Frontline Service Technology infusion: conceptual archetypes and future research directions

The challenging meet between human and artificial knowledge. A systems-based view of its influences on firms-customers interaction

Purpose

This paper aims to recall the attention on a key challenge for customer relationship management related to the role of human agents in the management of the “switch point” for ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency in a customer-machine conversation.

Design/methodology/approach

This study contributes to the discussion about the firms’ approach to artificial intelligence (AI) in frontline interactions under the conceptual umbrella provided by knowledge management studies.

Findings

This paper provides a theoretical model for clarifying the role of human intelligence (HI) in AI-based frontline interactions by highlighting the relevance of the actors’ subjectivity in the dynamics and perceptions of customer-machine conversations.

Originality/value

An AI-HI complementarity matrix is proposed in spite of the still dominant replacement view.

To automate or not to automate? A contingency approach to service automation

Purpose

Following a contingency approach, this paper aims to understand when service automation can enhance or destroy value for customers in the frontline by (1) providing a comprehensive overview of factors that influence the value co-creation/co-destruction potential of service automation and (2) zooming in on the combination of service contexts and service tasks to develop research propositions.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses a grounded theory approach based on qualitative data from multiple methods (i.e. a diary study with follow-up interviews, a consultation of academic experts and a storyboard study) as well as a systematic literature review to develop (1) a Framework of Automated Service Interactions (FASI) and (2) a contingency model for service tasks/contexts.

Findings

This paper presents a framework which gives an overview of factors influencing the value co-creation/co-destruction potential of service automation. The framework discerns between three types of factors: service design (i.e. controllable and manageable by the organization), static contingency (i.e. uncontrollable and fixed) and dynamic contingency (i.e. uncontrollable and flexible). Furthermore, the paper presents a contingency model based on the combination of service contexts and service tasks which results in seven research propositions.

Originality/value

This paper brings structure in the fragmented field of service automation. It integrates and summarizes insights regarding service automation and sheds more light on when service automation has the potential to create or destroy value in the organizational frontline.

Does the Personality of Consumers Influence the Assessment of the Experience of Interaction with Social Robots?

In recent years, in response to the effects of Covid-19, there has been an increase in the use of social robots in service organisations, as well as in the number of interactions between consumers and robots. However, it is not clear how consumers are valuing these experiences or what the main drivers that shape them are. Furthermore, it is an open research question whether these experiences undergone by consumers can be affected by their own personality. This study attempts to shed some light on these questions and, to do so, an experiment is proposed in which a sample of 378 participants evaluate a simulated front-office service experience delivered by a social robot. The authors investigate the underlying process that explains the experience and find that cognitive-functional factors, emphasising efficiency, have practically the same relevance as emotional factors, emphasising stimulation. In addition, this research identifies the personality traits of the participants and explores their moderating role in the evaluation of the experience. The results reveal that each personality trait, estimated between high and low poles, generates different responses in the evaluation of the experience.

Contexts of Consumption and Their Evolution in the Digital Age: Beyond the Service-Dominant Logic

Starting from the observation of a conceptual gap regarding the association between consumption and the contexts in which it occurs, the paper has two objectives. The first is to fill this gap by developing a framework that includes: the identification of consumption contexts based on their building blocks (actors, goods, relationships), the basic classification of their variety, and a knowledge-based reading of consumption contexts capable of explaining their functioning. The second aim is to show that the framework allows the understanding of the digital transformation of consumption contexts. We show that services are produced in two contexts: in the first type, consumers interact directly with goods; in the second, the intermediation of frontline personnel comes into play. Actors and goods present in the consumption contexts are knowledge-holders, and the relationships between them are learning relationships. The shift from traditional consumption contexts to contexts based on artificial intelligence and the internet of things introduces a major change in that learning relationships are no longer the domain of only (human) actors who learn by interacting with each other and using goods. Both types of contexts are in fact powered by smart goods capable of interacting with each other and with humans within a given context and endowed with structural cognitive connections outside that context.

Designing augmented reality services for enhanced customer experiences in retail

Purpose

To deliver superior customer experiences, retailers are increasingly turning to augmented reality (AR) technologies for new digital services that can enhance their customer interactions. The potential of AR has been validated in lab experiments, but when implemented in real-world contexts, its commercial impact has been limited. Therefore, this paper investigates how to design AR-based services (AR services) that enhance customer experiences in retail.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a conceptual research approach to integrate research on AR in the context of retail, combining customer, retailer, and technical perspectives with the design thinking method to demonstrate how the challenge of AR service design can be addressed through design thinking.

Findings

The paper develops propositions that explain how a design thinking method is useful in the design of effective AR services. The paper also articulates principles for how to implement the design thinking method in the specific context of AR for enhanced customer experiences.

Practical implications

The study documents critical practices for retailers seeking to be competitive with superior customer experiences under the increasing digitalization of retailer-customer interactions.

Originality/value

The study contributes to the service design literature by answering the call to develop moderately abstracted explanations of how different digital technologies can be used to provision new services in different application domains, with the focus here being the design of AR services in the context of retail.

Analyzing the determinants to accept a virtual assistant and use cases among cancer patients: a mixed methods study

Background

Technological progress in artificial intelligence has led to the increasing popularity of virtual assistants, i.e., embodied or disembodied conversational agents that allow chatting with a technical system in a natural language. However, only little comprehensive research is conducted about patients' perceptions and possible applications of virtual assistant in healthcare with cancer patients. This research aims to investigate the key acceptance factors and value-adding use cases of a virtual assistant for patients diagnosed with cancer.

Methods

Qualitative interviews with eight former patients and four doctors of a Dutch radiotherapy institute were conducted to determine what acceptance factors they find most important for a virtual assistant and gain insights into value-adding applications. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) was used to structure perceptions and was inductively modified as a result of the interviews. The subsequent research model was triangulated via an online survey with 127 respondents diagnosed with cancer. A structural equation model was used to determine the relevance of acceptance factors. Through a multigroup analysis, differences between sample subgroups were compared.

