attaining enhanced customer experience is to develop a website

that places an emphasis on accentuating the brand characteristics and also has

an unwavering focus on creating a superior customer experience for every

online shopper. Luxury brands generally have desirable products but the

brands that will succeed with acquiring and retaining loyal customers through

e-retail are those that apply the right mix of branding, marketing, customer

relationship management and transactional strategies to enhance customer

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luxury fashion branding

Level 1: functionality

This stage involves the customer

experiencing the basics of the

website like the design, ease of

navigation, usability, speedy and

secure transactions, quick down-

loads, and uncluttered structure.

Desired customer feeling:

‘This website works really well!’

Level 2: familiarity

This level is achieved through

tailoring customer specific needs like

customization and personalization of

web pages, products and services.

Other elements are instant personal

communication tools, service

consistency and trust.

Desired customer feeling:

‘This website understands me!’

Level 4: evangelism

This final level is achieved after the

first three experience levels. This is

the stage of cultism with the website

where the customer feels compelled

to share the ‘brand good news’ with

others.

Desired customer feeling:

‘I love to share the story of this

website!’

Level 3: internalization

This level shows an internal

connection with the website or

‘brand affiliation’ and is achieved

from previous exceptionally positive

experiences. Customers now

habitually visit the website for

commerce and recreation.

Desired customer feeling:

‘This website is a part of me!’

Figure 6.4 The four-phase online customer Experience Hierarchy

Source: Adapted from Mohammed et al. (2002)Internet Marketing.