Internet Learning Volume 5, Number 1, Fall 2016/Winter 2017 | Page 30

An Academy Customer Experience Benchmark Observation noted from the small sample, but as a benchmark, the results demonstrate how personas and movement along the CX continuum show the efficacy of properly measuring CX theory and in an academy example. The part-time practitioner nature of the customer affiliates has an overall effect on interaction since many work full-time either in another more prominent academia role or outside their dissertation focus. With regard to the content analysis, website menu items are an indication of the prominence of terms identified as promises such as scholarship and call (call for scholarship) which were lowest compared to other promised terms. Adding a left-hand column menu item specifically with these terms should increase interest. Since the hypothesis that CX theory built into the CLSER website was not purposeful, this documentation does suggest that professional lives of the center customers should continue to advance with the aid of CX humanistic interaction design improvements they requested with more detail on web pages and more opportunities to interact via webinars. Thus, the propagation of scholarly research can likely mature faster than with no strategic CX theory applied. Bleiklie and Powell (2005) believed that individuals have a strong role in knowledge creation in industry as well as education. If the main purpose of the CLSER is to create knowledge, then bolstering the interactions of the prospects involved in the process should be considered a valuable measurement of all stakeholder’s success. While this application examined the use of CX with doctoral chair customers, the efficacy to employ CX can extend to student, staff, and faculty at all levels. No matter how rigorous higher education programs become, understanding the student and faculty customer empirical experience can have a profound positive effect on the customer lifecycle. During a cursory observation of the CLSER website, it was noted that a workshop dubbed Knowledge Without Boundaries, to help affiliates of all personas as well as students transition their dissertations to publication, was among several interactive methods offered both on-ground and in webinar format. Tracking doctoral customer usage via more quali-quanti research methods should prove beneficial in documenting the types of interactions they like most. Consequently, future researchers should apply a more quali-quanti approach as most notably described by Kaden, Linda, and Levinson (2009) to the promises made, promise kept question to begin measuring more ways in which the experience has benefited the specific user beyond moving them along the CX continuum. Higher education staff and faculty should understand how to create meaningful student interactions leading to loyalty and the stickiness (sticktion) that builds institution advocates. Measuring this is yet another good indication the CX theory is in play. With competitive 21 st century schools regardless of their for-profit or nonprofit status, open access or competitive admissions, or retention strategies, students and faculty 29