Authentic Omnichannel: Providing Consumers with a Seamless Brand Experience Through Authenticity: An Abstract

Abstract

Defined as “the synergetic management of the numerous available channels and customer touchpoints, in such a way that the customer experience across channels and the performance over channels is optimized” (Verhoef et al., 2015, p. 176), omnichannel represents the future of retailing. Through omnichannel, retailers can deliver to customers a seamless brand experience and create an authentic brand story that is communicated to them across multiple touchpoints. Despite the increasing relevance of the omnichannel approach, research on how omnichannel can affect the customer experience is scant. Comprised of four studies, this research attempts to fill this gap by exploring factors that affect the customer omnichannel experience. This research consists of a qualitative study (i.e., 20 semi-structured interviews with consumers) and three experimental studies. The primary purpose of the interviews is to identify critical dimensions of the customer experience driving consumer behaviour in the omnichannel context. The three experimental studies were developed to assess the role of two variables, namely multichannel experience (Study 2 and Study 3) and brand authenticity (Study 3) in influencing likelihood of purchase. This research also investigates the role of channel preference as a moderator of the relationship between multichannel experience and likelihood of purchase, and of attitude toward the product as a mediator of the relationship between brand authenticity and likelihood of purchase. Results show that seamless multichannel experience has a significant main effect on likelihood of purchase and that participants in the seamless multichannel experience condition perceive the brand as more authentic than those in the non-seamless multichannel experience condition. The paper is structured as follows. First, we review the main contributions on omnichannel. Second, we present the results of the four studies. Third, we illustrate managerial implications and future research directions.