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The Digitalization of Customer Interaction (DICIA) project (04/2016 - 12/2018) investigates the effects of digitalization on service interactions. It studies the changes induced by digitalization on the practices of value creation and customer perceptions of value in technology-intensive services. The research is conducted in ollaboration with two other Finnish research institutes (Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Research on Intersubjectivity in Interactionat Helsinki University, and Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences), and three international universities. The project budget amounts to 1,4 million euros. The project will employ doctoral researchers and master’s thesis workers. Principal investigator: Risto Rajala.

Digitalization is revolutionizing services and the way value is created in customer interaction

The DICIA research project investigates how digitalization changes customer interaction, value creation practices and customer perceptions of value. Emerging technologies amplify the information intensity of products and processes, and increase the connectivity of actors and processes worldwide. Moreover, digitalization brings global competition closer to local businesses. Holding on the present ways of work and attitudes poses a challenge. Digitalization has to traverse company strategy, human activities and connections with customers as a whole. Digital customer interaction has the potential to resolve the productivity paradox in services, but critical questions remain unanswered: How is customers’ value experience formed in digital interaction? How to ensure that the keystones of valuable interaction known from face-to-face communication, such as trust, mutual understanding, and shared view of the value creation approach, come true in the digital interaction?

The DICIA research project investigates these challenges from a global perspective in collaboration with Finnish service providers in three different industries, the ICT sector, the construction industry, and professional services. The expected outcomes support the international growth and competitiveness of Finnish service businesses.

For more information, contact Project Manager Hanna Timonen, hanna.timonen (at) aalto.fi