Relevance and potential contributions
The last decades have seen a growing interest on customer experience. A large body of research has been dedicated to this topic, especially in consumer research, revealing its importance as a source of competitive advantage. However, most current literature focuses on B2C contexts, and further understanding of the B2B customer experience is required. More research is also needed on determining the impact of the B2B customer experience on desirable customer outcomes.

Therefore, this research is developed in a B2B context and seeks to provide an understanding of the B2B customer experience and how it impacts customer outcomes such as profitability, customer retention and cross-buy. The potential contributions are vital for both academic literature and practitioners given the need for empirical evidence that reflect the outcomes of the investments made in customer experience management.

Theoretical foundations and conceptual framework
From a theoretical perspective, customer experience is mostly considered as having a dynamic nature. It has been argued that it refers not only to current experiences, as it can have a pivotal role on determining future encounters with the focal firm as well. Literature also indicates that customer experience is a multidimensional construct, entailing three specific dimensions: brand experience (pre-purchase stage of the customer journey), service provider experience (during purchase), and post-purchase experience.

Drawing from prior customer experience literature, this study proposes a conceptual model indicating that customer experience through its dimensions will influence financial (i.e. profitability) and behavioral (i.e. customer retention and customer cross-buy) outcomes. It is suggested that these effects will take place in time, adding a longitudinal perspective on its influence. The moderating effect of relationship strength is also considered, arguing that the positive effect will be intensified by a higher customer-firm relationship strength.

Methodology
A panel dataset of 2,970 B2B customers is employed to estimate the model. Five years of data (from 2013 to 2017) was provided by a multinational leader in the B2B insurance sector. The sample comprised B2B customers operating in a variety of sectors (e.g., construction, distribution, finance, energy, etc.). Data is analyzed by developing estimations based on the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM).

Findings
In view of the results, the effect of customer experience is corroborated; brand experience, service provider experience and post-purchase experience determine future profitability and customer retention, while brand experience and post-purchase experience also determine cross-buy. This indicates that customer experience plays an important role in determining both financial and behavioral outcomes over time. The moderation effect of relationship strength is also confirmed.

Discussion and conclusions
This study presents significant contributions to the literature by providing the necessary empirical evidence on the impact of B2B customer experience on future customer outcomes. In this manner, practitioners can allocate resource in a more efficient manner by focusing on providing a superior experience during each stage of the customer journey to increase their future profitability, customer retention and cross-buy. Besides, firms must establish solid relationships with its customer so as to enhance the probability of obtaining desirable outcomes over time.  

The transition from linear to circular economy not only requires industrial and service innovations, but it also demands a change of consumption habits with daily life implications. The customer experience with circular solutions is different from the ‘take-make-dispose’ consumption processes of the linear economy (e.g., product-service systems based on rental, repair, or recirculation prolong the usage of goods compared with the throw-away culture) but there is an issue of customer acceptance of such behavioral changes. Moreover, circular economy solution providers rely on substantive customer inputs and activities, and they offer an experience that extends beyond a single transaction, over multiple touchpoints. Hence, understanding the customer experience, its determinants, and consequences (outcomes) is required to better apprehend the market potential of circular economy solutions — very few studies investigated factors related to the customer experience in the circular economy. In particular, there needs more research on circular economy practices which environmentally concerned consumers adopt voluntarily despite the personal trade-offs and the amount of extra work these practices entail. This paper seeks to better understand the differentiating factors in traditional versus circular economy consumption habits, and the role customer experience plays in influencing key outcomes (e.g., satisfaction).
This paper is based on a framework from the customer experience literature (i.e., TCQ nomenclature developed by De Keyser et al. 2020), and on a case of ecological sanitation in urban households for the collection of human waste for transformation and valorization. The circular economy market based on recovering energy from human waste (e.g., transforming the nutrients contained in urine and feces into agricultural fertilizers) is estimated to reach $6 billion by 2030. We conducted 12 interviewees with users about their participation motives, their experience of using dry sanitation and participating in the waste collection process (i.e., positive/negative customer values — cf. Leroi-Werelds 2019), and we collected 42 survey responses (about demographic and basic individual values, e.g., Schwartz’ PVQ) and 123 diary entries of ‘critical incidents’ providing detailed descriptions of the customer experience.
All in all, the ecological sanitation experience was perceived as mediocre, i.e., inferior to the standard sanitation system. Negative perceptions were primarily driven by unpleasant sensorial stimuli (e.g., visual, olfactive). Yet, the overall satisfaction was high. Participants derived benefits from factors unrelated to the qualities of the customer experience. While certain issues required an increased activity (i.e. “voluntary customer participation” — cf. Dong and Sivakumar 2017) and additional efforts (e.g., “bricolage” skills — cf. Witell et al. 2017), this mediocre customer experience was counterbalanced by the participants’ engagement in such pioneering citizen-driven project, their strong belief in the ecological benefits of the circular economy, and the satisfaction of contributing to sustainable consumption.
Our framework based on the customer experience literature and our customer-centric approach contributes to the relevant issue of the adoption of “closed-loops” circular solutions. Previous research on valorizing waste has concentrated on the food sector and the biogas industry, therefore, our case study and contributions are novel and unique.

