A review of AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools and Customer Experience in online fashion retail

Artificial Intelligence tools and processes have hugely impacted the ecommerce industry and the satisfaction of online customers. With technology largely pervading all facets of our lives, people want meaningful experiences. Artificial intelligence has the ability to deliver positive experiences for customers that helps build brand trust and customer satisfaction. Whether you are using your smartphone, laptop or voice assistants such as Alexa or Siri, service on the internet is gaining new ground. This paper does a literature review of the various technological advances that optimize the customer experience to evoke e-satisfaction, i.e. satisfaction while shopping online. E-satisfaction as a construct will be reviewed and its impact on customer purchase intention. This review will provide businesses and other researchers a frame of reference to conduct empirical studies in the area of AI and technology enabled retail.

How AI chatbots have reshaped the frontline interface in China: examining the role of sales–service ambidexterity and the personalization–privacy paradox

PurposeThis study serves two purposes: (1) to evaluate the effects of organizational ambidexterity by examining how the balanced and the combined sales–service configurations of chatbots differ in their abilities to enhance customer experience and patronage and (2) to apply information boundary theory to assess the contingent role that chatbot sales–service ambidexterity can play in adapting to customers' personalization–privacy paradox.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey of artificial intelligence chatbots users was conducted, and a mixed-methods research design involving response surface analysis and polynomial regression was adopted to address the research aim.FindingsThe results of polynomial regressions on survey data from 507 online customers indicated that as the benefits of personalization decreased and the risk to privacy increased, the inherently negative (positive) effects of imbalanced (combined) chatbots' sales–service ambidexterity had an increasing (decreasing) influence on customer experience. Furthermore, customer experience fully mediated the association of chatbots' sales–service ambidexterity with customer patronage.Originality/valueFirst, this study enriches the literature on frontline ambidexterity and extends it to the setting of human–machine interaction. Second, the study contributes to the literature on the personalization–privacy paradox by demonstrating the importance of frontline ambidexterity for adapting to customer concerns. Third, the study examines the conduit between artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots' ambidexterity and sales performance, thereby helping to reconcile the previously inconsistent evidence regarding this relationship.

The Impact of Hotel Customer Experience on Customer Satisfaction through Online Reviews

With the growing popularity of the internet, customers can easily share their experiences and information in online reviews. Consumers recognize online reviews as a useful source of information prior to consumption, and many online reviews influence consumer purchasing decisions. Understanding the customer experience in online reviews is thus necessary to maintain customer satisfaction and repurchase intention for the sustainable development of the hotel business. This study assessed the fundamental selection attributes of customers from online reviews reflecting the hotel customer experience, and investigated their association with customer satisfaction. A total of 8229 reviews were collected from Google travel websites from December 2019 to July 2021. Text mining and semantic network analysis were adopted for big data analysis. Factor and regression analyses were then used for quantitative analysis. Based on linear regression analysis, the Service and Dining factors significantly affected customer satisfaction. Service is a critical selection attribute for customers, and the provision of more particular services is necessary, especially after COVID-19. These results indicate that understanding online reviews can provide theoretical and practical implications for developing sustainable strategies for the hotel industry.

Customer Experience in Circular Economy: Experiential Dimensions among Consumers of Reused and Recycled Clothes

The textile and clothing industry is undergoing a sustainability transition, pushing related businesses to adapt to circular economy (CE) models, such as recycling and reuse. This shift has been extensively studied from industry and business model perspectives, but we lack an understanding of the customer perspective, i.e., how circulated products, such as reused and recycled clothes are experienced among consumers. This understanding is crucial, as customer experience plays a significant role in the adoption of CE products. Therefore, we conducted a qualitative interview study to explore how consumer-customers experience recycled textiles and reused clothes. We used an established experience dimension model and mapped how the five dimensions of customer experience—sensory, affective, behavioral, cognitive, and social—present themselves in the sustainable clothing industry. The data comprised 16 qualitative semi-structured interviews analyzed with a coding framework built on the basis of customer experiences, customer values, and the CE business model literature. The results revealed that diverse sensory (e.g., scent), affective (e.g., pride and shame), behavioral (e.g., developing new decision-making rules), cognitive (e.g., learning and unlearning), and social (e.g., getting feedback from others and manifesting own values) aspects shape how consumers experience reused and recycled clothes. We also compared and analyzed the results of the reuse and redistribute model and the recycle model. Our study contributes to the literature of CE business models and customer experience by providing a structured map of diverse experiential triggers and outcomes from the five experiential dimensions, which together reveal how consumers experience circulated products of the clothing industry. These findings enhance our understanding of customers’ motivation to use recycled and reused products and adoption of CE products.

Exploring the Utilitarian and Hedonic Value Derived from Tourism Pre-experiences with Virtual Reality: Differences Between Destinations and Accommodations

The tourism industry is in a convulsive situation of great uncertainty. The recovery of the sector depends on boosting digitalization processes. In this sense, virtual reality represents an essential tool that can generate added value in the customer experience. This study analyzes the impact of virtual reality tourism pre-experiences on the utilitarian and hedonic value perceived by the customer. In addition, given the heterogeneity of tourism products and offers, it is proposed that the influence of virtual reality on the dimensions of perceived value will depend on whether the product is evaluated on an attribute basis (hotels) or holistically (destinations). The results will provide interesting implications for understanding and generating tourism experiences with high added value. Particularly, these results will be helpful for tourism managers to design effective virtual reality pre-experiences according to the features of the tourism products they are promoting, fostering the corresponding hedonic/utilitarian value in the tourist’s pre-experience.