Food for thought : A study on the digitalization of restaurant interactions

Abstract: This study is grounded in the evolving perspective of Service Marketing, Service-Dominant-Logic and ServiceLogic and aims to provide a holistic view of how the digitalization of interactions affects the service provided by the restaurant and in turn the customers’ value creation processes. More exactly, the study examines a digital system for information exchange, order placements and payments in a restaurant on the Swedish market. The study adopts a qualitative approach and data has been collected through the use of unstructured observations and semi-structured interviews. The findings are that the system for digital interactions has both positive and negative effects on valuecreation. It also changes other aspects of the service not directly linked to the system. If this ultimately creates more or less value for the customers is believed to depend on the customers’ individual differences, but if the system is used as a complement to the already existing service rather than as a substitute of the human interaction there are opportunities for a successful implementation.