Many service customers draw on online consumer reviews in the pre-purchase stage of their customer journey, as they tend to trust other customers’ opinions more than the information provided by the service provider (Keiningham et al. 2018; Ludwig et al. 2013; Mazzarol et al. 2007). Due to the vast number of online reviews, customers tend to select and process only those which seem helpful for their purchase decision. Research has shown that reviews which are deemed helpful have a greater impact on customers' purchase decision than less helpful reviews (Ahmad and Laroche 2016; Li et al. 2013). Service providers should thus aim to understand what makes online reviews helpful for customers (Ludwig et al. 2013; Mudambi and Schuff 2010; Yin et al. 2017).

Current understanding of what makes a review helpful is still limited (Yin et al. 2017). Previous research in the service domain has mainly focused on factors such as volume, valence, ratings and reviewer status as determinants of review helpfulness (e.g. Köcher and Köcher 2021; Keh and Sun 2018). However, researchers suggested that linguistic content, such as emotional language, also plays an important role (Keiningham et al. 2018). Highly emotional language consists of the use of emotion words (e.g. ‘amazing’, ‘terrible’), hyperbolic expressions and punctuations such as exclamations marks (Banerjee et al. 2017). Writers of online reviews use it to express their feelings or to amplify the impact of the message (Banerjee and Chua 2014).

Research on the impact of linguistic content and, more specifically, emotional language on perceived review helpfulness is scarce (Ludwig et al. 2013; Schindler and Bickard 2012; Yin et al. 2017). This highlights a gap in our understanding of the effect of online reviews on service customers’ purchase behavior (Fox et al. 2018). In particular, the combined effects of emotional language, valence and perceived credibility on perceived helpfulness require further exploration (Yin et al. 2017; Rocklage and Fazio 2020).

The present study responds to calls to fill this gap (Keiningham et al. 2018; Yin et al. 2017; Rocklage and Fazio 2020) by investigating the interplay of emotional language and valence on perceived review credibility and helpfulness in a restaurant context. Using a 2x2 experimental design (n = 836), the study finds that highly emotional language negatively impacts perceived review helpfulness, and that this relationship is fully mediated by perceived credibility of the review. This suggests that highly emotional language is considered more subjective rather than objective and is therefore perceived as less credible and helpful. Further, the mediated relationship is moderated by valence, such that positive reviews are deemed more credible and helpful if language is not emotional than negative reviews. The findings contribute to research on review helpfulness and help service providers to optimize guidelines for reviewers and to enable customers to gain better access to helpful reviews, which can increase sales.