Siri,Alexa, and other digital assistants: a study of customer satisfaction with artificial intelligence applications

ABSTRACT

Digital assistants (e.g., Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Google Assistant) are highly complex and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) based technologies. Individuals can use digital assistants to perform basic personal tasks as well as for more advanced capabilities. Yet, the functional and topical use of a digital assistant tends to vary by individual. This study reflects the contextual experiences of the respondents. At present, there is little empirical evidence of customer satisfaction with digital assistants. PLS-SEM was used to analyse 244 survey responses to examine this research gap. The results confirmed that expectations and confirmation of expectations have a positive and significant relationship on customer satisfaction with digital assistants. This study provides evidence that customer expectations are being satisfied through the digital assistant interaction experience. As firms integrate digital assistants into their operations, they must help customers properly define what to expect from the firm’s interactive experience.     

Linking employee and customer misbehaviour: The moderating role of past misdemeanours

Abstract

Traditionally, studies that examine the activities of misbehaving employees and customers have done so in a separate and unrelated manner. Drawing on research that explores deviance amplifications and deviant learning, the current study aims to address this identified gap in the literature and provide empirical evidence of the linkages between perceived employee deviance and the severity of customer misbehaviour. Utilising equity, power and differential association theories, a conceptual model is forwarded comprising four hypotheses between the constructs: perceived employee service deviance; customer repatronage intent; severity of customer misbehaviour; and past customer misbehaviour. Using survey responses from 380 consumers of bars, hotels and restaurants, the empirical results offer support for the forwarded research model. The results show that customers perceiving employee misbehaviour are profoundly affected. Such experiences erode their repatronage intentions and are linked (directly and indirectly) to the severity of dysfunctional customer behaviour performed. Consumers’ past experience of misbehaviour is also found to impact the hypothesised relationships. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the findings and outlining directions for future research.     

Perceived Omnichannel Customer Experience (OCX): Concept,measurement, and impact

Efforts to measure customer experiences (CX) in multifaceted, omnichannel, retail contexts are crucial but lacking research guidance. Prior service quality literature has established methods for measuring CX in traditional, single-channel contexts but not adapted such measures to omnichannel contexts. With a mixed method research design and studies in eight phases, the authors propose a comprehensive measurement instrument that incorporates a schema- and categorization-based theoretical conceptualization of how customers assess omnichannel retail experiences; they also integrate means–end chain theory to explain perceived omnichannel customer experience (OCX) as a construct. This construct captures multiple omnichannel evaluation dimensions: social communications, value, personalization, customer service, consistency of both product availability and prices across channels, information safety, delivery, product returns, and loyalty programs. Multiple applications of the measurement model empirically confirm the suitability of this instrument in consumer goods omnichannel retail settings. Its 36 items reflect nine first-order quality dimensions that combine to form the overall, second-order OCX construct. The measurement instrument offers sound psychometric properties, as confirmed by several reliability and validity tests, and predicts customer behavior reliably across studies. Thus, the OCX measurement instrument offers utility for theory, management practice, and further research.     

Measuring service experience: Applying the satisfaction with travel scale in public transport

It is argued that favorable customer service experiences are crucial for the success of a company's offering, and research on the subject is growing rapidly. However, instruments for measuring service experience are not readily available. This study applies and validates the Satisfaction with Travel Scale (STS) for measuring the service experience in public transport. The results confirm that service experience is multidimensional, consisting of a cognitive dimension related to service quality and two affective dimensions related to positive activation, such as enthusiasm or boredom, and positive deactivation, such as relaxation or stress.     