Results

The interviews found support for all factors of the UTAUT: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions. Additionally, self-efficacy, trust, and resistance to change, were added as an extension of the UTAUT. Former patients found a virtual assistant helpful in receiving information about logistic questions, treatment procedures, side effects, or scheduling appointments. The quantitative study found that the constructs performance expectancy (ß = 0.399), effort expectancy (ß = 0.258), social influence (ß = 0.114), and trust (ß = 0.210) significantly influenced behavioral intention to use a virtual assistant, explaining 80% of its variance. Self-efficacy (ß = 0.792) acts as antecedent of effort expectancy. Facilitating conditions and resistance to change were not found to have a significant relationship with user intention.

Conclusions

Performance and effort expectancy are the leading determinants of virtual assistant acceptance. The latter is dependent on a patient’s self-efficacy. Therefore, including patients during the development and introduction of a VA in cancer treatment is important. The high relevance of trust indicates the need for a reliable, secure service that should be promoted as such. Social influence suggests using doctors in endorsing the VA.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-022-08189-7.

Technostress Creators and Job Performance Among Frontliners: Theorizing the Moderating Role of Self-Efficacy

Technostress is evolving as an imperative area of academic research amid the "new normal" settings of working remotely. Research has investigated the relationships between technostress and job outcomes and proposed individual- and organizational-level approaches to manage it. However, insights into the influence of dynamic personality differences on this relationship are limited. This study ties the concept of self-efficacy to the transactional model of stress and coping, and investigates to what extent computer and social self-efficacy moderate the relationships between technostress creators and frontline employee's job performance. Findings shift the focus from the negative aspects of technostress and outcomes to both positive and negative aspects. This study's contributions and implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Extended Reality in Marketing—A Multiple Case Study on Internet of Things Platforms

This research highlights how cloud platform as a service technologies host extended reality technologies and convergent technologies in integrated solutions. It was only around 2019 that scholarly literature conceptualized the role of extended reality, that is, augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality, in the marketing function. This article is a multiple case study on the leading eleven platform as a service vendors. They provide the programming technology required to host software as a service in the cloud, making the software available from everywhere. Of the eleven cases, 10% integrate technologies in solutions. Research results show that extended reality technologies reinvent digital marketing; as part of this, they shape the customer delivery model in terms of customer value proposition; favor the choice of customer channel (the omnichannel); possibly lead to new customer relationships, such as cocreation; and reach global mass customers. Extended reality in the delivery model is complemented by other technologies in the operating model. These combinations provide the foundations of the business models, which are either network or platform business models. This study identifies a number of solutions enabled by extended reality, which have an integrated goal in the form of customer value contribution and are to be studied in further articles.

The role of proximity in omnichannel customer experience: a service logic perspective

Purpose

This article proposes a new theoretical background against which to measure customer experience for omnichannel service deliveries and communications based on the concept of proximity. This represents a first step in developing a new measurement approach for omnichannel customer experience.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodological approach is based on literature review and theory development. Various streams of literature are integrated on the basis of their interactionist nature (service logic, psychological distance theory, and omnichannel customer experience literature), and theory is developed based thereon.

Findings

Successful omnichannel service deliveries and communications should build proximity with the customer during interactions at the different touchpoints. Proximity represents the value-in-use for the customer, who is coproducer of value at each interaction. Proximity can be applied to all touchpoints, thus strengthening seamlessness for omnichannel service deliveries and communications.

Originality/value

This research advances knowledge by integrating the concepts of omnichannel and proximity under the lenses of service logic. The author proposes a new theoretical background for the measurement of omnichannel customer experience that contributes to the literature. In modern omnichannel service deliveries and communications, a measurement approach based on proximity fulfills the need to reconcile customer experiences at both remote and physical touchpoints for a holistic and coherent customer experience. Use of the four proximity dimensions (social, temporal, spatial, and hypothetical) gives flexibility to managers to build proximity across remote and physical touchpoints in different industries.

Exploring the frontiers in reality-enhanced service communication: from augmented and virtual reality to neuro-enhanced reality

Purpose

The authors explore neuro-enhanced reality (NeR) as a novel approach for enhancing service communication between customers, frontline employees, and service organizations that extends beyond current state-of-the-art approaches based on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors first take stock of research on reality-enhanced service communication with AR and VR, then complement these insights with emerging neuroscientific research to conceptualize how NeR enables innovative forms of service communication. On this basis, the authors develop a research agenda to guide the future study and managerial exploitation of NeR.

Findings

AR and VR already offer unique affordances for digital-to-physical communication, but these can be extended with NeR. Specifically, NeR supports neuro-to-digital and digital-to-neuro communication based on neuroimaging (e.g. controlling digital content through thought) and neurostimulation (e.g. eliciting brain responses based on digital content). This provides a basis for outlining possible applications of NeR across service settings.

Originality/value

The authors advance knowledge on reality-enhanced service communication with AR and VR, whilst also demonstrating how neuroscientific research can be extended from understanding brain activity to generating novel service interactions.

“A Large Playground”: Examining the Current State and Implications of Conversational Agent Adoption in Organizations

This study explores the short- and long-term expectations about adoption of conversational agents in the organizational frontline. Drawing from in-depth interviews with managers and developers in organizations that have implemented these agents, it sheds light on how the deployment of and collaboration with technology-based autonomous agents influences service activities, and expectations of changes in organizational processes. The interviews revealed that implementations are done on a rather iterative and experimental basis, often balancing the current limits of technology while aiming at improved efficiency, augmenting the work of frontline employees, and meeting the ever-growing demands from consumers.

A Postdigital Perspective on Service Work: Salespeople’s Service Encounters in the Connected Store

Covid-19 has disrupted global markets, accelerated the digital transformation of frontline service, and changed how service organisations, frontline service employees, and consumers interact. This article explores how digitalisation is changing retail service work from a postdigital perspective. The article draws on an ethnography of salespeople’s service encounters in speciality chain stores between July 2015 and August 2021. Using a practice theory framework (the theory of practice architectures), the article explores what conditions form salespeople’s service encounters in connected stores and how retail organisations’ digitalisation of frontline service changes salespeople’s practice of service encounters. The contributions of this article to the ongoing debate over the digitalisation of service work are twofold. On the theoretical plane, the article provides an alternative framework to labour process theory for exploring and describing service work organised around digital technologies. Secondly, it uncovers the conditions that are changing salespeople’s practice of service encounters, along with attributes associated with service work and emotional labour skills. The research shows that the connected service encounter is characterised by postdigital dialogue that involves new roles and skills in frontline service work. Overall, the findings contribute to a better understanding of how digitalisation changes action and interaction in service encounters from an employee perspective.

