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This article aims to provide an understanding of how utilitarian services can make the customer experience more hedonic.
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to provide an understanding of how utilitarian services can make the customer experience more hedonic.
Design/methodology/approach
The author performs an in-depth case study of a leading wealth management firm that is reinventing its business model to incorporate a hedonic perspective into experience design.
Findings
The findings reveal how a traditionally utilitarian firm integrates hedonic elements into the customer experience. The findings describe and expose how four experience design characteristics are interactively linked to form a customer journey model, from eliciting emotional engagement to trigger rapid enrolment through to individualising the experience to drive purchase.
Research limitations/implications
This research takes the perspective of the firm to explore the research question. No customer data are collected.
Practical implications
The article provides evidence-based recommendations that can serve as a platform to develop an action plan for designing and deploying hedonic elements in the customer experience in utilitarian contexts.
Originality/value
This study challenges the dichotomy between utilitarian and hedonic services. It derives an empirically grounded understanding of an intended experience that combines design characteristics associated with both the utilitarian and hedonic model at different stages of the customer journey. The emergent conceptual framework describes and links these design characteristics to enact the customer journey. Together, these empirical insights extend and enrich existing knowledge and provide actionable recommendations for managers.
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This study aims to explore how a relational brand experience can be designed using an integrated retail experience. It addresses the research gap between relational brand…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how a relational brand experience can be designed using an integrated retail experience. It addresses the research gap between relational brand experience strategy, retail experience design, as well as online-offline integration, by providing applicable tools and knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a literature review, a relational experience analytical framework (REAF) was developed as a diagnostic tool for relational brand experience. A case study was then conducted using the REAF to determine the relational brand experience factors, strategies in practice and related initiatives.
Findings
Three distinguishing integrated relational brand experience factors were identified (online-offline integration, overall activeness and the centre of relationships). A typology for an integrated relational brand experience was established with clarifying experiential characteristics and the required initiatives for each type. Based on the findings, a framework was proposed for an integrated brand experience design and its application in the retail experience design process.
Practical implications
The frameworks and strategies proposed can serve as a guide to industry professionals in designing integrated relational brand experiences.
Originality/value
The theoretical contributions of this study are in clarifying the relational brand experience dimensions and an integrated relational brand experience strategy typology. It also illustrates the strategic application of integrated retail experience based on a brand experience strategy using the proposed framework and the process.
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Jakob Trischler, Anita Zehrer and Jessica Westman
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usability of different design methods in understanding the customer experience from a contextual and systemic standpoint.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usability of different design methods in understanding the customer experience from a contextual and systemic standpoint.
Design/methodology/approach
Three design methods (i.e. personas, observations and collaborative service mapping) were applied to analyze customer experiences in two service settings. These methods’ usability was compared across the two settings.
Findings
Personas, as informed by phenomenological interviews, provide insights into the customer’s broader lifeworld context. These insights assist in connecting with and understanding the customer experience from a dyadic customer-firm perspective. The involvement of the customer in service mapping activities supports the validation of findings and gives access to experience dimensions beyond the immediate service setting.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis is limited to three design methods and is based on small samples. Future research should systematically review design methods to provide a basis for a more comprehensive evaluation.
Practical implications
To successfully capture the contextual and systemic nature of the customer experience, managers should apply interpretive approaches and actively involve selected customers as “experts of their experiences”. The study provides guidelines on how design methods can be combined and applied to a more holistic customer experience analysis.
Originality/value
The paper shows that design methods, when applied in a combined form, can support an analysis that captures both in-depth insights into the customer’s lifeworld and the complexity of value constellations.
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Literature from across design studies and innovation management, as well as food marketing research evidence, is examined to highlight the interdisciplinary and experiential…
Abstract
Purpose
Literature from across design studies and innovation management, as well as food marketing research evidence, is examined to highlight the interdisciplinary and experiential research approaches to food consumption and well-being. This conceptual paper aims to address the need to expand the food industry’s goals by considering its contributions to the consumer’s overall food well-being. Food experience design (FED) seeks to understand how food professionals can design healthy and pleasurable food experiences aimed at enhancing people’s food well-being. FED does so by proposing a holistic and integrative framework.
Design/methodology/approach
This approach examines design thinking by conducting an analysis of the multidisciplinary literature. This paper addresses the gap in the literature by advancing the theoretical and empirical understanding of food design thinking through the lenses of experiential theory and consumer well-being.
Findings
This review paper clarifies the scope of FED scholarship and offers a call for collective efforts to establish a focused body of knowledge that leads food marketing professionals and scholars to adopt an experiential perspective to food consumption and production focused on experiential pleasure of food as a driving force for consumer’s well-being.
