The role of digital and interpersonal touchpoints as drivers of future customer engagement intention in B2B service firms

We study how digital and interpersonal touchpoints interact to shape customer experience and drive future customer engagement as a business outcome in B2B professional services firms. Customer experience emerges from touchpoints within a broader context, ultimately influencing customer value judgments. However, customer experience managers often struggle to link customer experience investments to business outcomes, particularly in B2B professional services, where long sales cycles and complex offerings make direct return-on-investment measurements challenging. Gathering and analysing data of 196 customers of a global financial services firm as well as a calibration study of 80 customers of the same firm, we show that digital and interpersonal touchpoints positively influence future customer engagement intention in the form of lifetime, influence, and knowledge value. Moreover, we find digital activity level to moderate this relationship. These findings underline the importance of professional digital and interpersonal touchpoint management to driving future engagement.