Linking servicescape and experiencescape: creating a collective focus for the service industry

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review what one knows – and does not know about servicescape and experiencescape. The paper provides a comprehensive conceptualization, discussion of the servicescape and experiencescape and calls for the need for a collective focus of servicescape and experiencescape for the service industry.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual paper analyzes multiple literature studies related to servicescape, experiencescape and other related concepts such as service quality and customer experience for building a comprehensive framework that draws knowledge from both servicescape and experiencescape in an effort to create a collective focus.

Findings

Prior research on the components of servicescape and experiencescape raises more questions than answers. The findings of this study highlight the importance of technology as one of the key components of experiencescape to motivate customers to engage in the consumption environment. Furthermore, the proposed conceptual framework provides a detailed discussion and highlights the importance of using servicescape and experiencescape concepts together as a collective framework to bring about greater benefits to the service industry. The proposed framework suggests that these concepts are not only collective but also interrelated.

Research limitations/implications

Technology is not a tool but an important partner for the firm to create the experience. It can bring together marketing, management and operations within the organization to collectively focus on the customer. Collectively designed servicescape and experiencescape will create lasting memories and emotional connections with customers.

Practical implications

Service organizations can develop smart experiencescapes that positively influence customer value cocreation and heighten customer experience by utilizing technology. Managers are advised to understand consumers' emphasis on technological personalization, aesthetics, functionality, interactivity and social presence while participating in cocreation. Technologies may improve the experience by incorporating real-time and less-restrained interactions between consumers and the service organization.

Originality/value

This paper synthesizes insights from the extant literature related to servicescape, service quality, customer experience and experiencescape. Further, it helps to extend the current understanding of experiencescape and calls for the need to incorporate technology as one of the key experience components in the experiencescape concept. Furthermore, this study highlights the importance and the need to bring these two concepts together with a collective focus to enhance value for the customer. Thus, it is argued here that the collective focus of servicescape and experiencescape in the service industry will create new opportunities for further research and practical applications.

Understanding Impacts of Service Robots with the Revised Gap Model

The service quality gap model, which identifies the antecedents of SERVQAUL, reveals that service quality depends on the gap between customer perceived and expected service (Gap 5), which can be caused by other gaps in the service process (Gaps 1–4). The emergence of service robots has affected the quality of services provided; however, little is known about how these impacts happen. Thus, this paper aims to explore the impacts of service robots on service quality by revising the original gap model in the context of robot service. This paper reviews and analyzes the literature related to service robots and develops a revised gap model for robot service by integrating the existing research on the impacts of service robots. By introducing the roles of robots and robot manufacturers into the original gap model, the revised gap model adds three new gaps: Gap 6 (manufacturers’ understanding gap), Gap 7 (technical gap), and Gap 8 (service coordination gap). Based on the revised gap model, the impacts of service robots on service quality are expounded (i.e., Gap 5 can be affected by not only Gaps 1–4 but also Gaps 6–8), and several propositions are introduced. This paper is the first to consider robot manufacturers as part of the service quality gap model, and the first to use a dynamic model to explore the impacts of service robots on service quality. This paper not only supplements the service robot and gap model literature but also provides service companies with a meaningful framework to improve service quality when using robots to provide service.

Living and working with service robots: a TCCM analysis and considerations for future research

Purpose

Service robots are now an integral part of people's living and working environment, making service robots one of the hot topics for service researchers today. Against that background, the paper reviews the recent service robot literature following a Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology (TCCM) approach to capture the state of art of the field. In addition, building on qualitative input from researchers who are active in this field, the authors highlight where opportunities for further development and growth lie.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper identifies and analyzes 88 manuscripts (featuring 173 individual studies) published in academic journals featured on the SERVSIG literature alert. In addition, qualitative input gathered from 79 researchers who are active in the service field and doing research on service robots is infused throughout the manuscript.

Findings

The key research foci of the service robot literature to date include comparing service robots with humans, the role of service robots' look and feel, consumer attitudes toward service robots and the role of service robot conversational skills and behaviors. From a TCCM view, the authors discern dominant theories (anthropomorphism theory), contexts (retail/healthcare, USA samples, Business-to-Consumer (B2C) settings and customer focused), study characteristics (robot types: chatbots, not embodied and text/voice-based; outcome focus: customer intentions) and methodologies (experimental, picture-based scenarios).

Originality/value

The current paper is the first to analyze the service robot literature from a TCCM perspective. Doing so, the study gives (1) a comprehensive picture of the field to date and (2) highlights key pathways to inspire future work.

The TRISEC framework for optimizing conversational agent design across search, experience and credence service contexts

Purpose

Service providers increasingly use conversational agents (CAs), such as chatbots, to effectively communicate with customers while managing interaction costs and providing round-the-clock customer service. Yet, the adoption and implementation of such agents in service contexts remains a hit-and-miss, and firms often struggle to balance their CAs implementation complexities and costs with relation to their service objectives, technology design and customer experiences. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance on optimizing CA design, therefore, the authors develop a conceptual framework, TRISEC, that integrates service logic, technology design and customer experience to examine the implementation of CA solutions in search, experience and credence (SEC) contexts.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on service marketing and communications research, combining the service context classification scheme of search, experience and credence and the technology infused service marketing triangle foci (service, technology and customer) in its conceptual development.

Findings

The authors find that an opportunity exists in recognizing the importance of context when designing CAs and aiming to achieve a balance between service objectives, technology design and customer experiences.

Originality/value

This study contributes to service management and communications research literature by providing interactive service marketing researchers with the highly generalizable TRISEC framework to aid in optimizing CA design and implementation in interactive customer communication technologies. Furthermore, the study provides an array of future research avenues. From a practical perspective, this study aims at providing managers with a means to optimize CA technology design while maintaining a balance between customer centricity and implementation complexity and costs in different service contexts.

