Building harmonious human–AI relationship through empathy in frontline service encounters: underlying mechanisms and journey stage differences
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
ISSN: 0959-6119
Article publication date: 25 November 2024
Issue publication date: 4 February 2025
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to deepen our understanding of how chatbots’ empathy influences humans–AI relationship in frontline service encounters. The authors investigate the underlying mechanisms, including perceived anthropomorphism, perceived intelligence and psychological empowerment, while also considering variations between different stages of the customer journey (before and after purchase).
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection was conducted through an online survey distributed among 301 customers who had experience using AI-based service chatbot in frontline service encounters in China. The hypotheses were examined through structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis.
Findings
The findings of this study revealed the positive impacts of emotional and cognitive empathy on humans–AI relationship through perceived anthropomorphism, perceived intelligence and psychological empowerment. Furthermore, this study verified the moderating effect of the customer journey stages, such that the impacts of anthropomorphism and intelligence on humans–AI relationship displayed more strength during the pre- and post-purchase phases, respectively.
Practical implications
This research offers practical implications for companies: recognize and enhance empathy dimensions in AI-based service chatbot to empower human–AI relationships; boost customer empowerment in human–AI interactions; and tailor anthropomorphic features in the pre-purchase stage and improve problem-solving capability in the post-purchase stage to enrich user experiences.
Originality/value
This study extends relationship marketing theory and human–AI interaction frameworks by investigating the underlying mechanisms of the effect of two-dimensional empathy on human–AI relationship. This study also enriches service design theories by revealing the moderating effect of customer journey stages.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Erratum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article Yang, B., Sun, Y. and Shen, X.L. (2024), “Building harmonious human–AI relationship through empathy in frontline service encounters: underlying mechanisms and journey stage differences”, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-05-2024-0676, was originally published with the Appendices presented in the article text. These have now been amended to supplementary material, hosted alongside the article.
The work described in this paper was partially supported by the grants from the Major Projects of the National Social Science Fund of China (project number 23ZDA044).
Citation
Yang, B., Sun, Y. and Shen, X.-L. (2025), "Building harmonious human–AI relationship through empathy in frontline service encounters: underlying mechanisms and journey stage differences", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 740-762. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-05-2024-0676
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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