Choice in Interactive Environments
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Choice in Interactive Environments JOEL H. STECKEL RUSSELL S. WINER New York University
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RANDOLPH E. BUCKLIN University of California, Los Angeles BENEDICT G. C. DELLAERT Universiteit Maastricht ` XAVIER DREZE University of Pennsylvania ¨ GERALD HAUBL University of Alberta SANDY D. JAP Emory University JOHN D. C. LITTLE MIT TOM MEYVIS New York University ALAN L. MONTGOMERY Carnegie-Mellon University ARVIND RANGASWAMY Pennsylvania State University
Abstract In the early 21st century, firms are thinking seriously and practically about an interactive marketing paradigm— one that integrates mass scale with individual responsiveness. The focus of this paper is on how this interactive environment is changing the customer decision-making process. With the increased amount of information available, the existence of sophisticated decision aids such as intelligent agents, and more latitude in how to interact beyond the basic desktop and laptop computers (e.g., personal digital assistants, cellular phones, tablet computers), customers have more choices than ever about how, when, and how much to interact with companies and each other. In this paper, we attempt to cover a few of the major areas of research on how customers make decisions in these environments. Keywords:
consumer decision-making, interactive environments
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Introduction Throughout its history, marketing has embraced the notion of “interactivity”: it has sought to manage conversational relationships with customers for as long as there have been sales forces and postal services. Marketers have long espoused the rhetoric of interactivity, of listening to and responding to the voice of the customer. Nevertheless, the dominant model in marketing since its inception as a formal business discipline has been mass broadcast, not interactive. The reach of broadcast-associated methods has been so wide, the cost per contact so low, and the control of content so precise that interactive methods have been applied only in situations where customers have very high value, such as some industrial marketing contexts or at the point-of-purchase. All of this is changing: during the 1990s, technological advances on a number of fronts (most notably low cost digital data storage, high speed data analysis, and inexpensive network-based interactive communications) suggest that the cost disadvantage of interactive methods relative to broadcast methods is lessening. In the early 21st century, firms are thinking seriously and practically about an interactive marketing paradigm—one that integrates mass scale with individual responsiveness. The rapid growth of the Internet as a medium for communications, as a channel of distribution, and as a way of reaching individual customers efficiently and effectively has not only affected marketing managers’ decision-making but has created the need for new directions in marketing thought. The focus of this paper is on how this new interactive environment is changing how customers make decisions. With the increase
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