Framework for open insurance strategy: insights from a European study

While some consider open insurance to be a buzzword with more hype than substance, the underlying trend of open finance stimulates insurers to use digital technology to exchange data with third parties to realise process efficiencies and develop new products and channels. Based on a literature review and 30 interviews with industry experts in Europe, we define open insurance, identify its key drivers, and discuss the dimensions and performance impact of open insurance strategy. The combined insights can help executives develop a better understanding of open insurance and formulate an open insurance strategy that provides performance benefits to them, customers, and third parties.

AI as customer

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to note that customers are not necessarily human and to figure out how best to serve artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The authors also propose several major research streams, as examples, to help launch research on AI customers and how to serve them.

Design/methodology/approach

The current paper is a conceptual one that draws upon research from many areas to support the ideas proposed.

Findings

AI customer are proliferating. AI as customers can augment or replace human customers and can be the customer itself. Service providers may also be AI, which means that both humans serving AI customers and AI serving AI customers are relevant here. The authors show that even truly autonomous AI customers are likely to be more common in the future. The authors conclude that reverse engineering will probably not be successful in understanding AI customers and that an approach similar to how we research human consumer behavior is likely to be more useful.

Originality/value

Virtually, the entire literature on customers and how to serve them assumes that customers are human. With the rapid advancement of AI, purchase decisions are increasingly made by AI, suggesting that it is now important and necessary to consider the possibility of AI customers and how best to serve them. This paper opens the door for such research.

Is AI Augmenting or Substituting Humans?

In this paper, the authors focus on Artificial Intelligence as a tangible technology that is designed to sense, comprehend, act, and learn. There are two manifestations of AI in the medical service: an algorithm that analyzes and interprets the test result and a virtual assistant that communicates the result to the patient. The aim of this paper is to consider how AI can substitute a doctor in measuring human health and how the interaction with virtual assistant impacts one’s visual attention processes. Theoretically, the article refers to the following research strands: Human-Computer Interaction, technology in services, implementation of AI in the medical sector, and behavioral economy. By conducting an eye-tracking experimental study, it is demonstrated that the perception of medical diagnosis does not differ across experimental groups (human vs. AI). However, it is observed that participants exposed to AI-based assistant focused more on button allowing to contact a real doctor.

Immunizing with information - Inoculation messages against conversational agents' response failures

Conversational agents (CAs) are often unable to provide meaningful responses to user requests, thereby triggering user resistance and impairing the successful diffusion of CAs. Literature mostly focuses on improving CA responses but fails to address user resistance in the event of further response failures. Drawing on inoculation theory and the elaboration likelihood model, we examine how inoculation messages, as communication that seeks to prepare users for a possible response failure, can be used as an alleviation mechanism. We conducted a randomized experiment with 558 users, investigating how the performance level (high or low) and the linguistic form of the performance information (qualitative or quantitative) affected users' decision to discontinue CA usage after a response failure. We found that inoculation messages indicating a low performance level alleviate the negative effects of CA response failures on discontinuance. However, quantitative performance level information exhibits this moderating effect on users' central processing, while qualitative performance level information affected users' peripheral processing. Extending studies that primarily discuss ex-post strategies, our results provide meaningful insights for practitioners.

Patients' Perceptions Toward Human-Artificial Intelligence Interaction in Health Care: Experimental Study

Background

It is believed that artificial intelligence (AI) will be an integral part of health care services in the near future and will be incorporated into several aspects of clinical care such as prognosis, diagnostics, and care planning. Thus, many technology companies have invested in producing AI clinical applications. Patients are one of the most important beneficiaries who potentially interact with these technologies and applications; thus, patients’ perceptions may affect the widespread use of clinical AI. Patients should be ensured that AI clinical applications will not harm them, and that they will instead benefit from using AI technology for health care purposes. Although human-AI interaction can enhance health care outcomes, possible dimensions of concerns and risks should be addressed before its integration with routine clinical care.

Objective

The main objective of this study was to examine how potential users (patients) perceive the benefits, risks, and use of AI clinical applications for their health care purposes and how their perceptions may be different if faced with three health care service encounter scenarios.

Methods

We designed a 2×3 experiment that crossed a type of health condition (ie, acute or chronic) with three different types of clinical encounters between patients and physicians (ie, AI clinical applications as substituting technology, AI clinical applications as augmenting technology, and no AI as a traditional in-person visit). We used an online survey to collect data from 634 individuals in the United States.

Results

The interactions between the types of health care service encounters and health conditions significantly influenced individuals’ perceptions of privacy concerns, trust issues, communication barriers, concerns about transparency in regulatory standards, liability risks, benefits, and intention to use across the six scenarios. We found no significant differences among scenarios regarding perceptions of performance risk and social biases.

Conclusions

The results imply that incompatibility with instrumental, technical, ethical, or regulatory values can be a reason for rejecting AI applications in health care. Thus, there are still various risks associated with implementing AI applications in diagnostics and treatment recommendations for patients with both acute and chronic illnesses. The concerns are also evident if the AI applications are used as a recommendation system under physician experience, wisdom, and control. Prior to the widespread rollout of AI, more studies are needed to identify the challenges that may raise concerns for implementing and using AI applications. This study could provide researchers and managers with critical insights into the determinants of individuals’ intention to use AI clinical applications. Regulatory agencies should establish normative standards and evaluation guidelines for implementing AI in health care in cooperation with health care institutions. Regular audits and ongoing monitoring and reporting systems can be used to continuously evaluate the safety, quality, transparency, and ethical factors of AI clinical applications.

Service robots, agency and embarrassing service encounters

Purpose

Extant research mainly focused on potentially negative customer responses to service robots. In contrast, this study is one of the first to explore a service context where service robots are likely to be the preferred service delivery mechanism over human frontline employees. Specifically, the authors examine how customers respond to service robots in the context of embarrassing service encounters.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employs a mixed-method approach, whereby an in-depth qualitative study (study 1) is followed by two lab experiments (studies 2 and 3).

