Permissibility vs. Feasibility: AI in service from a CX perspective
ISSN: 0887-6045
Article publication date: 14 December 2023
Issue publication date: 5 January 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide researchers and practitioners with a consumer-focused alternative for considering the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into services.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews and critiques the most popular frameworks for addressing AI in service. It offers an alternative approach, one grounded in social psychology and leveraging influential concepts from management and human–computer interaction.
Findings
The frameworks that dominate discourse on this topic (e.g. Huang and Rust, 2018) are fixated on assessing technology-determined feasibility rather than consumer-granted permissibility (CGP). Proposed is an alternative framework consisting of three barriers to CGP (experiential, motivational and definitional) and three responses (communicate, motivate and recreate).
Research limitations/implications
The implication of this research is that consistent with most modern marketing thought, researchers and practitioners should approach service design from the perspective of customer experience, and that the exercise of classifying service occupation tasks in terms of questionably conceived AI intelligences should be avoided.
Originality/value
Indicative of originality, this paper offers an approach to considering AI in services that is nearly the polar opposite of that widely advocated by e.g., Huang et al., (2019); Huang and Rust (2018, 2021a, 2021b, 2022b). Indicative of value is that their highly cited paradigm is optimized for predicting the rate at which AI will take over service tasks/occupations, a niche topic compared to the mainstream challenge of integrating AI into service offerings.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors used Grammarly and ChatGPT to copyedit this paper. How readers might feel about that is the issue this article is designed to address.
Citation
Giebelhausen, M. and Poehlman, T.A. (2024), "Permissibility vs. Feasibility: AI in service from a CX perspective", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 38 No. 1, pp. 87-102. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-06-2023-0210
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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