Research limitations/implications
The review paper addresses the need to expand the food industry’s goals by considering its contributions to the consumer’s overall food well-being. FED seeks to understand how food professionals can design healthy and pleasurable food experiences aimed at enhancing people’s food well-being. FED does so by proposing a holistic and integrative framework.
Practical implications
This research provides designers with the operative tools to create innovative food experiences and increase the food well-being of consumers. Toward that end, designers need to extend their skills and evolve their language and competencies to create valuable dialogues with other stakeholders involved. Collaboration requires many other premises. This paper contributes to the discussion by identifying and clarifying them.
Originality/value
This research highlights the imperative to take multidisciplinary, transformative and experiential approaches to researching food innovation strategies from a consumer’s well-being perspective.
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Maria Vernuccio, Michela Patrizi and Alberto Pastore
By adopting a managerial perspective, this study aims to deepen how the strategic role of brand voice is conceived in the design of in-car name-brand voice assistants (NBVAs), how…
Abstract
Purpose
By adopting a managerial perspective, this study aims to deepen how the strategic role of brand voice is conceived in the design of in-car name-brand voice assistants (NBVAs), how the brand experience based on NBVAs is designed and how the NBVA brand experience might influence customer brand engagement (CBE). The ultimate aim is to develop an interpretative theoretical framework for developing voice-based branding through NBVAs.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research approach with the analysis of a single in-depth case study is followed: the NBVA developed in-house by Mercedes, which was the first NBVA launched in the automotive market.
Findings
In the design of the NBVA, a key role was assigned to the brand voice in developing the brand’s anthropomorphic profile. Driving safety, consistency with the corporate identity, human-like interaction, dynamic personalisation and connectivity emerged as the strategic criteria for designing the NBVA brand experience, which was oriented towards the pursuit of multiple CBE dimensions.
Research limitations/implications
Although the qualitative empirical contribution of this study differs from statistical generalisations, the research insights are analytically generalisable. The insights emerging from the study could guide future research on voice-based branding.
Practical implications
The results may be a useful conceptual reference for managers involved in designing brand voice and brand experience based on NBVAs.
Originality/value
This study is the first empirical contribution to the marketing literature about voice-based branding in an innovative experiential field, a topic that, thus, far has been poorly analysed.
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Frederic Ponsignon, Andi Smart and Laura Phillips
The purpose of this paper is to provide novel theoretical insight into service delivery system (SDS) design. To do so, this paper adopts a customer journey perspective, using it…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide novel theoretical insight into service delivery system (SDS) design. To do so, this paper adopts a customer journey perspective, using it as a frame to explore dimensions of experience quality that inform design requirements.
Design/methodology/approach
This study utilises UK Patient Opinion data to analyse the stories of 200 cancer patients. Using a critical incident technique, 1,207 attributes of experience quality are generated and classified into 17 quality dimensions across five stages of the customer (patient) journey.
Findings
Analysis reveals both similarity and difference in dimensions of experience quality across the patient journey: seven dimensions are common to all five journey stages, from receiving diagnosis to end of life care; ten dimensions were found to vary, present in one or several of the stages but not in all.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations include a lack of representativity of the story sample and the impossibility to verify the factual occurrence of the stories.
Practical implications
Adopting a patient journey perspective can improve the practitioner understanding of the design requirements of SDS in healthcare. The results of the study can be applied by managers to configure SDS that achieve a higher quality of patient care throughout the patient journey.
Originality/value
This paper extends existing literature on SDS design by adopting a customer journey perspective, revealing heterogeneity in experience quality across the customer journey currently unaccounted for in SDS design frameworks. Specifically, the findings challenge homogeneity in extant SDS design frameworks, evidencing the need for multiple, stage-specific SDS design requirements.
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Moritz Philip Recke and Stefano Perna
The authors present concepts developed at University of Naples Federico II (Italy), where the Challenge Based Learning methodology (CBL) is utilised in a programme aimed at…
Abstract
The authors present concepts developed at University of Naples Federico II (Italy), where the Challenge Based Learning methodology (CBL) is utilised in a programme aimed at software development for the Apple technology ecosystem. The collaborative and self-guided, inquiry-based learning method focusses on intrinsic motivation of learners, working on real world problems organised in projects (Challenges in CBL) with an experiential and progressive approach. As entrepreneurship is best promoted through practice, the programme is a guided immersion into reality that is entrepreneurial in nature, rather than a simulation of hypothetical projects, and requires learners to take ownership of entrepreneurial skills to complete the course. Academic research has shown that use of storytelling is beneficial to learning and can foster engaging and more formative experiences. Additionally, scholars have developed systems to design unscripted narratives within educational contexts using emergent narrative concepts. This conceptual chapter describes an educational experience design system that encourages unscripted, emergent narratives for experiential education. It categorises the components for designing an educational experience that allows the learning progression to be affectively driven by learners. By focussing on setting parameters and giving learners autonomy as co-authors, the model describes mechanisms that allow powerful, unscripted narratives to emerge based on intrinsic motivation. The Emergent Narrative System developed by the authors is a contribution to innovation in entrepreneurship teaching and intends to empower learners towards building entrepreneurial and twenty-first century skills complementary to software development education in a conducive and experiential learning environment.
