Service Fascination : Gaining Competitive Advantage through Experiential Self-Service Systems

Christian Zagel presents a new way of innovating, measuring, and improving self-service systems for retail environments in the context of Customer Experience Management. He shows that technology is used to evoke positive emotions during the shopping experience to not only satisfy the consumer, but also to stimulate fascination for brands and their products. The author's findings illustrate that a customer's experience with a brand is not only determined by the products themselves, but rather by a combination of multiple experiences. Whilst there has been a notable rise in the number of sales channels, the ability to differentiate from competitors is still strongest where the brands have most influence: The physical point of sale.