Findings

Results show that interactions with service robots attenuated customers' anticipated embarrassment. Study 1 identifies a number of factors that can reduce embarrassment. These include the perception that service robots have reduced agency (e.g. are not able to make moral or social judgements) and emotions (e.g. are not able to have feelings). Study 2 tests the base model and shows that people feel less embarrassed during a potentially embarrassing encounter when interacting with service robots compared to frontline employees. Finally, Study 3 confirms that perceived agency, but not emotion, fully mediates frontline counterparty (employee vs robot) effects on anticipated embarrassment.

Practical implications

Service robots can add value by reducing potential customer embarrassment because they are perceived to have less agency than service employees. This makes service robots the preferred service delivery mechanism for at least some customers in potentially embarrassing service encounters (e.g. in certain medical contexts).

Originality/value

This study is one of the first to examine a context where service robots are the preferred service delivery mechanism over human employees.

Intention to use analytical artificial intelligence (AI) in services – the effect of technology readiness and awareness

Purpose

The automation of services is rapidly growing, led by sectors such as banking and financial investment. The growing number of investments managed by artificial intelligence (AI) suggests that this technology-based service will become increasingly popular. This study examines how customers' technology readiness and service awareness affect their intention to use analytical AI investment services.

Design/methodology/approach

Hypotheses were tested with a data set of 404 North American-based potential customers of robo-advisors. In addition to technology readiness dimensions, the potential customers' characteristics were included in the framework as moderating factors (age, gender and previous experience with financial investment services). A post-hoc analysis examined the roles of service awareness and the financial advisor's name (i.e., robo-advisor vs. AI-advisor).

Findings

The results indicated that customers' technological optimism increases, and insecurity decreases, their intention to use robo-advisors. Surprisingly, feelings of technological discomfort positively influenced robo-advisor adoption. This interesting finding challenges previous insights into technology adoption and value co-creation as analytical AI puts customers into a very passive role and reduces barriers to technology adoption. The research also analyzes how consumers become aware of robo-advisors, and how this influences their acceptance.

Originality/value

This is the first study to analyze the role of customers' technology readiness in the adoption of analytical AI. The authors link the findings to previous technology adoption and automated services' literature and provide specific managerial implications and avenues for further research.

Customer acceptance of frontline service robots in retail banking: A qualitative approach

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore what drives customer acceptance of frontline service robots (FSR), as a result of their interaction experiences with FSR in the context of retail banking services.

Design/methodology/approach

Applications of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and service robot acceptance model frame the exploration of customers’ interaction experiences with physical FSR to explain acceptance. A thematic analysis of information obtained through observations, focus groups and participant interviews was applied to identify themes.

Findings

This study identifies 16 dimensions that group into five main themes that influence customer acceptance of FSR in retail banking services: (1) utilitarian aspect, (2) social interaction, (3) customer responses toward FSR, (4) customer perspectives of the company brand and (5) individual and task heterogeneity. Themes 1 and 2 are labeled confirmed themes based on existing theoretical frameworks used; themes 3–5 are additional themes.

Practical implications

This study provides actionable suggestions to allow managers to reflect on their strategy and consider ways to design and improve the delivery of services that involve FSR.

Originality/value

This study adds to our limited knowledge of how human-robot interaction research in robotics translates to a relatively new research area in frontline services and provides a step toward a comprehensive FSR acceptance model.

The service triad: an empirical study of service robots, customers and frontline employees

Purpose

Recent service studies suggest focusing on the service triad consisting of technology-customer-frontline employee (FLE). This study empirically investigates the role of service robots in this service triad, with the aim to understand the augmentation or substitution role of service robots in driving utilitarian and hedonic value and ultimately customer repatronage.

Design/methodology/approach

In study 1, field data are collected from customers (n = 108) who interacted with a service robot and FLE in a fast casual dining restaurant. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test hypotheses about the impact of service robots' anthropomorphism, social presence, value perceptions and augmentation opportunities in the service triad. In study 2, empirical data from a scenario-based experimental design (n = 361) complement the field study by further scrutinizing the interplay between the service robot and FLEs within the service triad.

Findings

The study provides three important contributions. First, the authors provide empirical evidence for the interplay between different actors in the “customer-FLE-technology” service triad resulting in customer repatronage. Second, the empirical findings advance the service management literature by unraveling the relationship between anthropomorphism and social presence and their effect on perceived value in the service triad. And third, the study identifies utilitarian value of service robots as a driver of customer repatronage in fast casual dining restaurants.

Practical implications

The results help service managers, service robot engineers and designers, and policy makers to better understand the implications of anthropomorphism, and how the utilitarian value of service robots can offer the potential for augmentation or substitution roles in the service triad.

Originality/value

Building on existing conceptual and laboratory studies on service robots, this is one of the first field studies on the service triad consisting of service robots – customers – frontline employees. The empirical study on service triads provides evidence for the potential of FLEs to augment service robots that exhibit lower levels of functional performance to achieve customer repatronage. FLEs can do this by demonstrating a high willingness to help and having excellent interactions with customers. This finding advocates the joint service delivery by FLE – service robot teams in situations where service robot technology is not fully optimized.

Classification of Care Assistive Technology Based on the Relationship Between Users and Technologies

While an aging population in Japan and other countries is resulting in an increased demand for nursing care services, there is a shortage of care workers due to a decrease in the working population. The use of care assistive technologies such as robots, artificial intelligence, and information technology is expected to compensate for this shortage, and many care assistive technologies such as power assist devices and communication robots have been developed. However, their introduction and widespread use in actual service have not progressed. The aim of this study is to address the problem on less technology introduction in nursing care by surveying the attitudes of potential users to care assistive technologies, clarify the factors affecting the use of such technologies, and propose a new design method for the technologies. We surveyed attitudes to the use of care assistive technology from the perspective of function and information utilization for three groups: active seniors, informal carers, and formal carers. The survey was conducted in Japan and Finland, which have high aging populations. Based on the survey results, we proposed, as a design method, a classification of care assistive technologies according to their interaction with users as well as the nursing care process.

