Personal touch in digital customer service: a conceptual framework of relational personalization for conversational AI

IF 3.9 3区管理学 Q2 BUSINESS

Journal of Service Theory and Practice Pub Date : 2023-10-16 DOI:10.1108/jstp-03-2023-0098

Jan Hendrik Blümel, Mohamed Zaki, Thomas Bohné

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Purpose Customer service conversations are becoming increasingly digital and automated, leaving service encounters impersonal. The purpose of this paper is to identify how customer service agents and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) applications can provide a personal touch and improve the customer experience in customer service. The authors offer a conceptual framework delineating how text-based customer service communication should be designed to increase relational personalization. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a systematic literature review on conversation styles of conversational AI and integrates the extant research to inform the development of the proposed conceptual framework. Using social information processing theory as a theoretical lens, the authors extend the concept of relational personalization for text-based customer service communication. Findings The conceptual framework identifies conversation styles, whose degree of expression needs to be personalized to provide a personal touch and improve the customer experience in service. The personalization of these conversation styles depends on available psychological and individual customer knowledge, contextual factors such as the interaction and service type, as well as the freedom of communication the conversational AI or customer service agent has. Originality/value The article is the first to conduct a systematic literature review on conversation styles of conversational AI in customer service and to conceptualize critical elements of text-based customer service communication required to provide a personal touch with conversational AI. Furthermore, the authors provide managerial implications to advance customer service conversations with three types of conversational AI applications used in collaboration with customer service agents, namely conversational analytics, conversational coaching and chatbots.

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数字客户服务中的个人接触:对话式人工智能关系个性化的概念框架

客户服务对话正变得越来越数字化和自动化，使得服务遭遇变得没有人情味。本文的目的是确定客户服务代理和会话人工智能(AI)应用程序如何提供个性化的触摸并改善客户服务中的客户体验。作者提供了一个概念框架，描述了如何设计基于文本的客户服务沟通，以增加关系个性化。本文对对话式人工智能的对话风格进行了系统的文献综述，并整合了现有的研究，为提出的概念框架的发展提供了信息。以社会信息加工理论为理论视角，将关系个性化的概念扩展到基于文本的客户服务沟通中。概念框架确定了会话风格，其表达程度需要个性化，以提供个性化的触摸和改善客户的服务体验。这些会话风格的个性化取决于可用的心理和个人客户知识、交互和服务类型等上下文因素，以及会话人工智能或客户服务代理的沟通自由。原创性/价值本文首次对会话式人工智能在客户服务中的会话风格进行了系统的文献综述，并对基于文本的客户服务沟通的关键要素进行了概念化，这些要素需要提供与会话式人工智能的个人接触。此外，作者还提供了与客户服务代理合作使用的三种类型的会话AI应用程序(即会话分析、会话指导和聊天机器人)来推进客户服务对话的管理含义。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Service Theory and Practice Multiple-

CiteScore

8.00

自引率

15.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Formerly known as Managing Service Quality – Impact Factor: 1.286 (2015) – the Journal of Service Theory and Practice (JSTP) aims to publish research in the field of service management that not only makes a theoretical contribution to the service literature, but also scrutinizes and helps improve industry practices by offering specific recommendations and action plans to practitioners. Recognizing the importance of the service sector across the globe, the journal encourages submissions from and/or studying issues from around the world. JSTP gives prominence to research based on real world data, be it quantitative or qualitative. The journal also encourages the submission of strong conceptual and theoretical papers that make a substantive contribution to the scholarly literature in service management. JSTP publishes double-blind peer reviewed papers and encourages submissions from both academics and practitioners. The changing social structures and values, as well as new developments in economic, political, and technological fields are creating sea-changes in the philosophy, strategic aims, operational practices, and structures of many organizations. These changes are particularly relevant to the service sector, as public demand for high standards increases, and organizations fight for both market share and public credibility. The journal specifically addresses solutions to these challenges from a global, multi-cultural, and multi-disciplinary perspective.