The Mercer Management Journal is dead. If you click through you will be taken to the Internet Archive site to find an archived copy.
Most electronic forms of interactions do not delight customers, but they have a great potential to destroy brand equity if they fail. For example, after 20 years automated teller machines (ATMs) do not please us very much, but they irritate us when they are down for service. While Web sites may provide some delight today, they will probably be the same as ATMs in the future. The interactions with the greatest potential for delight are those that involve people, who can resolve customer problems, empathize, smile, and provide unexpected levels of service. Companies that entirely replace people with machines may run a great risk with their brands. For most companies, the answer is to manage the mix of people and automation: Machine interaction is fine for many transactions (cash withdrawal, airline check-in) as long as customers have other opportunities to meet the brand’s people.
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