Trust me, I'm a bot – repercussions of chatbot disclosure in different service frontline settings

Purpose

Chatbots are increasingly prevalent in the service frontline. Due to advancements in artificial intelligence, chatbots are often indistinguishable from humans. Regarding the question whether firms should disclose their chatbots' nonhuman identity or not, previous studies find negative consumer reactions to chatbot disclosure. By considering the role of trust and service-related context factors, this study explores how negative effects of chatbot disclosure for customer retention can be prevented.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents two experimental studies that examine the effect of disclosing the nonhuman identity of chatbots on customer retention. While the first study examines the effect of chatbot disclosure for different levels of service criticality, the second study considers different service outcomes. The authors employ analysis of covariance and mediation analysis to test their hypotheses.

Findings

Chatbot disclosure has a negative indirect effect on customer retention through mitigated trust for services with high criticality. In cases where a chatbot fails to handle the customer's service issue, disclosing the chatbot identity not only lacks negative impact but even elicits a positive effect on retention.

Originality/value

The authors provide evidence that customers will react differently to chatbot disclosure depending on the service frontline setting. They show that chatbot disclosure does not only have undesirable consequences as previous studies suspect but can lead to positive reactions as well. By doing so, the authors draw a more balanced picture on the consequences of chatbot disclosure.

Robotic involvement in the service encounter: a value-centric experience framework and empirical validation

Purpose

Taking a mixed-method approach, this research developed and validated a novel, value-centric experience framework delineating robotic involvement in the service encounter and its subsequent impact on customers' experiences.

Design/methodology/approach

Focused on robotic restaurant businesses where robots are mainly involved in food production processes, this research utilized online customer review data and a multistage, mixed-method design for empirical examination. Automated thematic analysis was first adopted to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of the empirical reality as reflected in online customer reviews. Following an analytic induction process, a theoretical framework was developed integrating prior literature with the empirical reality to uncover the relationships across robotic involvement, experiential values and evaluative outcomes. A theory-driven, dictionary-based content analysis together with path analysis further enabled empirical validation of the developed theoretical framework.

Findings

The current research developed and validated a value-centric experience framework to theorize robotic involvement in the service encounter and its downstream impact on customers' experiences. Specifically, this framework conceptualizes robotic involvement as a five-dimensional composition of robotic visibility, competency, performanism, co-creativity and prominence. In addition, the framework specifies seven dimensions of experiential values revolving around high-tech–high-touch robotic service encounters, namely sensorial, utilitarian, hedonic, social, agentic, epistemic and aesthetic values. Following empirical validation, this framework sheds light on robotic involvement and experience design for high-tech–high-touch service businesses aiming to incorporate robots in their service encounters.

Originality/value

Drawing on classic service role theory and consumption value theory, this research developed and validated a novel theoretical model connecting robotic involvement dimensions with experiential consumption values and downstream customer evaluative outcomes. This research and theoretical framework open an exciting avenue for future research in robotic services and customer experiences.

From third party to significant other for service encounters: a systematic review on third-party roles and their implications

Purpose

Dyadic interactions between customers and service providers rarely occur in isolation. Still, there is a lack of systematic knowledge about the roles that different types of nontechnological third parties – that is, other customers, pets, other employees and other firms – can adopt in relation to customers and service providers during encounters. The present study aims to unravel these roles and highlight their implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties.

Design/methodology/approach

This research relies on a systematic review of literature in the Web of Science using a search string pertaining to the research study’s objectives. In total, 2,726 articles were screened by title and abstract using clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, thereby extracting 189 articles for full-text eligibility. The final sample consisted of 139 articles for coding and analysis.

Findings

The analyses reveal that other customers, pets, other employees and other firms can adopt five roles: bystander, connector, endorser, balancer and partner. Each role has different implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties. Additionally, the five roles are associated with distinct constellations of the customer, the service provider and the third party. These roles and constellations are dynamic and not mutually exclusive.

Originality/value

This research contributes to the service encounter literature by providing a thorough understanding of the various third-party roles and their implications for customers, service providers and/or third parties during encounters. As such, this research sheds light on the conditions under which third parties become “significant others” in service encounters and identifies avenues for future research.

A review of challenges and opportunities of blockchain adoption for operational excellence in the UK automotive industry

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the challenges and opportunities of blockchain technology adoption from the lens of the technological–organisational–environmental (TOE) framework for operational excellence in the UK automotive industry context.

Design/methodology/approach

The research methodology of this study follows a systematic review approach, which analyses existing academic published research papers in the top 35 academic journals. There was no specific timeframe established for this study and shortlisting the articles through a set of used keywords. A sample of 71 articles was shortlisted and analysed to provide a discussion on technological and management challenges and opportunities of blockchain adoption from the lens of the TOE framework for operational excellence.

Findings

The findings of this study present significant theoretical and managerial implications and deep understanding for firms seeking to understand the challenges and opportunities of blockchain adoption for their operational excellence.

Research limitations/implications

The systematic literature approach was considered for the present study to explore existing academic papers on technological and management challenges and opportunities from the lens of TOE framework for operational excellence, whereas a more specified method meta-analysis can be considered for future research. The study has been explored in the UK automotive industry context, which has been considered as the limitation of generalisation across countries and industries.

Originality/value

This paper represents the most comprehensive literature study related to the technological and management challenges and opportunities of blockchain from the TOE framework angle for operational excellence.

The Role of Human–Machine Interactive Devices for Post-COVID-19 Innovative Sustainable Tourism in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

In this research article, we aim to study the proposed role of human–machine interactive (HMI) technologies, including both artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR)-enabled applications, for the post-COVID-19 revival of the already depleted tourism industry in Vietnam’s major tourist destination and business hub of Ho Chi Minh City. The researchers aim to gather practical knowledge regarding tourists’ intentions for such service enhancements, which may drive the sector to adopt a better conclusive growth pattern in post-COVID-19 times. In this study, we attempt to focus on travelers who look for paramount safety with the assurance of empathetic, personalized care in post-COVID-19 times. In the current study, the authors employ structural equation modeling to evaluate the intentions of tourists both structurally and empirically for destination tourism with data collected from tourists with previous exposure to various kinds of these devices. The study shows that human–machine interactive devices are integrating AI and VR and have a significant effect on overall service quality, leading to tourist satisfaction and loyalty. The use of such social interactive gadgets within tourism and mostly in hospitality services requires an organization to make a commitment to futuristic technologies, along with building value by enriching service quality expectations among fearful tourists. This research shows that tourists mainly focus on the use of such HMI devices from the perspective of technology acceptance factors, qualitative value-enhancing service and trustworthy information-sharing mechanisms. The concept of the tour bubble framework is also discussed in detail. The analysis of this discussion gives us a more profound understanding of the novel opportunities which various administrative agencies may benefit from to position these devices better in smart, sustainable destination tourism strategies for the future so that, collectively, service 5.0 with HMI devices can possibly bring back tourism from being disintegrated. Such service applications are the new social innovations leading to sustainable service and a sophisticated experience for all tourists.