New Perspectives on Customer Relationships: How Relational Models Influence Customer Experience and How They Are Activated

Abstract

Much research has been conducted into the determinants of customer experience. However, these studies do not include relationship norms as a possible determinant of customer experience. Nevertheless, there are strong indications that the relationship norms used by a customer are an important factor in customer behavior and customer experience. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of relational models on customer experience and to explain possible differences in presence of relational models. This paper describes the results of two studies. The first study focuses on the effects of relational models on customer experience. This first study shows that the type of relationship has a strong influence on customer experience in terms of consumption emotions, customer satisfaction, and recommendation intention. Knowing that differences in the presence of relational models have a strong influence on customer experience, a second study focuses on finding a possible explanation for the differences in the presence of relational models. We hypothesize that differences in the presence of relational models can be explained by how organizations approach their customers and how customers perceive the organization. Especially, the perceived organizational involvement and freedom of choice as perceived by the customer play an important role. The second study, therefore, focuses on the influence of perceived organizational involvement and freedom of choice on relational models. The study shows that organizational involvement and freedom of choice have a significant impact on the activation of relational models. The findings are interesting for organizations that want to improve customer experience.     

Interpreting value in the customer service experience using customer-dominant logic

Abstract

Traditionally, customer value has been examined from the perspective of the firm. New understandings of customer value from the customer-dominant logic perspective of services emphasise the need to move away from the service-dominant perspective and adopt a customer-based approach that considers value within the broader context of a customer’s lifeworld. This article explores how individual customers make sense of their participation in an extraordinary, commercially-driven consumption experience. A phenomenological approach is taken to understand the lived experience of these participants. The findings of this exploratory study reveal the highly complex nature of value in the experience in the chosen context of luxury driving experience days. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

An empirical study of the impact of consumer emotional engagement and affective commitment in firm-hosted virtual communities

ABSTRACT

Emergent perspectives in marketing highlight new opportunities for leveraging social media as a means to build customer–firm relationships through consumer engagement. Drawing from cognitive appraisal theory and aspects of the service dominant logic, this study delineates and empirically tests hypotheses regarding the effects of key components of consumer engagement (cognitive appraisal, affective states, participation) on consumers’ affective commitment, in the context of two service companies where the firms used social media to host virtual communities. The research examines how consumers’ cognitive appraisal of the engagement experience aligned with their online interaction propensity and participation in value-creating activities drive engagement outcomes. The results confirm the need to contextualise, personalise and respond to the consumer’s engagement experience to develop this engagement.     

Understanding Customer Engagement and Loyalty: A Case of Mobile Devices for Shopping

This study aims at developing and validating a measurement model for customer engagement with specific focus on mobile devices for shopping. Further, role of customer engagement in building customer loyalty is explored. The research in this investigation used three studies for developing customer engagement scale and validating the proposed model. The study involved data collection from experts and users through varied methods including in-depth interviews, and surveys. Further structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Findings of this study include development and validation of customer engagement as second order construct arising out of six different customer experiences - social-facilitation, self-connect, intrinsic enjoyment, time-filler, utilitarian and monetary evaluation experiences. Further, the study established significant role of customer engagement in predicting customer loyalty in addition to existing constructs of satisfaction and convenience. This study contributes to evolving scholarly research on customer engagement. This study further provides a framework to retailers for devising matrices to track experiences and engagement of customers on mobile devices for shopping. Further, retailers may be able to use customer engagement to differentiate themselves from competition in attracting merchants and advertisers.     

Applying Transactional NPS for Customer Journey Insight: Case Experiences and Lessons Learned

ABSTRACT

While the concept of “customer journeys” is widely taken up to support service design and management, practical frameworks for routine monitoring of customer experience in the context of customer journeys are lacking. This article proposes a framework for applying the widely used transactional Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a means for gathering insight into customers' experiences of a customer journey. We present lessons learnt from three case trials of the framework elements within a telecom service provider, involving the analysis of more than 1,700 quantitative and qualitative customer responses from transactional NPS surveys.     

