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The purpose of this study is to investigate how the implementation of digital interfaces into service encounters is transforming demands toward frontline service employees. In addition to having the potential to enhance employee–customer interactions, changes related to new technologies can be perceived as stressful by employees and might foster deviation from prescribed processes.

Using the transactional theory of stress and coping as a theoretical framework, this paper aims to develop and test a research model to investigate the influence of technology-induced role ambiguity on constructive and destructive process deviance. Data were collected via an online survey of 123 frontline service employees in restaurants that have online reservation systems in use.

The results confirm that employee resistance to change fosters role ambiguity, while self-efficacy reduces the latter. Technology-induced role ambiguity leads to both constructive and destructive process deviance.

By revealing the above relationships, this study contributes to research in services marketing by examining two types of employees’ deviance from customer-facing processes.

An increasing number of retailers is trying to stimulate customers by embedding augmented reality (AR) features such as video try-on into the online shopping experience. As such AR-based online services require customers to actively participate in the service provision, this paper aims at investigating fairness perceptions and customer responses associated with AR-enabled customer participation.

The conceptual framework of this study is based on equity theory. To compare customer responses after an in-store service encounter as opposed to AR-enabled customer participation involving video try-on, this study contains a between-subject online experiment. The effective sample comprises N = 215 participants.

The data analysis demonstrates that AR-enabled customer participation leads to significantly lower levels of distributive, procedural and price fairness as well as lower engagement intentions than in-store service encounters. Simultaneously, participants in the video try-on scenario report higher negative word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions than in the in-store scenario.

The extra mile customers go when using AR-based online services is reflected in less favorable fairness evaluations.

Service managers should design AR applications in a manner that requires minimum customer participation.

This study contributes to service research by linking AR-enabled customer participation to evaluations of distributive, procedural and price fairness and their outcomes. This is vital to fully exploit the potential of AR in services.