We develop a framework to facilitate customer engagement in service (CES) based on the service-dominant (S-D) logic. A novel feature of this framework is its applicability and relevance for firms operating both in developed and emerging markets. First, we conduct a qualitative study involving service managers from multinational companies (MNCs) across the developed and emerging markets to understand the practitioner viewpoints. By integrating the insights from the interviews and the relevant academic literature, this framework explores how interaction orientation and omnichannel model can be used to create positive service experience. We also identify the factors that moderate the service experience, and categorize them as follows: offering-related, value-related, enabler-related, and market-related. Further, we also propose that perceived variation in service experience moderates the influence of service experience on satisfaction and emotional attachment, which ultimately impacts customer engagement (CE). From these factors, we advance research propositions that discuss the creation of positive service experience. One of the study's key contributions is that MNCs can focus their attention on the moderators to ensure consistency in positive service experience, in an effort to enhance CE.

This article explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in aiding personalized engagement marketing—an approach to create, communicate, and deliver personalized offerings to customers. It proposes that consumers are ready for a new journey in which AI is a tool for endless options and information that are narrowed and curated in a personalized way. It also provides predictions for managers regarding the AI-driven environment on branding and customer management practices in both developed and developing countries.

Social coupons are fast emerging as a popular marketing tool for businesses, an attractive shopping tool for consumers using them and a profitable business model for the social coupon service providers. But does the popularity of social coupons extend into providing short-and long-term profitability and new customers for the businesses? Through an analytical model, this paper answers the following questions: (1) Are social coupons profitable for businesses? (2) Can businesses influence social coupon profitability? (3) How can businesses recover the shortfall in profits from the coupon launch? (4) How long will it take for businesses to recover the shortfall in profits from the coupon launch? Using data from three different businesses, we find that social coupons in their current form are not ideally suited to ensure customer acquisition and yield profits for the businesses. Additionally, we discuss possible areas where social coupons might work. Several research questions for future testing are offered to explore this new area of marketing.

It has been observed that some firms succeed in their attempts to achieve business goals in emerging economies, whereas others fail. To understand the reasons for this phenomenon, the authors conduct a qualitative study where they interview 42 managers of multinational companies from the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. From the insights gleaned from these interviews and the available literature, they propose a conceptual framework that identifies the possible factors that would drive the creation of both a profitable and a loyal customer base (termed “profitable customer loyalty” in this study) in the emerging economies. The influencing factors are categorized as customer-specific variables, marketing-mix variables, and firm-specific variables. From these factors, the authors advance research propositions that discuss the potential relationships with profitable customer loyalty. One of this study's key contributions is the proposal that multinational companies monitor the suggested factors and assess a degree of comfort before formulating strategies in the emerging economies. Further research can focus on the empirical validation of the proposed framework.

While the new‐age technologies do provide firms with opportunities to engage with customers better, they create undesired effects such as stress among customers in terms of navigating the newer technologies. This study identifies such stress as customer technostress and defines this new construct as “the result of negative experiences faced by customers when interacting with firm‐based new‐age technologies.” We also identify that the customer technostress construct to be comprised of six stressors—techno‐invasion, techno‐complexity, techno‐uncertainty, techno‐dependence, techno‐vulnerability, and techno‐inferiority. In doing so, we use a triangulation approach to develop a framework that proposes that customer technostress mediates the effect of new‐age technologies on customer engagement. Accordingly, we propose that (1) the negative experiences of customers when using new‐age technologies can create customer technostress, (2) a nonlinear relationship exists between customer technostress and customer engagement, (3) an increase in the marketing efforts of new‐age technologies by firms will help mitigate the effect of negative experiences of customers on customer technostress, (4) an increase in the customers’ familiarity with new‐age technologies will help mitigate the effect of negative experiences of customers on customer technostress, and (5) compared to reactive and proactive coping strategies, adaptive coping strategies will have a greater mitigating influence on the nonlinear relationship between customer technostress and customer engagement. This proposed framework also recognizes that a firm's reactions to a decline in customer engagement due to customer technostress can serve as inputs for subsequent improvements. This study concludes by identifying areas for future research.