Despite evidence that consumers appreciate freedom of choice, they also enjoy recommendation systems, subscription services, and marketplace encounters that seemingly occur by chance. This paper proposes that enjoyment can, in some contexts, be higher than that in contexts involving choice. This occurs as a result of feelings of serendipity that arise when a marketplace encounter is positive, unexpected, and attributed to some degree of chance. A series of studies shows that feelings of serendipity positively influence an array of consumer outcomes, including satisfaction and enjoyment, perceptions of meaningfulness of an experience, likelihood of recommending a company, and likelihood of purchasing additional products from the company. The findings show that strategies based on serendipity are even more effective when consumers perceive that randomness played a role in how an encounter occurred, and not effective when the encounter is negative, the encounter occurs deterministically (i.e., planned by marketers to target consumers), and consumers perceive that they have enough knowledge to make their own choices. Altogether, this research suggests that marketers can influence customer satisfaction by structuring marketplace encounters to appear more serendipitous, as opposed to expected or entirely chosen by the consumer.

尽管有证据表明消费者喜欢选择的自由，但他们也喜欢看似偶然的推荐系统，订阅服务和市场接触。本文提出，在某些情况下，享受可以比在涉及选择的情况下享受更高。这是由于当市场遭遇是积极的，出乎意料的并且归因于一定程度的机会时出现的巧合感觉而导致的。一系列研究表明，偶然的感觉会积极影响一系列消费者的结果，包括满意度和享受，对体验意义的感知，推荐公司的可能性以及从公司购买其他产品的可能性。研究结果表明，基于偶然性的策略在消费者意识到随机性如何影响相遇时更为有效，而在相消为负时确定性地发生（即由营销人员计划以目标消费者为对象），则这种策略并非有效，并且消费者认为他们有足够的知识来做出自己的选择。总而言之，这项研究表明，营销人员可以通过结构化市场接触以使其表现出偶然性，而不是由消费者期望或完全选择，来影响客户满意度。并且消费者认为他们有足够的知识来做出自己的选择。总而言之，这项研究表明，营销人员可以通过结构化市场接触以使其表现出偶然性，而不是由消费者期望或完全选择，来影响客户满意度。并且消费者认为他们有足够的知识来做出自己的选择。总而言之，这项研究表明，营销人员可以通过结构化市场接触以使其表现出偶然性，而不是由消费者期望或完全选择，来影响客户满意度。