The link between consumer-facing technologies and customer experience in physical retail environments: a critical literature review

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to explore the link between consumer-facing technologies and customer experience in physical retail environments.It uses a semi-systematic literature review to synthesize existing knowledge, to provide a chronological overview of the evolution of the research area and to create an agenda for future research. To do so, the authors develop a search string based on a preliminary literature screening and four expert interviews, which they apply to the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Using a multistep approach, they select 31 articles published in peer-reviewed journals in the fields of retailing and marketing, management and technology. The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the growing body of literature, identifies gaps in the literature, suggests future research areas and develops potential research objectives.By synthesizing the literature, it suggests a conceptual framework that may serve as a basis for further theory building.This study serves as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners, enabling them to grasp the current state of research, identify gaps, and contribute their own research to the research field.

KEYWORDS:

• Consumer-facing technology
• customer experience
• semi-systematic literature review
• omnichannel
• physical retailing

Acknowledgments

Avoiding identifying any of the authors prior to peer review

We thank the four experts for supporting us in the identification and validation of relevant key search terms for our literature review.In addition, we thank Franziska Thüner for providing valuable feedback to our paper.We wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for the time and expertise invested in providing feedback to earlier versions of the manuscript. Their valuable insights have been instrumental in refining our work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Lahmeyer

Sarah Lahmeyer was Research Assistant at Hochschule Ruhr West, University of Applied Sciences, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. She has focused her research on customer relationships, in particular customer experience with consumer-facing technologies. She has recently taken over a role in management practice at Stepstone being responsible for the customer satisfaction and retention of large media agencies and their end-customers.

Ellen Roemer

Ellen Roemer is Professor of Market Research and International Marketing at Hochschule Ruhr West, University of Applied Sciences, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. Her research interests focus on the analysis of customer relationships. She complements her theoretical work with empirical studies using qualitative and quantitative research designs. Noteworthily, she uses partial least squares path modeling or experimental designs with eye-tracking to answer research questions. She has published in leading journals such as Industrial Data and Management Systems, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Technology in Society, Journal of Marketing Management and Journal of Strategic Marketing.