Can brand experience increase customer contribution: How to create effective sustainable touchpoints with customers?

In the digital era, there are several consumer touchpoints and some of them, such as word of mouth, occur even if they are not intended by the firms. Conversation among customers has become one of the most influential sources of information on purchase decisions. Favorable discussions amplify the brand's equity, but negative discussions can damage the brand. Although customers' conversations can be uncontrollable, firms may be able to influence the direction of the conversation by providing overwhelming product performance and/or post-purchase experiences. In other words, by providing appropriate brand experiences, firms aspire to achieve co-creation of brand value with customers. In this research, through questionnaires, we explore how to create effective and sustainable touchpoints with customers and how to identify the relevance between brand experience and customers' contributions to the brand. This study examines the following two key research questions: Which touchpoints increase brand experience? Does brand experience have a positive impact on customers' contributions?