Abstract
Despite a rising interest in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, research in services marketing has not evaluated its role in helping firms learn about customers’ needs and increasing the adaptability of service employees. Therefore, the authors develop a conceptual framework and investigate whether and to what extent providing AI assistance to service employees improves service outcomes. The randomized controlled trial in the context of tutoring services shows that helping service employees (tutors) adapt to students’ learning needs by providing AI-generated diagnoses significantly improves service outcomes measured by academic performance. However, the authors find that some tutors may not utilize AI assistance (i.e., AI aversion), and factors associated with unforeseen barriers to usage (i.e., technology overload) can moderate its impact on outcomes. Interestingly, tutors who significantly contribute to the firm's revenue relied heavily on AI assistance but unexpectedly benefited little from AI in improving service outcomes. Given the wide applicability of AI assistance in a variety of services marketing contexts, the authors suggest that firms should consider the potential difficulties employees face in using the technology rather than encourage them to use it as it is.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 79-96 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | Journal of Marketing Research |
Volume | 59 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 Feb |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the 111 Project of China (No. B18026) awarded to the first author and by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2021R1A6A1A14045741 and NRF-2018S1A5A2A03037147) awarded to the second and the third authors, respectively.
Publisher Copyright:
© American Marketing Association 2021.
Keywords
- AI aversion
- artificial intelligence
- field experiment
- one-on-one tutoring services
- technology overload
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Business and International Management
- Economics and Econometrics
- Marketing