| Course | CIS 434 Internet Marketing |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 4 |
| Paper type | Customer experience design |
| Length | About 1,050 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for CIS 434 Module 4
From a Late-Night Search to a Photo on the Fridge: Designing a Traveling Angler's Experience With a Montana Fly Shop
Student Name
Business Administration Program, Aspen University
CIS 434: Internet Marketing
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
From a Late-Night Search to a Photo on the Fridge: Designing a Traveling Angler's Experience With a Montana Fly Shop
Module 3 promised traveling anglers a trip-ready experience: the right river and week, the right flies on arrival and a guide who stays in touch. A promise becomes an experience only through a sequence of moments, most of them online and many outside the shop's control. This paper designs that sequence for one representative customer. Dana, Rattlesnake Creek Fly Shop and every figure are invented for this course.
The Customer
Dana is 44, an engineer in Columbus, Ohio, who has fished for trout in Pennsylvania for a decade. Dana and a college friend want to fish Montana for four days in September and have never been. Dana does most planning in the evening on a phone, distrusts sites that look like advertising and wants to avoid the embarrassment of arriving with the wrong gear.
The Journey Framework
Lemon and Verhoef (2016) reviewed research on customer experience and described the customer journey as a process running through prepurchase, purchase and postpurchase stages. At each stage the customer meets touchpoints of four kinds: those the brand owns and controls, those owned by partners, those the customer controls, such as their own choices and preferences, and social or external touchpoints, such as other customers, reviews and independent information. They argued that firms have only partial control over the experience and must understand the whole journey, including the many touchpoints they cannot manage.
The Journey Map
| Stage | What Dana is doing | Touchpoints and their owners | Intended experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prepurchase: deciding where | Searching "best Montana river in September" late at night | Search results and forums, external; a friend, social | Finds a guide-written river report that answers the question directly |
| Prepurchase: deciding who | Comparing guides and lodges | Review sites, external; the shop's trip pages, brand-owned | Sees a guide's name, face and recent report, and a clear price |
| Purchase: booking | Choosing dates and paying a deposit | Booking page, brand-owned; payment processor, partner | Books in under five minutes on a phone with a confirmed date |
| Purchase: preparing | Wondering what to bring | Planning call and e-mail, brand-owned | A twenty-minute call with the guide and one recommended kit |
| Purchase: receiving the kit | Waiting for flies | Shipping carrier, partner | Kit arrives within five days with a card naming each fly's use |
| Trip | Two days floating the Bitterroot | The guide, brand-owned; weather, external | Fish caught on flies from the kit; the guide explains why they work |
| Postpurchase: sharing | Showing photos to family and friends | Photos and posts, customer-owned and social | Receives the guide's photos by e-mail the next day to share |
| Postpurchase: staying in touch | Thinking about next year | Guide e-mails, river reports, brand-owned | A short note from the guide in winter and an early booking offer |
The Moments That Matter
Three moments carry the most weight. The first search decides whether Dana ever finds the shop; if the river report does not answer the question Dana is asking, a lodge's advertisement will. The planning call is where trust forms, and where a first-time visitor's anxiety about gear is relieved. The kit's arrival is the first physical proof that the promise is real, and the moment most exposed to failure because it depends on a shipping partner. If any of the three goes badly, the later stages rarely recover; an angler who doubted the shop on the call will judge the trip harshly, and one whose kit arrived late will remember that before the fish. The shop's staff time should be spent where these moments happen, which means guides who write reports, take planning calls and check kits, rather than more pages on the website.
Reliability Is Part of the Experience
Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2003) developed a scale of online retail quality from focus groups and surveys of online shoppers. Four factors emerged: website design, fulfillment and reliability, privacy and security and customer service. Website design and fulfillment reliability were the strongest predictors of shoppers' judgments of quality, satisfaction and loyalty, while customer service and privacy counted for less in those judgments. Receiving the right product, as described and on time, was central to whether customers felt well served.
For Rattlesnake Creek, the kit is the fulfillment. A kit arriving late, or missing a pattern the guide recommended on the call, would undo the trust the call created. The design therefore ships kits at least three weeks before a trip, includes a printed card listing each fly and its use, and has a guide check the box before sealing it.
Fewer Choices for a Newcomer
Iyengar and Lepper (2000) set up tasting displays of jam in an upscale grocery store, offering either six or twenty-four flavors. The larger display drew more shoppers to stop, but only about 3% of those who stopped bought jam, compared with about 30% at the smaller display. Later studies with chocolates and essay topics found similar effects: too many options could reduce motivation to choose and satisfaction with the choice.
The shop ties or stocks about 400 patterns. For a regular customer, the full catalog is a pleasure. For Dana, it is an obstacle that invites doubt and delay. The design shows newcomers one recommended kit for their river and month, with the option to swap a few flies after the planning call, and keeps the full catalog for returning anglers who ask for it.
