Journal of Service Management: Volume 31 Issue 6

Customer contact in a digital world

Scott E. Sampson, Richard B. Chase

The customer contact approach to service has been at the core of service theory since the 1970s. It suggests that the potential operating efficiency of a service is inversely…

Engaging customers with employees in service encounters: Linking employee and customer service engagement behaviors through relational energy and interaction cohesion

Haw-Yi Liang, Chih-Ying Chu, Jiun-Sheng Chris Lin

Keeping both employees and customers highly engaged has become a critical issue for service firms, especially for high-contact and highly customized services. Therefore, it is…

Equilibrating resources and challenges during crises: a framework for service ecosystem well-being

Jörg Finsterwalder, Volker G. Kuppelwieser

This article explores the impact of crises, such as the coronavirus pandemic, on service industries, service customers, and the service research community. It contextualizes…

Robotic transformative service research: deploying social robots for consumer well-being during COVID-19 and beyond

Alexander P. Henkel, Martina Čaić, Marah Blaurock, Mehmet Okan

Besides the direct physical health consequences, through social isolation COVID-19 affects a considerably larger share of consumers with deleterious effects for their…

Mitigating loneliness with companion robots in the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: an integrative framework and research agenda

Gaby Odekerken-Schröder, Cristina Mele, Tiziana Russo-Spena, Dominik Mahr, Andrea Ruggiero

Loneliness and isolation are on the rise, globally threatening the well-being across age groups; global social distancing measures during the COVID-19 crisis have intensified this…

Engaging in times of COVID-19 and beyond: theorizing customer engagement through different paradigmatic lenses

Ingo Oswald Karpen, Jodie Conduit

The purpose of this paper is to consider a broadened suite of paradigmatic lenses to help better understand customer engagement during and beyond COVID-19. During this period of…

Applying the EEE customer mindset in luxury: reevaluating customer experience research and practice during and after corona

Philipp ‘Phil' Klaus, Aikaterini Manthiou

This paper’s objective is to raise awareness of how customer experience (CX) research, a key construct of modern-day service research, needs to be revisited in view of the…

Restrict, clean and protect: signaling consumer safety during the pandemic and beyond

Liliana L. Bove, Sabine Benoit

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers fear for their health when interacting with service providers. To mitigate this fear service providers are using safety…