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This commentary discusses the value of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for qualitative research in phygital settings to understand the customer experience.

The critical and logical analysis is based on current knowledge of generative AI.

Generative AI seems very useful for qualitative research in phygital settings to understand the customer experience and should be used in qualitative research projects. Generative AI can provide much-needed validation of the subjective nature of qualitative research and can also generate insights beyond human intuition.

The study is based on current technology, which changes fast. In the future, the skills of qualitative researchers may become outdated, relegating them to the role of prompt engineers.

Technology, and especially generative AI, will be a key tool for practitioners as they conduct practical research.

Qualitative researchers should overcome potential anti-technology speciesism and embrace the potential of generative AI.

This commentary provides insights into the role of generative AI for qualitative research in phygital settings.

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.

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

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.

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.

This paper aims to advance the design-thinking approach in food from an engineering mind-set toward a positive psychology perspective by investigating how consumer experiences evoked by food-related activities can facilitate, stimulate and enhance individuals’ happiness and perceptions of life satisfaction.

A diary field experiment was conducted. Participants from a major European city were asked to reflect on their food-related activities, provide descriptions and answer questions on experiential stimulation derived from these activities in relation to happiness and perceived life satisfaction.

Food-related activities generally result in positive consumer experiences and psychological well-being. Experiential stimulation resulting from food activities is positively related to perceived life satisfaction directly and indirectly via pleasure and meaning. Although the authors found an overall positive relationship between these constructs, they also found differences based on the experience type considered. A “crescendo model” of experiences that details how experiences lead to happiness and perceived life satisfaction is presented.

This study is largely exploratory. Future research should adopt an experimental approach and further test the relationship between experiential stimulation, happiness and perceived life satisfaction in the context of food.

The paper offers innovation teams in food companies a practical “crescendo model” that can be used to design product–consumer interactions.

The research bridges literatures on design thinking, psychological well-being and consumer experiences. By studying the relationship between experiences, happiness and perceived life satisfaction in the context of food, the findings contribute to research on food well-being by expanding the notion of happiness seen only as pleasure. The research also contributes to work on design thinking by offering an experiential framework that contributes to the notion of consumer empathy.

This research measured and compared the brand identity of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in China and the United States. Brand identity was defined as the customer impressions of four different KFC identity elements – properties, products, presentations, and publications. A survey of young consumers in the two countries (n = 795), showed that the Chinese respondents were more apt to eat within KFC restaurants, and spend more time doing so, than the Americans. The Chinese also had much more positive impressions of KFC than their US counterparts. Brand identity impressions were correlated with overall customer satisfaction and with future patronage intentions for both groups, but much more so for the Americans. These findings support a model where differences in cultural frames of reference lead consumers to actively localize the brand identity of this nominally globalized product.

Service robots are now an integral part of people's living and working environment, making service robots one of the hot topics for service researchers today. Against that background, the paper reviews the recent service robot literature following a Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology (TCCM) approach to capture the state of art of the field. In addition, building on qualitative input from researchers who are active in this field, the authors highlight where opportunities for further development and growth lie.

The paper identifies and analyzes 88 manuscripts (featuring 173 individual studies) published in academic journals featured on the SERVSIG literature alert. In addition, qualitative input gathered from 79 researchers who are active in the service field and doing research on service robots is infused throughout the manuscript.

The key research foci of the service robot literature to date include comparing service robots with humans, the role of service robots' look and feel, consumer attitudes toward service robots and the role of service robot conversational skills and behaviors. From a TCCM view, the authors discern dominant theories (anthropomorphism theory), contexts (retail/healthcare, USA samples, Business-to-Consumer (B2C) settings and customer focused), study characteristics (robot types: chatbots, not embodied and text/voice-based; outcome focus: customer intentions) and methodologies (experimental, picture-based scenarios).

The current paper is the first to analyze the service robot literature from a TCCM perspective. Doing so, the study gives (1) a comprehensive picture of the field to date and (2) highlights key pathways to inspire future work.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of advertising, brand-related-stimuli, on the dimensions of sensory, emotional and intellectual brand experience.

The study is divided into two parts. In the first part, the objective is to examine antecedents to brand experience dimensions for umbrella brand and product brand using an experimental study; in the second part, the relationship among brand experience dimensions, brand experience evaluation and brand loyalty was examined using structural equation modeling by incorporating the measures after exposure to advertisement for both types of brands.

Based on a 2 × 2 factorial design, the results confirm that the main effect of advertisement exists on sensory, emotional and intellectual brand experience. For product brand, brand experience evaluation was mediator between both intellectual brand experience and emotional brand experience with brand loyalty. The effect of interaction between branding strategy and advertisement was not significant. For an umbrella brand, brand experience evaluation acted as a mediator between emotional brand experience dimension and brand loyalty. For product brand, brand experience evaluation acted as a mediator between both intellectual brand experience and emotional brand experience dimension with brand loyalty.

The research has implications with regard to the antecedents and consequences of brand experience and offers implications for branding strategy.

The present study is integrated and comprehensive, as it covers various facets of brand experience.

The purpose of this study is to propose an effective mechanism of developing innovative ICT‐enabled services from the perspective of experiential marketing with the aim to utilize a commonly used product design model of Kano.

To illustrate the application of the integrative approach of mechanism, a case of innovative ICT‐enabled residential video surveillance is given to identify customer needs based on Bernd Schmitt's five strategic experiential modules (SEMs). Afterward, the Kano questionnaire is developed and used in an on‐line survey. Data from 668 respondents are collected and analyzed in light of Kano's method.

A total of 15 innovative service requirements is identified. Among them, seven requirements are attractive and eight are one‐dimensional attributes according to Kano's method of categorization.

Under the competitive situations that most of the ICT‐enabled service providers provide similar products and services, firms need to grasp customer needs and wants and convert them into deliverable services promptly. The result reveals that integrating Kano model with SEMs are good tools in exploring customer needs and wants for ICT‐enabled services.

To explore the experiential aspects of consumption has become the most important source for value creation. However, it is hard to find a systematic approach with common language for cross‐functional design team. This study aims to solve this problem by incorporating two well‐known models. Though the models used are widespread, it is rarely found in using Kano's model to explore the experiential aspects of consumption; likewise, SEMs are rarely implemented systematically.

Purpose – This chapter provides a critical review of the emerging field of consumer experience and experiential marketing.Design/methodology/approach – We review definitions, perspectives, and key research areas on the topics of consumer experience, product and service experiences, off-line and online experiences, as well as consumption and brand experiences. We report empirical findings, seminal studies, and insight into the experience process (e.g., how consumers process experiential attributes, how they process experiences over time, and whether positive and negative experiences can co-occur). We present research on experiential dimensions, experiential themes, and the nature of extraordinary experiences.Value/originality – The chapter provides value by discussing the key measurement and marketing management issues of experiential marketing and discusses the original issue whether it is rational for consumers to include experiences in their decision making.

Looks at consumer research in Greater China including Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Maps out the contributions within this area and guides future research. Examines the state of the art over the 1979‐97 period, with particular emphasis on the topics that have been researched, the extent of the theory development in the field and the methodologies used in conducting research. Uses content analysis to review 75 relevant articles. Suggests that, while a considerable breadth of topics have been researched, there remains much to be done, there is further room for theoretical development in Chinese consumer behaviour studies; and the methodologies used need improvement and further refinement.