TY - JOUR
T1 - The physical frictionless experience
T2 - a slippery slope for experience memorability of retail services?
AU - Phillips, Chelsea
AU - Russell-Bennett, Rebekah
AU - Kowalkiewicz, Marek
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Service industries are increasingly creating physical frictionless experiences to reduce effort for customers so they are able to ‘just walk out’. However, frictionless experiences can reduce memorability which can in turn reduce share of wallet. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between customer effort and experience memorability in a just-walk-out physical frictionless experience. Interviews were conducted with 30 customers using a simulated frictionless retail experience. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. This study found that a just-walk-out physical frictionless experience consists of transferable positive and negative effort with physical, cognitive, and interpersonal components. A second finding was that the reduction of customer effort is facilitated by removing high interpersonal effort which is associated with a more forgettable, or slippery, experience. Individual differences that appear to play a role in desire for effortful human interaction, shopping value type, attitude towards technology and age were identified.
AB - Service industries are increasingly creating physical frictionless experiences to reduce effort for customers so they are able to ‘just walk out’. However, frictionless experiences can reduce memorability which can in turn reduce share of wallet. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between customer effort and experience memorability in a just-walk-out physical frictionless experience. Interviews were conducted with 30 customers using a simulated frictionless retail experience. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. This study found that a just-walk-out physical frictionless experience consists of transferable positive and negative effort with physical, cognitive, and interpersonal components. A second finding was that the reduction of customer effort is facilitated by removing high interpersonal effort which is associated with a more forgettable, or slippery, experience. Individual differences that appear to play a role in desire for effortful human interaction, shopping value type, attitude towards technology and age were identified.
KW - Customer effort
KW - experience memorability
KW - frictionless experience
KW - instore technology
KW - retail
KW - services
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85138828214&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/02642069.2022.2119222
DO - 10.1080/02642069.2022.2119222
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85138828214
SN - 0264-2069
VL - 44
SP - 919
EP - 948
JO - Service Industries Journal
JF - Service Industries Journal
IS - 13-14
ER -