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How do you efficiently design a global yet local user experience for Web sites? Arguably, the user-centered design approach has been one of the best methods in designing a…
Abstract
How do you efficiently design a global yet local user experience for Web sites? Arguably, the user-centered design approach has been one of the best methods in designing a successful user experience for Web services in the initial market, but why isn’t this process applied to international markets? This chapter makes a case for applying a user-centered design process to the international expansion of Web sites and discusses issues impacting the creation of a successful user experience for local audiences. Although this chapter primarily focuses on designing large scale Web services, many of the principles can be applied to any sites that undergo internationalization.
Diana Gavilan and Omar Adeeb A. Al-shboul
This paper aims to identify potential avenues for innovation in urban hotel management by analyzing self-reported data from visitors regarding their experience with interior design…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify potential avenues for innovation in urban hotel management by analyzing self-reported data from visitors regarding their experience with interior design.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative exploratory computer-assisted content analysis was conducted to identify the impact of interior design on the guest experience. Leximancer 4.0 software analyzed 2,562 reviews from urban hotels collected through a reservation website.
Findings
The findings reveal that data reported by guests on interior design play a crucial role in shaping guest experiences, both positively and negatively. The esthetic appeal of interior design is shown to impact resting and comfort, affecting overall performance significantly. The study also highlights how different star categories of hotels and variations in visitors' purposes for their stay lead to distinct guest experiences and different opportunities to innovate.
Research limitations/implications
The study’s results provide evidence for researchers and practitioners of the potential of the guest-reported interior design experience as a valuable source for fostering innovation. In addition, in the hotel industry, innovation may eventually be attained through interior design renovation.
Practical implications
Self-reported data from guests on interior design is an effective tool for innovation. Making interior design a priority throughout the establishment and ongoing management of a hotel is crucial. By integrating interior design, not only can potential negative experiences be avoided, but greater guest satisfaction can also be achieved during their stay, promoting memorable experiences that align with the hotel category and customer expectations.
Social implications
This research emphasizes the importance of interior design as a catalyst for innovation and improved social experiences in the hospitality industry. Innovation in interior design can improve hotel performance in several dimensions, including attracting more visitors to the hotel and the area, increasing tourism revenue for local businesses and contributing to the broader societal goal of reducing environmental impact and promoting sustainability.
Originality/value
This article adopts a guest-centered methodology to provide valuable insights for hotel managers to leverage interior design as a tool for innovation in the hospitality industry after showing that interior design enhances guests' experiences, comfort and hotel differentiation.
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Jagdish N. Sheth, Varsha Jain and Anupama Ambika
This study aims to develop an empathetic and user-centric customer support service design model. Though service design has been a critical research focus for several decades, few…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to develop an empathetic and user-centric customer support service design model. Though service design has been a critical research focus for several decades, few studies focus on customer support services. As customer support gains importance as a source of competitive advantage in the present era, this paper aims to contribute to industry and academia by exploring the service design model.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a theories-in-use approach to elucidate mental models based on the industry’s best practices. In-depth interviews with 62 professionals led to critical insights into customer service design development, supported by service-dominant logic and theory of mind principles.
Findings
The ensuing insights led to a model that connects the antecedents and outcomes of empathetic and user-centric customer service design. The precursors include people, processes and technology, while the results are user experience, service trust and service advocacy. The model also emphasises the significance of the user’s journey and the user service review in the overall service design.
Research limitations/implications
The model developed through this study addresses the critical gap concerning the lack of service design research in customer support services. The key insights from this study contribute to the ongoing research endeavours towards transitioning customer support services from an operational unit to a strategic value-creating function. Future scholars may investigate the applicability of the empathetic user service design across cultures and industries. The new model must be customised using real-time data and analytics across user journey stages.
Practical implications
The empathetic and user-centric design can elevate the customer service function as a significant contributor to the overall customer experience, loyalty and positive word of mouth. Practitioners can adopt the new model to provide superior customer service experiences. This original research was developed through crucial insights from interviews with senior industry professionals.
Originality/value
This research is the original work developed through the key insights from the interview with senior industry professionals.
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