Experience Principles for the Interface
| Principle | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Answer the question the angler is asking at each stage | River reports written as answers: which river, which week, which flies |
| Never make a newcomer choose from the full catalog | One kit per river and month for first-time visitors; full catalog on request |
| Keep the guide's name on every message | Booking confirmation, kit card, photos and winter note all come from Dana's guide |
Conclusion
Dana's journey runs from a late-night search to photographs shared after the trip, and most of its touchpoints are owned by someone other than the shop. Lemon and Verhoef provide the structure for mapping it, Wolfinbarger and Gilly show why the kit's arrival must be as reliable as the guiding, and Iyengar and Lepper explain why a first-time visitor should see one kit rather than four hundred flies. The three principles carry the design into the customer interface.
References
Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 995-1006. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.6.995
Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69-96. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.15.0420
Wolfinbarger, M., & Gilly, M. C. (2003). eTailQ: Dimensionalizing, measuring and predicting etail quality. Journal of Retailing, 79(3), 183-198. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-4359(03)00034-4
What the CIS 434 Module 4 instructions ask for
The fourth CIS 434 module covers designing the customer experience, and students are commonly asked to map a target customer's journey and describe the experience the company intends at each step. The prompt in your Aspen classroom for Module 4 overrides anything here; the customer and shop are invented. Choose a representative customer from the target segment. Map the stages of the journey and the touchpoints at each, including those the company does not control. Identify the moments that matter most. Describe the intended experience in the customer's terms. Use research to justify the design choices, and close with principles for the interface, citing sources in APA 7 form.
How this CIS 434 Module 4 example is built
The representative customer is Dana, a 44-year-old engineer from Columbus, Ohio, planning a first trip to Montana in September with a friend. The journey map runs from a search for the best September river to a pre-trip call, a fly kit in the mail, two days on the Bitterroot and a follow-up message with photographs. Each contact is labeled by who controls it, the shop, a partner such as the shipper, Dana or outsiders like forums, using the four-way split in Lemon and Verhoef (Journal of Marketing). Wolfinbarger and Gilly (Journal of Retailing) justify making the kit's arrival as reliable as the trip itself. Iyengar and Lepper (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) explain why Dana sees one curated kit instead of 400 patterns. Three principles follow: answer the question the angler is asking at each stage, never make a newcomer choose from the full catalog and keep the guide's name on every message.
CIS 434 Module 4 rubric: what earns full marks
Experience design papers are graded on whether the journey is specific to a real customer type and whether each stage's design follows from that customer's needs. This example gives Dana a concrete situation, then maps every stage with the touchpoints involved, including the ones the shop cannot control, such as a friend's advice and online reviews. It identifies the moments where trips are won or lost. The research is applied directly: Lemon and Verhoef structure the map, Wolfinbarger and Gilly make fulfillment part of the experience and Iyengar and Lepper justify curating choices for a newcomer. The principles at the end give the interface designer clear rules.
CIS 434 Module 4 help: mistakes that cost marks
Customer experience papers often describe the company's process rather than the customer's journey. Write each stage from the customer's point of view: what they are trying to do and what they feel. Another weakness is leaving out touchpoints the company does not own, such as friends, forums and review sites, which often matter most before purchase. Identify the few moments that decide whether the customer buys or returns instead of treating every step as equal. Do not forget what happens after purchase. Finally, turn the map into principles or requirements so the next stage of design has something to build from.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
More CIS 434 and Business Administration sample papers
- CIS 434 Module 1: The Internet and Marketing Strategy
- CIS 434 Module 2: Framing the Market Opportunity
- CIS 434 Module 3: Formulating the Marketing Strategy
- CIS 434 Module 5: The Customer Interface
- CIS 434 Module 6: Online and Offline Marketing Levers
- CIS 434 Module 7: Implementing the Marketing Program
- CIS 434 Module 8: Metrics and Evaluation
- BUS 499 Module 7: Recommendations and Implementation
- MAT 200 Module 5: Completing the Accounting Cycle
- BUS 495 Module 3: Country Risk Analysis
- MAT 245 Module 4: Consumer Credit and Debt
CIS 434 Module 4 questions, answered
What does CIS 434 Module 4 usually ask for?
Aspen's CIS 434 turns to designing the customer experience in this module, so mapping a target customer's journey and the intended experience at each stage is typical. Your Module 4 prompt has the specifics.
What is a customer journey map?
A step-by-step picture of what a customer does, thinks and feels from first need to after purchase, with the touchpoints at each step.
What are the four kinds of touchpoints?
Contacts the firm runs itself, contacts run by its partners, contacts the customer controls and contacts from outsiders such as reviewers and friends, in Lemon and Verhoef's terms.
Where can I find a free CIS 434 Module 4 sample paper?
Right on this page: a complete customer experience design following an invented traveling angler from first search to the photographs after the trip.
Can offering too many choices hurt online sales?
Iyengar and Lepper found shoppers offered 24 jams were far less likely to buy than those offered 6, so curating choices can help.