The feeling skills gap: the role of empathy in voice-driven AI for service recovery

IF 9.8 1区管理学 Q1 BUSINESS

Journal of Business Research Pub Date : 2025-09-25 DOI:10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115703

Mariana Girão Carrilho , Rafael Wagner , Diego Costa Pinto , Hector Gonzalez-Jimenez , Khaoula Akdim

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

As companies increasingly deploy voice-driven AI to enhance service efficiency, its impact on perceived customer orientation remains underexplored. Drawing on AI Constraints and Feeling Economy perspectives, this research examines when and how voice AI affects perceptions of customer orientation in service recovery. Results show that customers perceive providers as less customer-oriented when recovery is handled by AI (vs. humans), due to AI’s tendency to reduce emotions into quantifiable parameters (parametric reductionism) and fail to convey empathy. Mediation analyses confirm that perceived empathy explains the link between agent type and service outcomes. We identify a boundary condition: the negative effect of voice AI emerges only when there is a task–ability mismatch, in which the task requires feeling skills that the AI cannot convincingly deliver, but not when the task calls for thinking skills, for which AI’s capabilities are aligned with task demands. We further discuss implications for AI in service recovery.

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情感技能差距：同理心在语音驱动的服务恢复人工智能中的作用

随着企业越来越多地部署语音驱动的人工智能来提高服务效率，它对感知客户导向的影响仍未得到充分探索。利用人工智能约束和感觉经济的观点，本研究探讨了语音人工智能何时以及如何影响服务恢复中客户导向的看法。结果表明，当人工智能处理恢复时（与人类相比），客户认为供应商不那么以客户为导向，因为人工智能倾向于将情绪减少为可量化的参数（参数化约），并且无法传达同理心。中介分析证实，感知共情解释了代理类型和服务结果之间的联系。我们确定了一个边界条件：语音AI的负面影响只有在任务与能力不匹配时才会出现，在这种情况下，任务需要人工智能无法令人信服地提供的感觉技能，但当任务需要思考技能时，人工智能的能力与任务需求相一致。我们进一步讨论了人工智能在服务恢复中的影响。

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 Business Research BUSINESS-

CiteScore

20.30

自引率

10.60%

发文量

956

期刊介绍： The Journal of Business Research aims to publish research that is rigorous, relevant, and potentially impactful. It examines a wide variety of business decision contexts, processes, and activities, developing insights that are meaningful for theory, practice, and/or society at large. The research is intended to generate meaningful debates in academia and practice, that are thought provoking and have the potential to make a difference to conceptual thinking and/or practice. The Journal is published for a broad range of stakeholders, including scholars, researchers, executives, and policy makers. It aids the application of its research to practical situations and theoretical findings to the reality of the business world as well as to society. The Journal is abstracted and indexed in several databases, including Social Sciences Citation Index, ANBAR, Current Contents, Management Contents, Management Literature in Brief, PsycINFO, Information Service, RePEc, Academic Journal Guide, ABI/Inform, INSPEC, etc.