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This study aims to examine the interaction effects of chatbots’ language style and customers’ decision-making journey stage on customer’s service encounter satisfaction and the mediating role of customer perception of emotional support and informational support using the construal level theory and social support theory as conceptual frameworks.

This study used a scenario-based experiment with a 2 (chatbot’s language style: abstract language vs concrete language) × 2 (decision-making journey stage: informational stage vs transactional stage) between-subjects design.

Findings show that during the informational stage, chatbots that use abstract language style exert a strong influence on service encounter satisfaction through emotional support. During the transactional stage, chatbots that use concrete language style exert a strong impact on service encounter satisfaction through informational support.

Findings provide some suggestions for improving customer–chatbot interaction quality during online service encounters.

This study offers a novel perspective on customer interaction experience with chatbots by investigating the chatbot’s language styles at different decision-making journey stages.

Using the analogy of “If you build it, they will come” from the movie Field of Dreams, this study aims to draw on relational signaling and commitment–trust theories to examine the role of different types of trust (cognitive, affective and relational) in the relationship between relational-encounter quality and customer loyalty to service employees and to the organization in the case of an integrated casino resort. The study confirms that building it (trust), they (customers) will come to the casino exhibited in their loyalty to casino hosts and their affiliated casinos.

The study was conducted with very important person (VIP) customers who have a designated VIP host to provide them with personal services at an integrated casino resort in Macau. The questionnaire was distributed to the respondents by VIP hosts using WeChat and Tencent QQ.

The study shows that different types of trust (cognitive, affective and relational) play a significant mediation role in the relationship between relational-encounter quality and the customers’ loyalty to the hosts and their affiliated casinos.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the roles of different types of trust (cognitive, affective and relational) in the relational encounter between casino hosts and VIP customers and provides insights into the link between service employees and their firm through the nurturing of the service encounter with the firm’s key accounts.

Service research offering a view of both the dark and bright sides of smart technology remains scarce. This paper embraces a critical perspective and examines the conflicting outcomes of smart services on the customer experience (CX), with a specific focus on chatbots.

This study uses empirical research methods to examine a single case study where an online retail service provider implemented a chatbot for customer service. Using discourse analysis, we analysed 7,167 conversations between customers and the chatbot over a two-year period.

The analysis identifies seven general themes related to the effects of the chatbot on CX: interaction quality, information gathering, procedure literacy, task achievement, digital trust, shopping stress and shopping journey. We illuminate both positive (i.e. having a pleasant interaction, providing information, knowing procedures, improving tasks, increasing trust, reducing stress and completing the journey) and negative outcomes (i.e. having an unpleasant interaction, increasing confusion, ignoring procedures, worsening tasks, reducing trust, increasing stress and abandoning the journey).

The paper develops a comprehensive framework to offer a clearer view of chatbots as smart services in customer care. It delves into the conflicting effects of chatbots on CX by examining them through relational, cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions.

While the importance of human touch for maintaining a tech–touch balance has been stressed, little knowledge exists regarding how such human elements should be incorporated in service settings dominated by technologies. This study aims to examine the outcomes of human touch levels across different travel stages in a hotel stay context.

Data were collected through a survey on 900 participants. Latent class analysis was first conducted to categorize the sample into groups based on human touch levels. Hypotheses were then tested using regression-based moderation analysis with the PROCESS macro for SPSS.

Human touch level negatively predicts perceived risk, which is negatively associated with satisfaction. These effects are particularly significant at check-in and check-out stages. Informational privacy significantly moderates the effect of human touch level on perceived risk. Such interaction effects were spotted at the booking and check-out stages.

This study contributes to theory by revealing the role of human touch elements in technology-driven service scenarios and provides practical guidelines for hotels on sharpening service experience by integrating human touch and technology elements.

Through integrating the service encounter framework and concept of customer touchpoints, this study takes a different approach that integrates both “tech” and “touch” by investigating the effects of customer-owned touchpoints in each core stage of a hotel stay journey.

The involvement of clients in service encounters and service development has become a central principle for contemporary health and social care organizations. However, in day-to-day work settings, the shift toward client involvement is still in progress. We examined how health and social care professionals, together with clients and managers, co-develop their conceptions of client involvement and search for practical ways in which to implement these in organizational service processes.

The empirical case of this study was a developmental intervention, the client involvement workshop, conducted in a Finnish municipal social and welfare center. The cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) framework was used to analyze the development of client involvement ideas and the modes of interaction during the intervention.

Analysis of the collective discussion revealed that the conceptions of client involvement developed through two interconnected object-orientations: Enabling client involvement in service encounters and promoting client involvement in the service system. The predominant mode of interaction in the collective discussion was that of “coordination.” The clients' perspective and contributions were central aspects in the turning points from coordination to cooperation; professionals crossed organizational boundaries, and together with clients, constructed a new client involvement-based object. This suggests that client participation plays an important role in the development of services.