The branded carnival: the dark magic of consumer excitement

ABSTRACT

This ethnography outlines experiences of the marketer-facilitated World Series of Beer Pong. Consumers, in carnival spirit, augment marketer-facilitated mimetic (moderate, controlled) forms of experience with non-mimetic (dangerous, uncontrolled) consumption rituals, enacted in pursuit of contemporary excitement. Consumers serendipitously hijack the facilitating brand’s ideology resulting in the promotion of marketplace tensions. This study contributes to marketing and consumer culture theory by extending current experiential marketing frameworks via the introduction of the branded carnival, a non-mimetic communal brand-centric phenomenon; showing how non-mimetic excitement emerges in marketplace contexts; highlighting the implications for experiential and brand community marketers; and positioning the branded carnival within a broader cultural gravitation towards non-mimetic behaviour opposing marketplace ideology. Finally, limitations are discussed, and directions for further research are suggested. Readers are encouraged to engage with carnival spirit: profanities go uncensored.     

When social intrusiveness depletes customer value: A balanced perspective on the agency of simultaneous sharers in a commercial sharing experience

A major pattern of non‐ownership consumption is “simultaneous sharing,” whereby customers simultaneously share the same resource in either a virtual or physical setting. However, little research examines the actual value that consumers derive from such a group‐based commercial experience. By integrating the literature on customer value and the psychology of autonomy, this study proposes a theoretical model of the simultaneous sharing experience that balances the benefits and social intrusiveness of sharer agency. Based on data that were collected from members of a collaborative platform dedicated to flat sharing and analyzed through structural equation modeling, social intrusiveness is found to be a pervasive phenomenon that strongly impairs customer satisfaction, whereas communal benefits, as reflected by enjoyment, companionship, informational guidance, and emotional support, enhance it. As a major antecedent of both communal benefits and intrusiveness, perceived homophily nourishes satisfaction, however, customer age may reduce the buffering influence of perceived homophily on intrusiveness, whereas an additional positive effect on communal benefits is associated with the sharer social integrative motive. We discuss the implications of this study for customer experience and commercial sharing consumption research.     

Strategies to offset dissatisfactory product performance: The role of post-purchase marketing

This research examines the role of post-purchase recovery initiatives in offsetting the negative effect of a dissatisfactory product experience. Experiment 1 explores the effect of counterfactual thinking, a mental simulation process of reflecting upon past events and generating alternative possible outcomes, on product evaluations after an individual experiences a negative purchase outcome. Experiment 2 builds on these findings and shows how customer surveys can be used as tactical tools to boost post-purchase product evaluations. The results indicate that post-purchase marketing efforts, such as customer surveys, can engage consumers in counterfactual thinking and positively affect their product evaluations.     

Cultivating group-oriented travel behaviour to major events: assessing the importance of customer-perceived value,enduring event involvement and attitude towards the host destination

Abstract

Major events, such as the Olympics and Glastonbury music festival, attract tourists and result in increased consumer spending in host economies. The purpose of this study is to gain insights into the key determinants driving future intentions of travel consumers to participate in group-based travel to major events. An integrated theoretical model is empirically tested with 424 travel consumers who have had prior experience travelling in a group to a major event. The results substantiate the model showing that customer value perceptions of a past group-travel consumption experience conceptualised with multiple benefit dimensions has the largest relative effect on future intentions to engage in group-travel behaviour to major events, followed by attitude towards the host destination and enduring event involvement. The results provide managers with holistic insights into components that are used as the basis upon which group-travel consumers develop their choice behaviour which can be used to effectively cultivate more attendees to major events.     

Seamless experience in the context of omnichannel shopping： scale development and empirical validation

In recent years, delivering a superior seamless experience (SE) for customers has become one of the most crucial aspects of omnichannel marketing for omnichannel retailers. However, research lacks a common understanding of what the SE is and how customers evaluate the SE throughout their omnichannel shopping journeys, and the effects of the SE on important customer behaviors remain unexplored. Drawing on omnichannel customer experience research, following the scale development process, this research conceptualize and develop a scale to measure the SE construct. Building on the customer experience quality framework, this research further examines the effects of customers’ prior SE on repurchase intention, word of mouth (WOM), and customer influence behavior in the omnichannel shopping context. The SE scale is developed and validated by performing 15 semi-structured interviews, 62 open-ended questionnaires, and three online surveys with 884 useable respondents in total. The effects of SE are then validated via partial least squares modeling with 307 useable respondents. The findings confirm that the SE construct is a formative second-order construct composed of six reflective first-order dimensions. Our empirical findings indicate that the overall SE has a direct and significant impact on the foregoing three customer behaviors. Managers can use the SE scale as an effective omnichannel approach to design a seamless shopping journey and maintain long-term relationships with customers.     

