Il progetto

More than 20 years ago, Oliver et al. (1997) introduced the concept of customer delight to the academic literature, defining it as the state wherein a customer’s expectations are exceeded to a considerably surprising degree. This construct has been studied across diverse contexts (e.g. entertainment and leisure, retail, service), showing positive impacts on relevant organisational outcomes (e.g. positive word-of-mouth, repurchase intention, loyalty). The importance of employee-related aspects such as attitude and skills have also clearly emerged as key drivers within this research stream (Barnes & Krallman, 2019). Yet as the economy increasingly shifts toward solutions powered by artificial intelligence (AI; Huang & Rust, 2018, 2020; Huang et al., 2019), often replacing human interactions with virtual assistants (VAs) or chatbots, there is a growing need to understand how firms can create delight in experiences that are not employee centred (Hoyer et al., 2020). What factors delight customers when they interact with AI-powered solutions in new technological environments? In this project, we will develop a more comprehensive conceptualisation of customer delight and investigate what creates customer delight in interactions with AI-powered solutions during customer experiences. To pursue these objectives, this project will use a mixed-methods approach to conceptualise customer delight in new technological environments and its relevant antecedents. Solicited data gathered using the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) and qualitative surveys, as well as unsolicited customer-generated online data, will be used in the exploratory phase of the project. Next, surveys, experiments and field studies will be conducted to (a) develop scale items to reliably measure the components of customer delight, (b) show that customer delight affects relevant outcomes using behavioural data and (c) identify the relevant antecedents of customer delight, highlighting how different types of customer interactions with AI-powered solutions during consumption experiences affect the construct. Finally, we will propose an expanded conceptualisation of customer delight in new technological environments. We expect that this project will make several major contributions: extending the conceptualisation of customer delight to new technological environments by developing a new metric for the construct; adding to the existing literature by introducing new technology-based paths to customer delight; proving the effectiveness of a multi-method interdisciplinary approach by attaining insights into consumers’ behavioural patterns; and participating in the urgent debate over the relationship between humans and AI by adopting a consumer-centric perspective

I risultati

Le attività di divulgazione