David Leiño Calleja, Jeroen Schepers and Edwin J. Nijssen
The impact of frontline robots (FLRs) on customer orientation perceptions remains unclear. This is remarkable because customers may associate FLRs with standardization and…
Abstract
Purpose
The impact of frontline robots (FLRs) on customer orientation perceptions remains unclear. This is remarkable because customers may associate FLRs with standardization and cost-cutting, such that they may not fit firms that aim to be customer oriented.
Design/methodology/approach
In four experiments, data are collected from customers interacting with frontline employees (FLEs) and FLRs in different settings.
Findings
FLEs are perceived as more customer-oriented than FLRs due to higher competence and warmth evaluations. A relational interaction style attenuates the difference in perceived competence between FLRs and FLEs. These agents are also perceived as more similar in competence and warmth when FLRs participate in the customer journey's information and negotiation stages. Switching from FLE to FLR in the journey harms FLR evaluations.
Practical implications
The authors recommend firms to place FLRs only in the negotiation stage or in both the information and negotiation stages of the customer journey. Still then customers should not transition from employees to robots (vice versa does no harm). Firms should ensure that FLRs utilize a relational style when interacting with customers for optimal effects.
Originality/value
The authors bridge the FLR and sales/marketing literature by drawing on social cognition theory. The authors also identify the product categories for which customers are willing to negotiate with an FLR. Broadly speaking, this study’s findings underline that customers perceive robots as having agency (i.e. the mental capacity for acting with intentionality) and, just as humans, can be customer-oriented.
Details
Keywords
Elyria Angela Kemp, Kim Williams, Dong-Jun Min and Han Chen
The purpose of this paper is to examine the psychological influence that the presence of music has on consumers’ evaluations of the service environment. Specifically, it…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the psychological influence that the presence of music has on consumers’ evaluations of the service environment. Specifically, it investigates how emotion regulation processes and the impact of emotions/mood are linked to consumers’ evaluation of service and product quality.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory study was conducted using industry professionals in order to garner insight about the value of music and its benefits in the service environment. A field experiment was then conducted to test hypotheses.
Findings
Industry professionals offer implicit theories about the value of music. Specifically, they propose that music can be used to help customers regulate emotions and improve mood, enhance the customer experience and help in attracting new consumer segments. Results from the field experiment found that those exposed to music were likely to improve mood, express more favorable evaluations of the service and product quality of the establishment, as well as exhibit stronger intentions to continue to patronize the establishment.
Practical implications
Using live music in the service environment can be beneficial to organizations by improving customers’ emotional/psychological status as well as their evaluation of the consumption experience.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating how emotion regulation processes and the impact of emotions/mood are linked to consumers’ evaluation of service and product quality. Also, support for mood congruency judgment is found. Participants in the field study who had been exposed to music indicated that they made efforts to improve their mood and subsequently had more favorable judgments of service and product quality.
Details
Keywords
This paper explores how actors engage in the situated learning of resource integration (RI) within value cocreation practices (VCPs). VCPs are collectively shared and organized…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores how actors engage in the situated learning of resource integration (RI) within value cocreation practices (VCPs). VCPs are collectively shared and organized routine activities that actors perform to cocreate value.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on a qualitative study of how successful music actors engage in VCPs and learn RI. Interviews and observations were used to collect data that were analyzed by drawing on the Gioia methodology.
Findings
The findings illuminate the types of VCPs actors engage in to learn RI, the ways in which actors learn RI by engaging in VCPs, and how social contexts condition actors' learning of RI.
Research limitations/implications
This paper offers a framework for understanding actors' situated learning of RI by engaging in VCPs. It illuminates the VCPs that actors engage in to learn RI, how actors advance from peripheral to core participation through their learning, the ways in which actors learn RI by engaging in VCPs, and how social contexts condition actors' situated learning of RI. Implications for the scarce prior research on how actors learn RI are presented.
Practical implications
To contribute to innovative solutions and sustainable growth, managers and policymakers need to offer actors opportunities to learn and make space for actors with competencies that may be important and needed in future VCPs.
Originality/value
In focusing on how actors learn RI by engaging in VCPs, this study draws on theories of communities of practices and situated learning, as well as practice theoretical service research.