Arne De Keyser

Edhec Business school · Marketing

Segmentation is critical in developing a successful multichannel customer management strategy. Multiple researchers recognized the need to adopt a multi-stage customer journey perspective, taking into account the channels used for information search and product purchase. This paper aims to advance previous research in this area. Specifically, we re...

Service failures represent temporary or permanent interruptions of the customer’s regular service experience. Although the literature identifies an extensive set of organizational alternatives for recovering from service failures, researchers have approached these responses as discrete organizational actions that are loosely connected to the dynami...

Purpose Smart technologies and connected objects are rapidly changing the organizational frontline. Yet, our understanding of how these technologies infuse service encounters remains limited. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to update existing classifications of Frontline Service Technology (FST) infusion. Moreover, the authors discuss three...

In response to initial voices that put the customer experience (management) (CX(M) hereafter) movement into question, this paper aims to introduce a formal nomenclature to push the CX(M) field toward a more mature state. First, drawing from an inductive analysis of 143 CX(M) papers, the authors identify twelve basic CX components which aggregate in...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is radically transforming frontline service encounters, with AI increasingly playing the role of employee or customer. Programmed to speak or write like a human, AI is poised to usher in a frontline service revolution. No longer will frontline encounters between customer and employee be simply human-to-human; rather, re...

Artificial intelligence‐enabled technologies have paved the way for innovative retail formats, such as “just walk out” stores, where consumers use their smartphone to enter, take what they want, and exit without an elaborate checkout process. Despite its promise, however, this new retail format has challenges maturing and being fully embraced by co...

Purpose – Neurotechnologies such as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are rapidly moving out of laboratories and onto frontline employees’ (FLEs) heads. BCIs offer thought-controlled device operation and real-time adjustment of work tasks based on employees’ mental states, balancing the potential for optimal well-being with the risk of exploitative...

This research aims to generate a nuanced understanding of service robot customer experiences (SR-CX). Specifically, this work (1) empirically explores the impact of different AI intelligences (mechanical, thinking, and feeling AI) on SR-CX (i.e., SR-CX strength and SR-CX dimensionality) and its downstream impact on important service outcomes (i.e.,...

Understanding and managing the customer experience (CX) is paramount for organizations aiming to enhance their business performance. However, despite significant investments in improving CX, the high failure rate of CX management programs shows that effectively executing CX-led business transformations can be a true snafu. While academic literature...

Purpose The widespread integration of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled personalization has sparked a need for a deeper understanding of its transformative potential. To address this, this study aims to investigate the mental models held by consumers from diverse cultures regarding the impact and role of AI-enabled personalization in their lives...

Circular business models (CBMs), such as product-service systems, are rapidly gaining traction in light of a transition to a more circular and sustainable economy. The authors call for a new approach to inform and guide the development and adoption of these CBMs. The main reason is that different actors in the service ecosystems or networks linked...

Purpose Over the last 50 years, increased attention for personalization paved the way for one-to-one marketing efforts, but firms struggle to deliver on this promise. The purpose of this manuscript is to provide a complete picture on personalization, develop a future research agenda and put forth concrete advice on how to move the field forward fro...

Purpose 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 th...

Purpose-Service robots are now an integral part of our living and working environment, making them one of the hot topics for service researchers today. Against this background, this 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 ad...

Despite the widespread adoption of the justice framework in service recovery literature, research findings vary as to what dimension - distributive, interactional, procedural - is most important. This paper contributes to this debate by considering how an easily accessible variable like relationship activity (i.e., the frequency of visiting and pur...

Recently, biometric data generated by fingerprints, hand geometry, heart rate, voice patterns, facial characteristics and expressions, brain activity and body movement has increased in both volume and prominence. Surprisingly, academic business literature has remained relatively silent on the immense potential of biometric data, as well as on the v...

As blockchain technology is maturing to be confidently used in practice, its applications are becoming evident and, correspondingly, more blockchain research is being published, also extending to more domains than before. To date, scientific research in the field has predominantly focused on subject areas such as finance, computer science, and engi...

Objective: Several hospitals have embraced customer orientation as a strategy to better meet patients' needs, desires, and wishes. This study therefore investigates how hospitals can boost the extent to which patients feel treated in a customer-oriented way by staff (hereafter, "perceived customer orientation") and its implications for their satis...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to look into the topic of IP category extensions in an entertainment setting. The main goal of the study is to explore the reciprocal spillover effect of customer experience (CX) ratings with an intellectual property (IP) in one medium (i.e. film) on the sales of the same IP in other media (i.e. comic books). D...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss recent developments in neuroscientific methods and demonstrate its potential for the service field. This work is a call to action for more service researchers to adopt promising and increasingly accessible neuro-tools that allow the service field to benefit from neuroscience theories and insights. De...

This chapter examines how tailored marketing strategies in the form of customization and personalization can foster customer engagement along the customer lifecycle. Building on various real-world examples, the authors outline the general array of opportunities that companies have at their disposal to customize and/or personalize the marketing mix....

The service encounter – one of the foundational concepts in service research – is fundamentally changing due to rapid evolutions in technology. In this paper, we offer an updated perspective on what we label the “Service Encounter 2.0”. To this end, we develop a conceptual framework that captures the essence of the Service Encounter 2.0 and provide...

Purpose – There is general agreement among researchers and practitioners that satisfaction is relative to competitive alternatives. Nonetheless, researchers and managers have not treated satisfaction as a relative construct. The result has been weak relationships between satisfaction and share of wallet in the literature, and challenges by managers...

Purpose – There is general agreement among researchers and practitioners that satisfaction is relative to competitive alternatives. Nonetheless, researchers and managers have not treated satisfaction as a relative construct. The result has been weak relationships between satisfaction and share of wallet in the literature, and challenges by managers...

Customer experience (CX) has become a top concern of business executives worldwide, and is considered to be a key determinant of long-term corporate success. Although numerous books and research papers have been written on the topic, knowledge remains limited about the nature of CX and the appropriateness of current best practices. At the same time...

Purpose - Many service providers feel confident about their service quality and thus offer service guarantees to their customers. Yet service failures are inevitable. As guarantees can only be invoked when customers report service failures, firms are given the opportunity to redress the original failure potentially influencing customer outcomes. Th...

Purpose–This study investigates the impact of technical (i.e., what is delivered) and functional (i.e., how is it delivered) service quality on consumer happiness in a multichannel environment. In so doing, this study responds to increasing calls from academics (e.g. transformative service research movement) and practitioners to move beyond pure fi...