Unraveling customer experiences in a new servicescape: an ethnographic schema elicitation technique (ESET)

Purpose

This article investigates the role of schemas in shaping customer experiences in new servicescapes, across the customer journey. The authors take a customer perspective that reveals how schematic information processing takes place at four pyramidal levels—event, touchpoint, encounter and concrete activities—that in turn lead to customer responses.

Design/methodology/approach

The study introduces a novel ethnographic schema elicitation technique (ESET), which enables unraveling schemas at the touchpoint level across the customer journey of a European grocery store that recently launched a new SST innovation. This tailored approach provides fine-grained insights into customer experiences at the moment they occur.

Findings

The conceptual framework unravels schematic information processing, as illustrated with an empirical study. The activation of different schemas and their modification is highlighted in rich qualitative data.

Research limitations/implications

Innovative service offerings require customers to adapt their existing behaviors. Understanding this highly individual process, which requires schema modification, could be furthered by longitudinal in-depth research.

Practical implications

By understanding schematic information processing, managers and policymakers can develop better strategies for activating sustainability or health-conscious schemas that guide customer behavior in positive directions.

Originality/value

By applying ESET to new self-service technology, the authors provide valuable insights for service managers and retailers. They show the particular need for prudence in changing schemas in ways that avoid negative cognitive, emotional or behavioral responses.

Patient experience in the digital age: An investigation into the effect of generational cohorts

This research examines how patient experience is affected by various generational cohorts’ perceived ease of use and usefulness of healthcare patient portals and how this experience, in turn, shapes cohort technology use. Results suggest that digital technology needs to be designed and implemented with cohorts in mind. This study complements research in digital technology and customer experience by highlighting the relevance of generational cohort differences, that is whether they adopted digital technology (i.e., Generation X) or always had digital technology, (i.e., Millennials) on a patient’s experience.

Robots or frontline employees? Exploring customers’ attributions of responsibility and stability after service failure or success

Purpose

Service robots are taking over the organizational frontline. Despite a recent surge in studies on this topic, extant works are predominantly conceptual in nature. The purpose of this paper is to provide valuable empirical insights by building on the attribution theory.

Design/methodology/approach

Two vignette-based experimental studies were employed. Data were collected from US respondents who were randomly assigned to scenarios focusing on a hotel’s reception service and restaurant’s waiter service.

Findings

Results indicate that respondents make stronger attributions of responsibility for the service performance toward humans than toward robots, especially when a service failure occurs. Customers thus attribute responsibility to the firm rather than the frontline robot. Interestingly, the perceived stability of the performance is greater when the service is conducted by a robot than by an employee. This implies that customers expect employees to shape up after a poor service encounter but expect little improvement in robots’ performance over time.

Practical implications

Robots are perceived to be more representative of a firm than employees. To avoid harmful customer attributions, service providers should clearly communicate to customers that frontline robots pack sophisticated analytical, rather than simple mechanical, artificial intelligence technology that explicitly learns from service failures.

Originality/value

Customer responses to frontline robots have remained largely unexplored. This paper is the first to explore the attributions that customers make when they experience robots in the frontline.

AI feel you: customer experience assessment via chatbot interviews

Purpose

While customer experience (CE) is recognized as a critical determinant of business success, both academics and managers are yet to find a means to gain a comprehensive understanding of CE cost-effectively. The authors argue that the application of relevant AI technology could help address this challenge. Employing interactively prompted narrative storytelling, and the authors investigate the effectiveness of sentiment analysis (SA) on extracting valuable CE insights from primary qualitative data generated via chatbot interviews.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on a granular and semantically clear framework for studying CE feelings, an artificial intelligence (AI) augmented chatbot was designed. The chatbot interviewed a crowdsourced sample of consumers about their recalled service experience feelings. By combining free-text and closed-ended questions, the authors were able to compare extracted sentiment polarities against established measurement scales and empirically validate our novel approach.

Findings

The authors demonstrate that SA can effectively extract CE feelings from primary chatbot data. This findings also suggest that further enhancement in accuracy can be achieved via improvements in the interplay between the chatbot interviewer and SA extraction algorithms.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed customer-centric approach can help service companies to study and better understand CE feelings in a cost-effective and scalable manner. The AI-augmented chatbots can also help companies to foster immersive and engaging relationships with customers. This study focuses on feelings, warranting further research on AI's value in studying other CE elements.

Originality/value

The unique inquisitive role of AI-infused chatbots in conducting interviews and analyzing data in realtime, offers considerable potential for studying CE and other subjective constructs.

Half human, half machine – augmenting service employees with AI for interpersonal emotion regulation

Purpose

With the advent of increasingly sophisticated AI, the nature of work in the service frontline is changing. The next frontier is to go beyond replacing routine tasks and augmenting service employees with AI. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether service employees augmented with AI-based emotion recognition software are more effective in interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) and whether and how IER impacts their own affective well-being.

Design/methodology/approach

For the underlying study, an AI-based emotion recognition software was developed in order to assist service employees in managing customer emotions. A field study based on 2,459 call center service interactions assessed the effectiveness of the AI in augmenting service employees for IER and the immediate downstream consequences for well-being relevant outcomes.

Findings

Augmenting service employees with AI significantly improved their IER activities. Employees in the AI (vs control) condition were significantly more effective in regulating customer emotions. IER goal attainment, in turn, mediated the effect on employee affective well-being. Perceived stress related to exposure to the AI augmentation acted as a competing mediator.

Practical implications

Service firms can benefit from state-of-the-art AI technology by focusing on its capacity to augment rather than merely replacing employees. Furthermore, signaling IER goal attainment with the help of technology may provide uplifting consequences for service employee affective well-being.

