Customer Experience Scale

Abstract

The Customer Experience Scale (CE Scale), developed by Nidhi Verma and Mandeep Kaur in 2023, is a psychometrically validated, multidimensional instrument designed to evaluate the holistic customer experience within the retail banking sector. Developed against the backdrop of an evolving financial services landscape characterized by omnichannel and multichannel touchpoints, the instrument captures how consumers perceive, internalize, and respond to institutional interactions across traditional brick-and-mortar branches and modern electronic banking platforms. The scale encompasses 23 self-report items partitioned across six core experiential dimensions: Affective Negative, Cognitive, Affective Positive, Social, Behavioral, and Sensory. Each item is measured using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly Agree”).

The scale’s development underwent a rigorous psychometric protocol, beginning with theoretical domain specification and expert panel reviews to establish robust content validity. Empirical validation was conducted using consumer samples across urban commercial centers in northern India (Amritsar and Mohali). The structural architecture was analyzed through both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), demonstrating high explanatory variance (68.247% for the branch banking version and 67.164% for the electronic banking version). Convergent validity was empirically corroborated via Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values exceeding standard thresholds, while discriminant validity was verified using the Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio of correlations (HTMT < 0.90). Internal consistency reliability was confirmed across dimensions via Cronbach’s alpha, Dijkstra-Henseler’s rho_A, and Composite Reliability (CR), all surpassing the 0.70 benchmark. As a dual-environment measurement tool, the CE Scale enables scholars and banking practitioners to quantify multidimensional customer perceptions, diagnose service friction points, and model structural relationships connecting customer experience, corporate brand image, and institutional trust.

Keywords

Customer Experience, CE Scale, Multichannel Banking, Electronic Banking, Branch Banking, Affective Experience, Cognitive Processing, Sensory Experience, Social Interaction, Consumer Behavior, Psychometrics, Scale Validation, Brand Trust

Authors

The Customer Experience Scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and validated by scholars affiliated with the University School of Financial Studies at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, Punjab, India:

• Dr. Nidhi Verma — University School of Financial Studies, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab, India (PIN: 143005). ORCID: 0000-0003-3471-1081. Corresponding Author Email: [email protected].
• Prof. Mandeep Kaur — Professor, University School of Financial Studies, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab, India.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Customer Experience Scale (CE Scale) is to furnish an empirically robust, theoretically anchored diagnostic instrument for assessing the multifaceted nature of customer experience in contemporary retail banking. Historically, consumer evaluations of financial institutions were predominantly assessed through unidimensional transactional metrics, such as overall customer satisfaction (CSAT), service quality (SERVQUAL), or net promoter metrics. However, modern consumer psychology acknowledges that the contemporary customer journey is fundamentally subjective, dynamic, and holistic, encompassing cognitive deliberations, distinct affective valences, physical and digital sensory encounters, interpersonal social affinities, and behavioral engagement patterns.

The CE Scale was specifically designed to investigate the structural interplay among customer experience dimensions, perceived bank image, and consumer trust within a complex multichannel environment where physical branch ecosystems coexist with digital and mobile banking interfaces. Retail financial services require an exceptional degree of consumer confidence; intangible financial transactions expose consumers to perceived financial, operational, and privacy risks. Consequently, understanding how every touchpoint stimulates or dampens customer trust is vital for sustainable institutional viability.

In research settings, the CE Scale serves as an operational engine for structural equation modeling (SEM), enabling investigators to delineate the direct, indirect, and mediating mechanisms through which distinct experience vectors influence downstream relational constructs. For instance, it allows researchers to examine whether negative emotional arousal (e.g., frustration with technical latency or bureaucratic friction) degrades institutional trust more rapidly than positive sensory or social engagement builds it. In clinical management and organizational diagnostics, the instrument provides retail bank executives, experience designers, and service managers with granular feedback. By disaggregating customer perceptions into six operational dimensions, institutions can pinpoint whether service deficits stem from physical branch atmospherics (sensory), frontline staff communication (social), system usability and mental workload (cognitive), transactional friction (affective negative), or inadequate financial management tools (behavioral).

