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The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to examine the effects of different touch points on customer experience, second, effects of customer experience on loyalty intentions, and actual spend, and third, the moderating role of motivation orientation on these effects.

By recognizing the importance of capturing customer experience assessments at the “time of the experience”, a smartphone technology mobile app was developed for the purpose of this study. Real time customer experience data were collected at individual touch points.

The results show that the real-time touch point evaluations significantly effect overall customer experience and that these effects significantly differ for utilitarian and hedonic motivation orientations. The effects of technology, atmospherics, employee–customer interaction and service/product interaction touch points on overall customer experience are significantly stronger for hedonic orientation than for utilitarian orientation. In contrast, the effect of process touch point on overall customer experience is significantly stronger for utilitarian than hedonic orientation. Also, favorable overall customer experience evaluations exert significant positive influence on loyalty intentions, and actual spend, and these influences are significantly stronger for consumers with hedonic than utilitarian motivation orientations.

The findings of this study will enable companies to manage customer experience programs effectively by providing an understanding of the distinct touch points that occur along the customer journey and the relative importance of each of these touch points in enhancing customer experience.

This is the first empirical study that offers important insights on the effects of different touch points on customer experience, and on the moderating role of consumer motivation orientations on the touch points – customer experience – loyalty link by using real-time data.

Technological advances and new business models have contributed to the usage of self-service technology (SST) by firms. As SST continues to create organizational efficiencies, firms have jumped on the bandwagon without considering their own readiness to use SST. To date, there has been no systematic attempt to develop a valid scale of firm SST readiness and assess its influence on firm performance. The purpose of this paper is to present and validate a multidimensional firm SST readiness scale.

A series of studies was conducted for the development and validation of the firm SST readiness scale. Study 1 included generating items from semi-structured interviews with managers and an extensive literature review. Study 2 comprised item reduction and identifying the dimensionality of the scale through exploratory factor analysis (n=177 participants from service organizations). The reliability and validity of the scale were tested in Study 3 by performing confirmatory factor analysis using data obtained from managers of service organizations in the USA (n=257). Study 4 measured the predictive validity of the firm SST readiness instrument using several structural models.

This paper proposes a new multidimensional construct labelled “firm SST readiness”, consisting of four dimensions: managerial acquiescence, customer alignment, employee engagement, and channel integration. The predictive validity of the new scale on two key firm outcome variables: customer value and firm performance is also demonstrated.

This is the first study to provide a comprehensive, psychometrically sound, and operationally valid measure of firm SST readiness.