{"id":6804,"date":"2018-07-11T11:44:28","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T15:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/?p=6804"},"modified":"2023-10-22T04:16:29","modified_gmt":"2023-10-22T08:16:29","slug":"impressions-from-servsig-2018-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.servsig.org\/wordpress\/2018\/07\/impressions-from-servsig-2018-in-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"Impressions from SERVSIG 2018 in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

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guest article by Nathalie Demoulin<\/em><\/p>\n

Impressions of the event: click here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

From June 14-16, 2018 IESEG School of Management hosted one of the world\u2019s largest service research conferences with 273 participants from 34 countries. It was a festive conference in the heart of Paris celebrating both the 25th anniversary of SERVSIG and the 10th SERVSIG conference. The program includes 170 presentations over 63 parallel sessions. It also included 6 special sessions, a SERVSIG Best Dissertation Award session and two plenary sessions. Among hot topics, we find Customer Experience, Consumer Behavior, Business-to-Business Services, Big Data Enabled Services, New Analytical Approaches in Service Research and Branding and Service Communications.<\/p>\n

The conference started on the 14th<\/sup> of June, with a welcome reception at I\u00c9SEG\u2019s modern campus in Paris, located in the iconic Grande Arche building, at the heart of the business district of La D\u00e9fense.
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On the 15th<\/sup>, the conference started with a warm welcome of participants by Nathalie Demoulin<\/strong>, the chair of the SERVSIG conference and Jean-Philippe Ammeux<\/strong>, the General Director of IESEG School of Management. Raymond Fisk<\/strong>, Professor and Chair of the Department of Marketing, at Texas State University, founder of the SERVSIG presented the history of the SERVSIG research community and SERVSIG conference. He explained the activities organized by SERVSIG and reminded us the three goals of SERVSIG that are to be Open, Flexible and Fun.<\/p>\n

It has been followed by the first plenary session about \u201cImproving service experiences through digitalization and big data\u201d moderated by Werner Kunz,<\/strong> Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Massachusetts Boston and SERVSIG board member. There were three keynote speakers, Peter Ruchatz<\/strong>, MeteoGroup\u2019s Chief product and marketing officer, Arne De Keyser, <\/strong>Assistant Professor of Marketing at EDHEC Business School and Marianna Sigala, <\/strong>Professor of Tourism and Director of the Centre for Tourism & Leisure Management at the University of South Australia, co-editor of the Journal of Service Theory & Practice and the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Management. Companies collect massive amount of data along the customers\u2019 journey at every touchpoint but also external data such as social, market and environmental data. Smart devices combined with machine learning create personalized and seamless customer experiences but they may also lead to sustainable and responsible concerns. The right data should be collected, extracted and analyzed while understanding customers as being human and ensuring transparency.<\/p>\n

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