Originality/value

The present study is among the first to empirically test the introduction of an AI-fueled technology to augment service employees in handling customer emotions. This paper further complements the literature by investigating IER in a real-life setting and by uncovering goal attainment as a new mechanism underlying the effect of IER on the well-being of the sender.

After the revolution – new chances for service research in a digital world

Purpose

Digital media has revolutionized societies and changed forever how we do business. This paper aims to determine the current scope of service research in the area of digital media, identifying research gaps and introducing new research contributions to complement our knowledge of digital media.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on all service articles of the SERVSIG literature alert system from 2016 to 2019, a subset of digital media articles was identified and latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) text-mining methods were used on the abstracts and titles of the articles for topic modeling of the field. Dominant research topics were identified and depicted in a two-dimensional space.

Findings

The study identifies eight distinct topic areas of digital media in service research and shows their relationship to each other in a two-dimensional space. A clear tendency in service research towards taking primarily a customer (versus business perspective) of digital media can be observed. Further, for some journals, a trend towards specialization on particular topics could be detected.

Research limitations/implications

This article advocates for more digital media research with a stronger business perspective. Further, although particular new technologies are exciting to discuss, it seems that the importance of customer relationship topics in digital media is not reflected in the current digital media research as needed.

Originality/value

The article uses a quantitative–explorative approach to determine the current state of research in regard to digital media in services. The authors introduce 11 new studies that aim to close the knowledge gap in critical areas of digital media.

Human-like communication in conversational agents: a literature review and research agenda

Purpose

Conversational agents (chatbots, avatars and robots) are increasingly substituting human employees in service encounters. Their presence offers many potential benefits, but customers are reluctant to engage with them. A possible explanation is that conversational agents do not make optimal use of communicative behaviors that enhance relational outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to identify which human-like communicative behaviors used by conversational agents have positive effects on relational outcomes and which additional behaviors could be investigated in future research.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents a systematic review of 61 articles that investigated the effects of communicative behaviors used by conversational agents on relational outcomes. A taxonomy is created of all behaviors investigated in these studies, and a research agenda is constructed on the basis of an analysis of their effects and a comparison with the literature on human-to-human service encounters.

Findings

The communicative behaviors can be classified along two dimensions: modality (verbal, nonverbal, appearance) and footing (similarity, responsiveness). Regarding the research agenda, it is noteworthy that some categories of behaviors show mixed results and some behaviors that are effective in human-to-human interactions have not yet been investigated in conversational agents.

Practical implications

By identifying potentially effective communicative behaviors in conversational agents, this study assists managers in optimizing encounters between conversational agents and customers.

Originality/value

This is the first study that develops a taxonomy of communicative behaviors in conversational agents and uses it to identify avenues for future research.

From automats to algorithms: the automation of services using artificial intelligence

Purpose

The paper aims to fill this gap by positing a framework that considers the service automation decision as a matter of knowledge management: a choice between human resident and codified knowledge assets.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is a conceptual paper, grounded in the knowledge-based view.

Findings

The paper uses the information processing theory, which argues that the level of uncertainty in a process should dictate the type of knowledge deployed, as the contingency for the automation choice, and customer interaction uncertainty as the driver of that contingency. From these ideas, propositions are generated relating customer interaction uncertainty and service automation. Further implications for artificial intelligence (AI) are also explored.

Originality/value

The framework illuminates and informs the strategic choices regarding service automation, including the use of AI in professional services, a timely and highly important topic. It offers a valuable model for practitioners and contributes to the academic literature by pointing the way for future directions for scholarly research.

The impact of augmented reality on overall service satisfaction in elaborate servicescapes

Purpose

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to facilitate service provision and forms the basis for various smart services, such as augmented reality (AR) apps. The purpose of this study is to investigate the guiding help of an AR app in elaborate servicescapes, which typically constitute complex environments. The study examines how an AR guidance app impacts service evaluation.

Design/methodology/approach

This research conducted a field experiment during a trade fair. It employed a two-group between-subjects design (AR app vs traditional 2D map) in order to examine how guidance through complex environments affects overall service satisfaction. Hypotheses were tested through analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), moderated regression, and PROCESS.

Findings

The results reveal that an AR app compared to a traditional 2D map leads to significantly higher overall service satisfaction. This relationship is mediated by perceived complexity reduction. Moreover, perceived behavioral control acts as a moderator. Further, the usage of an AR app tends to improve customer loyalty.

Practical implications

Managers learn whether it is worthwhile to employ AR apps in elaborate service environments as well as how to implement them.

Originality/value

By conducting a field experiment and examining a concrete AI-based smart service (i.e. an AR app), this research adds to the AI literature, which has been mostly conceptual, and contributes to the underexamined field of elaborate servicescapes.

Customer contact in a digital world

Purpose

The customer contact approach to service has been at the core of service theory since the 1970s. It suggests that the potential operating efficiency of a service is inversely related to the extent of customer contact with the provider's operations and that various service design issues are dictated by the presence or absence of customer contact. The purpose of this article is to reevaluate the customer contact approach in light of advanced digital technologies.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors review the origins and history of the customer contact approach and show ways it has been refined in research literature. From that they demonstrate how the refined approach can be applied to contemporary conditions.

Findings

Recent advances in digital technologies have indeed required us to revise our conceptualization of customer contact. There is now a blurring between front-office and back-office operations. Emerging technologies are allowing customers to have high-contact experiences with low-contact efficiencies.

Research limitations/implications

Going forward, conceptualizations of customer contact are becoming increasingly complex and requiring increasingly complex models. Armed with self-service technologies, customers are able to permeate the “buffered core” of service businesses. Artificial intelligence and anthropomorphic devices have further blurred the distinction between front-office and back-office operations. Research will need to consider new forms of technology-enabled customer contact.

Practical implications

Customer contact is no longer limited to interpersonal interactions and the relationships between service providers and customers are increasingly complex. Customers may interact with automated service providers, or service providers may interact with customer technologies. New forms of customer contact may not involve humans at all, but instead involve technologies interacting with technologies.

Originality/value

The customer contact approach to service was one of the original models of service design. By revisiting and revising the model we bring it in-line with the realities of the contemporary service economy.