The Service Industries Journal

Phygital Service Experiences: Redefining Consumer Journeys in Hybrid Ecosystems

Aim & Scope

The digitization of services has not made physical experiences obsolete; instead, it has opened a new frontier of hybridity, where physical and digital elements merge to create what is now widely known as a phygital service experience (Lawry, 2021; Mele et al., 2023). In sectors such as retail (Alexander, B., & Varley, 2025), hospitality (Zheng et al., 2025), and healthcare (Mele & Russo-Spena, 2025), this convergence is no longer peripheral but central to strategic design and value creation (Buhalis et al., 2019). A mobile app that adjusts hotel room lighting (Tom Dieck et al., 2024), augmented reality overlays that enhance in-store browsing (Raza et al., 2024), or an AI-driven chatbot that continues care after a face-to-face consultation are no longer experimental novelties (Affandi et al., 2025). Instead, they exemplify the hybrid ecosystems that increasingly define service interactions in the twenty-first century (Gnewuch et al., 2023; Lipkin & Heinonen, 2022).

The potential of phygital service models resides in their ability to deliver convenience, personalization, and immersive engagement across various touchpoints (Batat, 2022; Mishra et al., 2021). However, their integration is not without challenges. Consumers often need to navigate between online and offline environments, adjust expectations across different channels, and interpret complex multisensory cues in journeys that are frequently fragmented and discontinuous (Blázquez, 2014; Stead et al., 2022). Although organizations advocate for seamless experiences, consumers encounter mental workload, decision fatigue, and disorientation (Larivière et al., 2024; Sudbury-Riley et al., 2024). These challenges prompt urgent inquiries into consumer well-being, the resilience of adaptive behaviors, and the very definition of service quality in hybrid environments (Gursoy et al., 2023).

Phygitality significantly alters several fundamental aspects of services. Presence and immediacy are redefined when avatars, holograms, or digital twins replace physical personnel (Bower et al., 2016; Peng et al., 2024). Personalization is enhanced through data-driven insights, yet this advancement simultaneously provokes critical ethical discussions concerning surveillance, privacy, and algorithmic bias (Hoa et al., 2023). Trust and authenticity are restructured in mediated interactions where the boundaries of tangibility and transparency become indistinct. Immersion, facilitated by augmented and virtual reality, modifies consumers' perceptions of realism, influencing memory, emotional attachment, and long-term satisfaction (Raza et al., 2024; Saleem et al., 2024). Additionally, inclusivity and accessibility persist as central challenges. Consumers with disabilities, limited digital literacy, or resistance to new technologies often experience marginalization in environments that necessitate continuous digital mediation, thereby perpetuating inequalities in service access (Batat & Hammedi, 2022; Yao et al., 2024).

From a managerial standpoint, transitioning toward phygital service ecosystems necessitates organizational innovation (Mele & Russo-Spena, 2021). Service providers must reconceptualize their value propositions, employee roles, and operational processes (Batat, 2022). The delivery of hybrid services presents complex challenges related to the integration of front-stage and back-stage systems and the coordination between human and automated agents (Schaarschmidt et al., 2017). This shift compels firms to reevaluate strategies for maintaining brand identity, customer loyalty, and competitive differentiation in environments where consumer interactions are distributed across various platforms, devices, and spaces. For policymakers and regulators, combining services prompts renewed discussions concerning consumer protection, data governance, and equitable access.

This special issue aims to enhance scholarly comprehension of phygital service experiences by incorporating disciplinary as well as interdisciplinary perspectives. Contributions are invited from consumer behavior, marketing, service research, psychology, information systems, design studies, and related disciplines. We welcome conceptual work that refines theoretical foundations, empirical studies that document and elucidate emerging consumer practices, methodological innovations that capture complex multisensory and hybrid phenomena, and practitioner-oriented insights that demonstrate organizational responses to these changes. Of particular interest are studies that bridge disciplinary boundaries, explore under-researched sectors, or highlight the societal and ethical implications of phygitality. By assembling diverse perspectives, this special issue seeks to enrich theory, expand methodological repertoires, and generate actionable knowledge for scholars and practitioners navigating the hybrid frontier of service industries.

Theme of Special Issue

§  Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

§  Conceptual foundations and frameworks for phygital service experiences

§  Impacts of hybrid service integration on customer journeys and decision-making

§  Multisensory design and consumer experience in phygital services

§  The role of AR, VR, MR, AI, and IoT in redefining service quality and value creation

§  Consumer adaptation to fragmented hybrid touchpoints, including cognitive and emotional effects

§  Trust, authenticity, and presence in digitally mediated service interactions

§  Inclusivity, accessibility, and ethics in phygital services

§  Hybrid models of personalization and their ethical and managerial implications

§  The effect of phygital experiences on memory formation, brand attachment, and satisfaction

§  Organizational and managerial challenges in phygital service implementation

§  Sector-specific explorations in retail, healthcare, education, tourism, hospitality, and public services

§  Consumer resistance, skepticism, and well-being in the face of hybridization

§  Comparative perspectives on mass market versus premium/luxury phygital services

§  Methodological approaches to studying phygital phenomena, including experiments, field studies, and digital ethnographies.

References

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