Conceptualising town centre image and the customer experience

Abstract

Compared with store image literature, the town centre is underexplored as a retail image context. This paper examines what is meant by town centre image by conducting an empirical study of 536 consumers to elicit top-of-mind images of five town centres. Following extensive content analysis and rigorous replication, the findings reveal a broader, holistic image construct than previously assumed in the literature. New psychological, intangible elements of town centre image are identified, confirming the need to measure image specific to the retail context. Further, drawing on the customer experience framework, a conceptual model of town centre image is developed. The model provides the basis for future conceptualisation and operationalisation of town centre image, combined with an approach for managing the customer experience in town centres.     

Hospice Informal Caregivers' Perception of a Good Death Experience: A SERVQUAL Analysis

ABSTRACT

This research study explores hospice informal caregivers' perceptions of service quality and a good death experience during end-of-life care. It demonstrates how service dimensions of the SERVQUAL analysis affect overall customer satisfaction. This study addresses contrast and dissonance theory as relative to marginal gaps in actual service performance and the effect on overall customer satisfaction. The research indicated that while reliability was the core of the service outcome, peripheral variables (e.g., assurance, empathy, responsiveness, and tangibility) integrated emotions and feelings into the hospice service process that equated to a positive disconfirmation of expectations and a good death experience.     

Quantifying the influence of customer experience on consumer share-of-category

Customer experience is an all-encompassing construct, and most companies go to considerable lengths to create memorable, extraordinary experiences. Nevertheless, customers experience offerings, companies, and their brands very differently. Using one qualitative and three quantitative studies we explore customers’ experiences from a financial perspective by measuring and quantifying the linkages between these and customers’ share-of-category. When measured by means of customers’ share-of-category, customers demonstrate significantly different purchasing intentions and behavior. In addition, customer retail service experiences that influence the share-of-category differ significantly between customers with a low and a high share-of-category. We expand our knowledge of customer experience by highlighting that different customer groups may perceive a similar retail experience differently, leading to a different purchasing behavior and influencing their respective share-of-category. This study expands existing research by providing empirical evidence of the link between the customer experience and customers’ purchasing behavior.     

Online retail experience and customer satisfaction: the mediating role of last mile delivery

ABSTRACT

For various industries worldwide, recent years have been defined by the remarkable growth of e-commerce. Enabled by the Internet, retailers can reach more customers, spread much further in the distribution chain, and optimize their resources. In the new market environment, customer experience has become a source of competitive advantage. This study investigates the role of last mile delivery in the customer’s e-retail experience. A quantitative methodology was used, which incorporated a survey that was conducted in Sweden and measured participants’ most recent e-retail experience. The results indicate that the last mile delivery experience mediates the relationship between the customer’s perception of the online shopping experience and customer satisfaction. These conclusions provide ground for further thorough investigations of the role of last mile delivery in the e-retail context and support e-retailers in increasing their customers’ satisfaction.     

Exploring the relationship between individual values and the customer orientation of front-line employees

Abstract

Because of the nature of services, namely the inseparability of production and consumption, employee behaviours influence customer perceptions of service quality and satisfaction with the service provider. In particular, customer-oriented employees seek to help customers by addressing their needs, and this contributes to the building of customer satisfaction and the development of a relationship. Not surprisingly, research has been investigating the drivers of employees’ customer orientation. This paper examines how individual values influence the customer orientation of front-line service employees, a topic that has been unexplored in extant literature, and this is useful for the selection of employees who match the firm’s service strategy. To accomplish this, the study relies on the Schwartz value theory, which is applied to front-line employees in banking. The findings indicate that both resultant conservation and resultant self-enhancement affect the customer orientation of employees, and that these effects are moderated by job satisfaction and autonomy.