ServiceFriday: Keeping Customers Happy in a Rapidly Changing Service Industry

The service industry has always been centered around face-to-face encounters between businesses and customers, but with new developments such as AI, robots, and virtual reality, new “spaces” of interaction have been added to the mix. Businesses have to consider digital, physical, and social spaces and until recently, they have been regarding these as fully separate environments. However, as the digital space gains a wider presence and the service industry becomes even more complex, organizations will need to understand how to interweave the three together.

In the article, “Customer Experience Challenges: Bringing Together Digital, Physical and Social Realms,” the authors define each space in order to provide a better understanding of how businesses can connect the three and create improved customer experiences.

The digital space involves technologies such as virtual reality, AI, blockchain, and digital twins and has brought “highly personalized services and instant responses, 24/7.” Digital experts have begun to support or even replace humans in the service industry, changing the dynamic of interaction between businesses and customers.

The physical space includes “real world” environments such as brick-and-mortar shops, hospitals, or airports, and the positive customer experiences found in these may provide organizations with ideas to develop their digital spaces.

Lastly, the social space is about the shared experiences occurring between humans or humans and robots, either in person (the physical space) or online (the digital space). Digital technologies are changing the roles customers and businesses play and can allow for multiple identities in the service industry. Airbnb is an example of a business that allows users to switch between the role of customer and service provider.

Organizations must be able to connect the three spaces, although there are a few issues to keep in mind. These include successful data management to determine customer preferences, developing trust through securing sensitive data, choosing the correct time to launch a digital service and knowing when to terminate, and ensuring customers receive the same attention and empathy they desire across all platforms. The number of different hardware, software, platforms, and networks that organizations have within their own businesses, let alone across different organizations, can also create a major barrier in preventing the integration of the three service spaces.

The customer experience is rapidly changing, but businesses must ensure it changes for the better. Positive relationships are crucial in the service industry, and organisations may have to trade off the “efficiency new technologies can bring against their potential for alienating customers.” When businesses are able to figure out the relationships between the digital, physical, and social spaces, they are more likely to make the right choices.

To access the full article, visit Emerald Insight at this link. (A fee may apply.)