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the CE Scale is Customer Experience (CX), conceptualized as an internal, multidimensional, subjective response generated within a consumer throughout direct and indirect interactions with a service provider. Rather than treating customer experience as a monolithic affective reaction, Verma and Kaur (2023) conceptualize CX as a composite construct comprising six distinct yet interrelated psychological dimensions:

1. Affective Negative

This subscale captures the discrete negative emotional states elicited during consumer interactions with the banking environment. Rooted in psychological theories of negative valence and stress appraisal, this dimension measures the manifestation of anger, impatience, disappointment, and boredom. In retail banking, negative affect often emerges from perceived procedural injustice, lengthy wait times, system outages, or unhelpful personnel. Unaddressed negative affect directly disrupts cognitive appraisal, elevates churn intentions, and degrades institutional trust.

2. Cognitive

The cognitive dimension relates to the mental processing, focused attention, intellectual stimulation, and problem-solving activity evoked during service encounters. Drawing from information processing theory and cognitive workload literature, this construct reflects the extent to which the banking interface or physical setting captures the customer’s attention, encourages analytical engagement, and fosters curiosity. An optimal cognitive experience delivers clarity and stimulates problem-solving capability without inducing cognitive overload or mental fatigue.

3. Affective Positive

Distinct from the absence of negative emotions, the affective positive dimension measures the presence of uplifting, pleasurable, and affirming emotional states. Reflecting core tenets of positive psychology and Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, this subscale evaluates feelings of happiness, delight, wonder, and social welcoming. Positive emotional resonance reinforces institutional attachment, fosters forgiveness of minor service hiccups, and cultivates consumer advocacy.

4. Social

The social dimension encompasses the relational and communal psychological dynamics of the banking interaction. Grounded in social identity theory and relational marketing paradigms, this subscale measures the customer’s sense of belonging to an institutional community, identification with fellow banking customers, and the relational rapport established with frontline bank staff. In physical branches, social touchpoints involve interpersonal warmth and empathetic communication; in digital channels, they manifest through collaborative user communities and responsive social communication channels.

5. Behavioral

The behavioral dimension assesses action-oriented consumer engagement, self-directed financial agency, and interactive behaviors. Aligned with self-efficacy and active consumer participation paradigms, this dimension assesses the degree to which customers actively review their accounts, proactively compare financial products, manage their personal financial portfolios, and search for novel financial solutions. It reflects an activated, autonomous consumer rather than a passive recipient of banking services.

6. Sensory

The sensory dimension evaluates the aesthetic, perceptual, and physical stimulation encountered across service touchpoints. Anchored in sensory marketing and environmental psychology (e.g., Bitner’s servicescape model), this dimension assesses how the visual, auditory, spatial, and olfactory stimuli within a branch, or the visual design, aesthetics, and navigational layout of an electronic platform, stimulate the consumer’s senses. A well-designed sensory environment creates aesthetic attraction and elevates overall brand prestige.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual framework underlying the CE Scale integrates foundational models from environmental psychology, consumer behavior, and relationship marketing. Central to its formulation is the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) paradigm formulated by Mehrabian and Russell (1974). Under the S-O-R architecture, environmental features and multichannel banking service touchpoints serve as external stimuli (S) that systematically alter consumers’ internal psychological states (O, organism), which subsequently manifest in approach or avoidance behavioral responses (R).

Verma and Kaur (2023) expand upon the “Organism” component of the S-O-R paradigm by drawing heavily on Bernd Schmitt’s (1999) Experiential Marketing Framework. Schmitt posited that customer experiences are generated through strategically designed “Strategic Experiential Modules” (SEMs), comprising sensory experiences (Sense), affective experiences (Feel), cognitive-creative experiences (Think), physical experiences and lifestyles (Act), and social-identity experiences (Relate). By disaggregating the affective domain into independent positive and negative dimensions, the CE Scale incorporates advanced affective neuroscience models that demonstrate positive affect and negative affect operate via distinct neurobiological pathways and have asymmetric impacts on consumer decision-making (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988).

Furthermore, the theoretical framework incorporates Mary Jo Bitner’s (1992) Servicescape Model, which explains how physical environments influence internal cognitive, emotional, and physiological reactions among customers and employees. In the multichannel banking environment, servicescape principles are extended into the digital domain (“cyber-servicescape” or “e-servicescape”), encompassing visual appeal, ease of navigation, and atmospheric consistency across physical and electronic touchpoints.

