Experiential AR/VR: a consumer and service framework and research agenda

Abstract

Purpose

The paper focuses on extended reality technologies and their potential contribution to the improvement of services. First, it identifies extended reality technologies (AR/VR) as the most promising interfaces to enable an experiential consumption of the services. It then summarises their properties and discusses similarities and differences. Last, it maps these technologies onto a consumer psychology framework of experience to derive possible areas of future research.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conduct a literature review and present a conceptual framework of AR/VR contributions on experience.

Findings

The study provides an up-to-date literature review including AR and VR applications for consumer and service experience, as well as recommendations for possible research directions.

Originality/value

Whereas previous contributions adopted the same, experiential approach but focused on different technology (e.g. AI) or considered multiple interfaces and their impact on the consumer journey (mostly transactions), this paper aims at digging deeper into AR/VR, while retaining an experiential view on consumption that best serves the contextualisation of AR/VR.

Citation

Zarantonello, L. and Schmitt, B.H. (2023), "Experiential AR/VR: a consumer and service framework and research agenda", Journal of Service Management, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 34-55. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-12-2021-0479