The CHAT-based examination of the modes of interaction clarifies the potential of co-developing client-involvement-based services and highlights the importance of clients' participation in co-development.

This paper aims to answer questions pertinent to whether or not services provided by smart hotels are really what customers are looking for, as well as to ascertain what are some unintended experiences guests may encounter. In essence, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first in the field to acknowledge the paradox of smart service.

This inquiry adopts a qualitative approach with data-driven from online customer reviews and semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis was undertaken to interpret review comments.

Results point to a new phenomenon, which is coined as the smartness paradox. In particular, customers on one hand enjoy an array of smart-infused experiences that jointly offer patrons a sense of a futuristic lifestyle. On the other hand, smart devices superimpose a number of hindrances that bring guests dismay and annoyance.

This investigation brings smart service failure to the fore to highlight several key failure themes that could jeopardize the entire operation with debased customers’ satisfaction and loyalty inclination.

The smartness-paradox framework used in the present inquiry entails both approach and avoidance consequences customers enact depending on their smart experiences.

Language and dialect, customs and service attitudes are just a few of the characteristics that make each culture unique. Consequently, the presence of people from different cultures during a service encounter may impact service quality, as what constitutes good service quality is perceived differently across cultures. As a country with a multicultural society, culturally diverse migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) play an increasingly important role in the Australian hospitality and accommodation sector. Within this regional context, this study aims to contribute to a more robust understanding of the influence of workforce cultural diversity on different aspects of front-desk accommodation service quality in the accommodation industry.

In this qualitative study, 31 semi-structured in-depth interviews with guests, front-desk staff and managers at service apartments in Western Australia were conducted, followed by validation interviews with five hospitality human resource management experts.

The results of the interviews suggest that cultural diversity of NESB staff affects several aspects of Australian accommodation front-desk services, including communication quality, staff-guest interaction and guest satisfaction. Findings point out that culturally diverse NESB front-desk staff may face cross-cultural communication barriers due to different foreign accents and the presence of local slang, improve guest-staff interaction and the overall guest experience in case of similar cultural backgrounds with guests and provide authentic representations of multiculturalism in Australia.

The study sheds new light on tourists’ shifting perceptions and expectations of authenticity, particularly in Australia, where cultural diversity has increased in prominence. Moreover, in the Australian accommodation service, many NESB employees who have learned American/British English have difficulty conversing with people with Australian accents, especially when Australian slang is also present.

本项定性研究针对西澳大利亚州服务公寓的客户、前台工作人员和经理进行了 31 次半结构化深度访谈, 随后对五位酒店人力资源管理专家进行了验证性访谈。

语言和方言、习俗和服务态度是能体现每种文化独特性的几个特征。因此, 在服务过程中人们文化背景的差异可能会影响服务质量, 因为不同文化对于良好服务质量的认知各不相同。澳大利亚作为一个多元文化社会的国家, 其酒店和住宿行业的发展愈发受到来自非英语背景（NESB）的多元文化移民的影响。因而, 本研究以澳大利亚为案例地有助于更深入地了解劳动力文化多样性对住宿行业前台住宿服务质量的多层面影响。

访谈结果表明, NESB 员工的文化多样性对于澳大利亚住宿前台服务的沟通质量、员工-宾客互动、以及宾客满意度等多方面都有影响。调查结果指出, 文化多元化的 NESB 前台工作人员：（1）可能由于不同的外国口音和当地俚语的存在而面临跨文化沟通障碍; （2） 接待相似文化背景的宾客时员工-宾客互动和整体宾客体验都会得到提升（3）代表澳大利亚多元文化的真实现状。

本研究为游客对原真性的看法和期望的转变提供了新的线索, 特别是在文化多样性日益突出的澳大利亚。此外, 在澳大利亚的住宿服务中, 许多学习过美式/英式英语的NESB员工很难与带有澳大利亚口音的宾客沟通, 更何况还需面对澳大利亚俚语。

El idioma y el dialecto, las costumbres y las actitudes de servicio son sólo algunas de las características que hacen que cada cultura sea única. En consecuencia, la presencia de personas de diferentes culturas durante un encuentro de servicio puede repercutir en la calidad del servicio, ya que lo que constituye una buena calidad de servicio se percibe de forma diferente en las distintas culturas. Como país con una sociedad multicultural, los inmigrantes culturalmente diversos de origen no angloparlante (NESB) desempeñan un papel cada vez más importante en el sector de la hostelería y el alojamiento en Australia. Dentro de este contexto regional, este estudio contribuye a una comprensión más sólida de la influencia de la diversidad cultural de la mano de obra en diferentes aspectos de la calidad del servicio de recepción en el sector del alojamiento.