Finally, the framework embeds the Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) and institutional image theory. The scale operates on the theoretical proposition that holistic customer experiences do not merely influence immediate satisfaction; rather, they form the perceptual bedrock upon which corporate reputation, institutional image, and affective trust are constructed, preserved, or eroded in multichannel ecosystems.

Validity

The Customer Experience Scale was validated through comprehensive psychometric testing conforming to contemporary measurement standards in organizational and consumer psychology:

Content and Face Validity

Initial content validity was established through an exhaustive literature review of experiential marketing scales followed by expert panel assessment. Academic scholars in marketing management and senior retail banking executives critically reviewed the preliminary item pool. Items were examined for conceptual clarity, construct representativeness, domain coverage, and context applicability to both physical branch and electronic banking environments. Problematic, ambiguous, or conceptually redundant statements were revised or eliminated prior to field administration.

Pilot Testing

Pilot administrations were conducted with banking customers across Amritsar and Mohali in Punjab, India. The pilot study verified item readability, evaluated distribution properties, and ensured that respondents comprehended the distinction between sensory, cognitive, social, and emotional attributes across both physical branch visits and digital transactions.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity was evaluated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) within a structural equation modeling environment. Construct convergent validity was confirmed as all standardized factor loadings across the six dimensions were statistically significant (p < 0.001) and substantially above the recognized 0.50 threshold. Furthermore, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each latent dimension exceeded the recommended 0.50 threshold (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), demonstrating that each latent dimension captures more variance from its indicator items than from measurement error.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established via two rigorous psychometric approaches:

• Fornell-Larcker Criterion: The square root of the AVE for each construct exceeded the inter-construct correlations between that dimension and any other latent variable in the model.
• Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT): Conforming to advanced psychometric guidelines proposed by Henseler, Ringle, and Sarstedt (2015) and Dijkstra and Henseler (2015), HTMT ratios among all latent construct pairs were examined. All computed HTMT values were well below the conservative 0.85 to 0.90 thresholds, confirming that each dimension of the CE Scale represents an empirically distinct psychological construct.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity was verified by testing the scale within an empirical structural model linking the six customer experience dimensions to bank image and institutional trust. Multichannel customer experience dimensions exhibited significant structural pathways to bank image, which subsequently acted as a mediator enhancing consumer trust, thereby confirming theoretical nomological network expectations.

Reliability

The reliability of the CE Scale was evaluated using multiple complementary internal consistency metrics across both the physical branch banking version and the electronic banking version. Relying solely on Cronbach’s alpha can introduce bias due to assumptions of tau-equivalence; therefore, composite reliability (CR) and Dijkstra-Henseler’s rho_A were also calculated.

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): All six dimensions displayed Cronbach’s alpha coefficients exceeding the widely accepted psychometric threshold of 0.70 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Factor alphas across both branch and electronic versions ranged comfortably between 0.72 and 0.88, demonstrating high internal consistency among the items within each dimension.
• Composite Reliability (CR): The composite reliability coefficients for all latent dimensions exceeded the established cutoff of 0.70 (ranging upwards of 0.80 to 0.91 across dimensions), verifying that the indicators consistently represent their designated latent constructs.
• Dijkstra-Henseler’s Rho_A (ρ_A): Modern partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) emphasizes ρ_A as a rigorous measure of construct reliability that lies between Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability. All six subscales achieved ρ_A indices above 0.70 in both banking modes, verifying structural stability and absence of severe item attenuation.

Factor Analysis

The dimensionality and structural architecture of the CE Scale were rigorously examined using both exploratory and confirmatory analytic procedures:

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Initial structural exploration was conducted via Exploratory Factor Analysis with varimax rotation to inspect dimensionality in both physical and digital banking samples. EFA yielded clear, interpretable factor solutions explaining substantial proportions of total variance:

• Branch Banking Version: Extracted factor solutions explained 68.247% of the total cumulative variance.
• Electronic Banking Version: Extracted factor solutions explained 67.164% of the total cumulative variance.

