Luxury experience touchpoints of the “one percent of the one percent” customers

ABSTRACT With recent advances of customer experiences and touchpoints optimization, research interest in “high luxury” is growing. The challenge is that, despite the generated value, Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWIs), those whose net worth exceeds $30 million, display several distinct characteristics, making it difficult for scholars to apply most customer experience knowledge to them. Consequently, this study advances knowledge on managing UHNWI customer experience along the customer journey by drawing on social capital theory. Seventeen in-depth interviews were conducted, including seven UHNWIs and ten brand experts of top luxury brands in various industries to identify UNHWIs’ customer experience features. To analyze the collected data, this study adopted an abductive design with thematic analysis in which emerging insights from the data were repeatedly compared with and used to refine the consumer journey experience. Findings indicate that UHNW customer experience is influenced by firm-controlled and non-firm-controlled touchpoints at all stages. Instagram proved to play a crucial role in UHWNIs’ decisions at the pre-purchase phase. Silent social media use emerged as a common pattern of UHNW customers’ pre-purchase processes. Personal assistants and stylists significantly contributed to enhancing their journey and served as gatekeepers.