The new wave of AI-powered luxury brands online shopping experience: The role of digital multisensory cues and customers’ engagement

Academic literature retains a dearth of empirical evidence of the cutting-edge aspect of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital assistance and digital multisensory cues, despite the prospect of these factors on real-life customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the significant pathway and effects of AI-powered digital assistance toward customers’ luxury brand online shopping experience. Drawing on S–O-R (Stimulus, organism, and response) and TRAM (Technology Readiness and Acceptance Model) paradigm, a multi-method research design was deployed to investigate constructs. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were utilized to explore customers' online behavior under the luxury brands and information technology aspect. Secondly, survey data were collected and analyzed by using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The PLS-based analysis of quantitative data confirmed the exploratory insights of qualitative findings, establishing the connections of AI-powered digital assistance, customer engagement, and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Research findings also suggest that customer engagement plays a mediation role in the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Besides, digital multisensory cues moderate the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customer engagement. Further, fsQCA complements the findings of PLS-SEM that reveal the significant combination of factors that lead to the perceptions of customers' luxury brand online shopping experience.     

“I live with terror inside me”: Exploring customers’ instinctive reactions to terror

Terrorist attacks occur mostly at public service-oriented sites. Consequently, their victims are likely to be customers. The present study explores how customers instinctively react toward the reality of terror in a matrix of 2 × 2 aspects concerning terror circumstances: temporal proximity (brief or long) and physical proximity (close or remote) from the terror event. In qualitative in-depth interviews, customers from France and Israel were requested to share their instinctive reactions and coping strategies when approaching hospitality (hedonistic) and transportation (utilitarian) services. Participants (N = 47) comprised customers having a protracted acquaintance with persistent terror threats. The analysis identified differences in reactions, subject to temporal and physical proximities. When terror attacks are physically close, customers’ emotions, cognitions, and behaviors undergo modification with time. However, when terror attacks occur at a location remote from the customer, customers’ emotions and cognitions, but not their behavior, change with time. These reactions were comparable for the two service contexts. Practical implications were elaborated to enable service establishments (i.e., hospitality and transportation) to design and manage their operations for the short and long term to assist customers in the difficult era of terror.     

Service with improper requests: How fellow customers interpret Employee's judgment call

In this paper, we examined the impact of different judgment calls by service personnel on service satisfaction, in response to inappropriate requests from customers. Based on the stereotype content model, we propose that employees servicing with these requests are often evaluated on two fundamental dimensions, warmth and competence, and the accessibility of one dimension over the other determines overall service satisfaction of fellow customers. Through three experiments, the current research shows that fellow customers perceive service employees who consent to an improper request as higher in warmth but lower in competence than those who reject the request. However, when the compliance has serious consequences for a fellow customer, this negatively affects the competence evaluation but not the warmth evaluation, which in turn reduce customer satisfaction. When the focal customer suffers from the serious consequences, this positively affect both competence and warmth perception, which in turn enhance fellow customer satisfaction. This research could be used to identify ways to handle improper requests made by customers.     

Exploring an in-store customer journey for customers shopping for outdoor apparel

The omni-channel shopping phenomenon creates major challenges for brick-and-mortar stores to remain relevant and appeal to customers. A way to counteract these challenges is to offer customers a journey where in-store experiences enable them to encounter numerous physical and virtual touchpoints evoked by affective, cognitive, physical, relational, sensorial and symbolic responses. This study ascertained the customer journey activated by the experiences causing value and resulting in intentions to revisit a retailer specializing in outdoor apparel. Our web-based survey collected 300 valid responses for analyses. The statistical analyses confirmed a positive relationship between the customer in-shop experience factors and the shopping trip value experienced, which in turn mediated the relationship with intention to repatronage. Some conclusions are made and various suggestions for future research are recommended.     

服务企业培育顾客忠诚的营销路径

随着市场竞争的日趋激烈,培育高品质的顾客忠诚逐渐受到理论界和企业界的广泛重视。本文通过对服务企业顾客忠诚的影响因素展开讨论,提出一些服务企业培育顾客忠诚的营销路径。     

Customer Profitability Analysis Reports for Resource Allocation: The Role of Complex Marketing Environments

Most decision making research in management accounting remains focused on cost information in a production context. Little is known on the relevance of customer profifitability analysis (CuPA) reports, which more accurately reflect revenue and marketing support variations acrosscustomers, for marketing decisions. This study uses an experimental design to examine the impact of such reports on resource allocation decisions (that affect the firm's profits) in marketing environments varying in complexity. The main result of the experiment suggests that the value of CuPA reports depends on the complexity of the marketing setting. Only in a highly complex marketing setting do they enhance resource allocation decisions and resultant firm profitability. Conversely, in the simple marketing environment, decision makers can combine their traditional volume-based cost data with other available types of feedback to perform as well as under a more accurate CuPA report. These findings on complexity contrast with those of a prior study in a production context ( Gupta and King, 1997 ). It is argued that improvements in the current research design, in the form of regularly updated profitability reports and concerning accuracy, increase the relevance of CuPA reports in a complex marketing setting.     

CATALOG RETAILER IN‐STOCK PERFORMANCE: AN ASSESSMENT OF CUSTOMER SERVICE LEVELS

The purpose of this article is to study the level of “in‐stock” customer service performance being offered in the catalog channel of distribution. The article provides benchmark information for the catalog industry. More importantly, the article serves as one test of the effectiveness of the modern supply chain, where the expectation is for near perfect orders. Customer service levels are studied by using an empirical observation methodology in which catalog retailer's in‐stock performance was measured. Comparisons are made across item type, season, retailer type, and days from catalog receipt. Overall, items were out‐of‐stock during 15.9% of all checkpoints, compared to an 11.8% stock‐out rate in an earlier study of bricks and mortar retailers.     

品牌共同体:企业与消费者沟通的新方式

品牌共同体是国外兴起的一种新型的企业与顾客互动的方式。品牌共同体的构建有助于增加顾客的社交利益，对于顾客间互动以及体会品牌的内涵意义重大。本文通过介绍品牌共同体的定义、特征、意义，从而向企业提出创建品牌共同体的建议。     

话语民主理论下可持续发展中的公民参与

可持续发展目标的追求需要公民的集体判断，公民参与作为可持续发展的基本原则之一，有利于实现可持续发展的目标，也是为避免“公地悲剧”尴尬局面的必然选择。从话语民主理论的角度来看，我国可持续发展进程中存在着公民参与可持续发展的不完善性和公民淡漠的问题，以及官僚式的独白现象。因此，要构建公共能量场确保可持续发展政策执行过程公民话语的正当性和合法性，实行一些人的对话参与可持续发展，通过“重复性实践”使可持续发展中的公民参与制度化。     

Planning food services for a campus setting

Providing appropriate food services in a campus setting is increasingly important due to more demanding customers and because clients have less time to go off-campus when they need to eat. Using a university campus as an example, this research looks at customer satisfaction with existing food services and explores various methods for determining where to locate new facilities. This campus currently has great needs for additional food services, and it is shown clearly where additional food services are required. Also, the methods used are compared in terms of their effectiveness in finding the solution.