How does AI agent (vs. IVR system) service failure impact customer purchase behavior: mediating effect of customer involvement

Bin Li, Yufei Chang, Luning Liu, Haijia Liu and Jie Sun

The Service Industries Journal, 2025, vol. 45, issue 7-8, 702-720

Abstract: In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) agents in customer service has become a prominent area of study, focusing on their influence over consumer behavior. However, there is a noticeable gap in the current literature regarding AI agent service failures during product information consultations and their effects on customer purchase behavior. The present study, grounded in attribution theory, investigates the effects of various types of self-service failures in both Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems and AI agents on customer involvement and subsequent purchase behavior. The findings indicate that customers experiencing service failures with AI agents during the consultation stage are more inclined to make purchase behavior after human-led recovery compared to those encountering IVR system failures. Additionally, customer involvement is found to play a pivotal role as a mediator between types of service failures and purchase behavior. The results of this work may offer valuable theoretical and practical insights.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02642069.2024.2344113 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:servic:v:45:y:2025:i:7-8:p:702-720

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FSIJ20

DOI: 10.1080/02642069.2024.2344113

Access Statistics for this article

The Service Industries Journal is currently edited by Eileen Bridges, Professor Domingo Ribeiro, Ronald Goldsmith, Barry Howcroft and Youjae Yi

More articles in The Service Industries Journal from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().