Across both contexts, items exhibited high factor loadings on their designated primary constructs (predominantly > 0.65) with negligible cross-loadings (< 0.30), validating the initial six-dimension structural framework.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent CFA confirmed that the multidimensional six-factor measurement model provided an exceptional fit to empirical customer data. Standard goodness-of-fit statistics across iterations demonstrated acceptable to excellent model fit:

• Relative Chi-Square (χ²/df) < 3.0
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) ≥ 0.92
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) ≥ 0.90
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) ≤ 0.06
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) ≤ 0.05

Common Method Bias

Because customer experience data were gathered using self-report surveys, common method variance was formally evaluated. Harman’s single-factor test was executed by constraining exploratory extraction to a single unrotated factor. The single-factor extraction accounted for only 31.278% of the total variance for the branch banking version and 32.056% for the electronic banking version. Because both percentages are well below the critical 50% threshold established by Podsakoff et al. (2003), common method bias was confirmed not to be a contaminating threat to the study’s empirical findings.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational specifications of the Customer Experience Scale are summarized below:

• Instrument Name: Customer Experience Scale (CE Scale)
• Authors: Nidhi Verma and Mandeep Kaur (2023)
• Test Type: Multidimensional self-report questionnaire / diagnostic inventory
• Application Medium: Multichannel banking (available in dual operational versions: Branch Banking Version and Electronic Banking Version)
• Total Item Count: 23 items
• Subscale / Factor Breakdown:
  • Affective Negative: 4 items (capturing anger, impatience, disappointment, boredom)
  • Cognitive: 4 items (capturing mental engagement, attention, focus, intellectual curiosity)
  • Affective Positive: 3 items (capturing wonderfulness, feeling welcomed, happiness)
  • Social: 4 items (capturing identification, community belonging, staff relationships, social pleasantness)
  • Behavioral: 4 items (capturing product comparison, active financial management, information search, account monitoring)
  • Sensory: 4 items (capturing allure/attraction, sensory impressions, lack of sensory appeal [reverse-scored], sensory involvement)
• Response Format: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Somewhat Disagree, 4 = Neutral / Neither Agree nor Disagree, 5 = Somewhat Agree, 6 = Agree, 7 = Strongly Agree)
• Administration Time: Approximately 7 to 10 minutes
• Target Population: Adult retail banking customers (aged 18 years and older, spanning young adulthood, middle age, and senior banking demographics)
• Scoring Protocol: Dimensional scores are calculated by averaging or summing the corresponding item scores within each factor. Item 3 under the Sensory subscale (“The Bank’s Branch does not appeal to my senses”) is a negatively worded item and must be reverse-coded (1 = 7, 2 = 6, 3 = 5, 4 = 4, 5 = 3, 6 = 2, 7 = 1) before computing aggregate sensory scores. Higher subscale scores reflect stronger manifestations of that experiential dimension. In the case of Affective Negative, higher scores indicate elevated negative emotional friction.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Customer Experience Scale was published in 2023 by Nidhi Verma and Mandeep Kaur in the Journal of Global Marketing.

• Publication Year: 2023
• Commercial Status: Non-commercial instrument for academic and empirical research
• Fee: No monetary fee is required for academic, scholarly, or non-commercial scientific research use.
• Permissions and Licensing: The instrument was published under copyright held by Taylor & Francis / the respective academic publisher. Researchers wishing to reproduce, modify, translate, or incorporate the scale into commercial diagnostic software or proprietary consulting platforms should contact the corresponding author (Dr. Nidhi Verma at [email protected]) or obtain permissions via the publisher’s RightsLink / licensing portal.

References

• Bitner, M. J. (1992). Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 57–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299205600205
• Dijkstra, T. K., & Henseler, J. (2015). Consistent partial least squares path modeling. MIS Quarterly, 39(2), 297–316. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2015/39.2.02
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2015). A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(1), 115–135. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-014-0403-8
• Mehrabian, A., & Russell, J. A. (1974). An approach to environmental psychology. MIT Press.
• Morgan, R. M., & Hunt, S. D. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 58(3), 20–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299405800302
• Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
• Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J.-Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879–903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879
• Schmitt, B. (1999). Experiential marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 15(1–3), 53–67. https://doi.org/10.1362/026725799784870496
• Verma, N., & Kaur, M. (2023). Examining the relationship among customer experience, bank image, and trust: A multichannel banking perspective. Journal of Global Marketing, 36(2), 141–164. https://doi.org/10.1080/08911762.2023.2188508
• Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063

Items of the Scale