Is Artificial Intelligence Better than Manpower? The Effects of Different Types of Online Customer Services on Customer Purchase Intentions

Min Qin, Wei Zhu, Shiyue Zhao and Yu Zhao
Additional contact information
Min Qin: Research Center of Management Science and Engineering, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Wei Zhu: Research Center of Management Science and Engineering, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Shiyue Zhao: School of Software, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
Yu Zhao: School of Software, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-18

Abstract: Artificial intelligence has been widely applied to e-commerce and the online business service field. However, few studies have focused on studying the differences in the effects of types of customer service on customer purchase intentions. Based on service encounter theory and superposition theory, we designed two shopping experiments to capture customers’ thoughts and feelings, in order to explore the differences in the effects of three different types of online customer service (AI customer service, manual customer service, and human–machine collaboration customer service) on customer purchase intention, and analyses the superposition effect of human–machine collaboration customer service. The results show that the consumer’s perceived service quality positively influences the customer’s purchase intention, and plays a mediating role in the effect of different types of online customer service on customer purchase intention; the product type plays a moderating role in the relationship between online customer service and customer purchase intention, and human–machine collaboration customer service has a superposition effect. This study helped to deepen the understanding of AI developers and e-commerce platforms regarding the application of AI in online business service, and provides reference suggestions for the formulation of more perfect business service strategies.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; service encounter theory; perceived service quality; superposition effect; customer purchase intention; e-commerce (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/7/3974/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/7/3974/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:7:p:3974-:d:781135

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().