Boundary Blurred: A Seamless Customer Experience in Virtual and Real Spaces

"We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better."

Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com

This proceedings volume explores the ways in which marketers can learn about customers through big data and other sources to create an enhanced customer experience. Consumers today do not simply demand engaging online or offline experiences anymore; they increasingly focus on one seamless experience throughout their journey across virtual and real spaces. While shopping in a physical store, consumers are checking their smart phones for customer reviews and competitive information, and catching a Pokémon or two at the same time. Online experience is no longer only about price shopping and convenience, and offline is no longer only about SKUs. Individual channels matter less and less; it is the omni-channel experience that is becoming main-stream. Marketers need to keep pace and continually adapt and contribute to the changing consumer landscape. Through countless touchpoints across different channels and media, marketers today can learn more about their customers and are better equipped than ever to provide them with a desired augmented experience: easy, fun, engaging, and efficient. Featuring the full proceedings from the 2018 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana, this volume provides ground-breaking research from scholars and practitioner from around the world that will help marketers continue to engage their customers in this new landscape.

Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses, and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complementing the Academy's flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science.