Integrating Customer Experience (CX) in Sustainable Product Life Cycle

This study aims to present an integrated approach to customer experience, which was developed considering the identification and application of essential factors from the product life cycle. The study was conducted in the automotive industry and may be transferable to other products with high complexity and medium–long in-service use. The main goal is to identify the determining factors and perform a regression analysis of the effect of attribute-level performance on overall customer satisfaction through the customer’s entire journey during the product development phase. This study is based on a generic example that is meant to capture trends influencing customer satisfaction in the launch of a new product vehicle, focusing on factors that influence each stage of the process, from planning–exploration, design and development, and manufacturing and validation to performance measurement and after-sales assistance. Based on multiple surveys that were used as the main instruments for measuring the level of customer satisfaction at defined touchpoints, the product life cycle was followed through several stages: prospecting survey, upstream survey, launch preparation survey, post-launch investigation, life cycle survey, and after-sales support. Three meta-factors were identified—design, price, and durability—for which the ordinal regression demonstrated that they are significant predictors of customer experience in general. The approach may be transferable to other sectors by identifying relevant attributes and adapting tools for measuring customer satisfaction, customer experience, and consumer concerns, which act as key vectors influencing the product life cycle and, by extension, business sustainability.