En este estudio cualitativo se realizaron 31 entrevistas en profundidad semiestructuradas a huéspedes, personal de recepción y gerentes de apartamentos en Australia Occidental, seguidas de entrevistas de validación con cinco expertos en gestión de recursos humanos del sector de la hostelería.

Los resultados de las entrevistas sugieren que la diversidad cultural del personal de los NESB afecta a varios aspectos de los servicios de recepción de los alojamientos australianos, como la calidad de la comunicación, la interacción entre el personal y los huéspedes y la satisfacción de éstos. Los hallazgos señalan que el personal de recepción de los NESB culturalmente diverso puede (1) enfrentarse a barreras de comunicación intercultural debido a los diferentes acentos extranjeros y a la presencia de jerga local, (2) mejorar la interacción huésped-personal y la experiencia general del huésped en caso de tener antecedentes culturales similares con los huéspedes, y (3) proporcionar representaciones auténticas del multiculturalismo en Australia.

El estudio arroja nueva luz sobre las cambiantes percepciones y expectativas de autenticidad de los turistas, especialmente en Australia, donde la diversidad cultural ha cobrado mayor protagonismo. Además, en el servicio de alojamiento australiano, muchos empleados de NESB que han aprendido inglés americano/británico tienen dificultades para conversar con personas con acento australiano, sobre todo cuando también está presente la jerga australiana.

This paper is part of the Special Issue series Improving Life on Planet Earth – A Call to Action for Service Research to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This paper aims to provide the groundwork for Service Research Theme 2 – services that provide OPPORTUNITY for all humans. Service Research Theme 2 comprises SDG4, quality education; SDG5, gender equality; and SDG10, reduced inequalities and seeks to mobilize ServCollab’s aspirations to reduce human suffering, improve human well-being and enable well-becoming.

A scoping review appraising existing service research related to SDG4, SDG5 and SDG10 was conducted, establishing interlinkages, identifying patterns within each SDG and then assembling a research agenda for service researchers.

The scoping review identifies 18 patterns in service research (six patterns per SDG) pertaining to Service Research Theme 2. Common patterns among the SDG4, SDG5 and SDG10 included underrepresentation, consumer-centricity, the absence of explicit SDG linkages, the predominance of one theoretical anchor and the preference for quantitative studies, particularly surveys. Overall, the scoping review found that service research related to Service Research Theme 2 is patchy in that it is overdeveloped in some topics, methodologies and methods yet underdeveloped or silent in others.

The high-level research problem of Service Research Theme 2 is as follows: How have services provided OPPORTUNITY for all humans? This paper analyzes patterns in service research and, from these patterns, assembles a research agenda that sparks and guides further research.

This study aims to use emotions-as-social information theory to investigate how physical (customer perceived store atmosphere) and social servicescapes (customer information searching) influence the effects of employees’ positive affective displays on customer outcomes via customer positive moods and positive expectation disconfirmation.

This research included two studies, each using a distinct research design, to empirically test the proposed model. Study 1 involved 200 observational data points on objective purchase amounts from designer watch shops. In Study 2, data were collected from 230 customers in designer jewelry stores.

The results of path analyses revealed that: employee positive affective displays are positively associated with customer purchase outcomes; employee positive affective displays had positive indirect effects on customer purchase outcomes by enhancing customer positive moods and positive expectation disconfirmation; these positive indirect effects were strengthened when customers engaged in information search behaviors; and these positive indirect effects were attenuated when customers perceive store atmosphere as favorable, indicating a substitution effect of customer perceived store atmosphere.

Previous research has not thoroughly examined the role of the servicescape in moderating the effects of employees’ positive affective displays on customer purchase outcomes. This present study not only clarified the affective and cognitive mechanisms that link employees’ positive affective displays on purchase outcomes but also identified servicescape as a critical boundary condition of these effects.

Service robots present a new frontier in the provision of services, with far-reaching implications for customers and managers alike. The purpose of this chapter is to examine how service robots impact service providers' current marketing strategies. For this, the authors perform an integrative, nonsystematic review of international gray and academic literature to understand how both practitioners and academics perceive the impacts of the technology. Based on this analysis, the present work identifies three key themes that emerge from the current state of practitioner and academic research, namely (1) service robots demand new core business capabilities and competencies, (2) service robots offer new value propositions, and (3) service robots impact not only service providers' cost structures but also revenue streams. These insights are combined into the Service Robot Innovation Canvas, a visual tool for service providers to identify the impact of service robot implementations on a company's marketing strategy. In addition, based on the analyzed literature, the most pressing questions for researchers are laid out in a research agenda.