Digital Technology in Service Encounters: Effects on Frontline Employees and Customer Responses

Digital technology is disrupting the prerequisites for most firms in the service industry and frequently forces them to reassess the ratio of human interaction and technology use in service encounters. To retain competitiveness, it seems mandatory to increase service encounter efficiency by embedding digital technology into the existing processes. However, there is little empirical evidence on how such technological implementations affect the sentiments, attitudes, and behaviors of frontline employees. Likewise, research on interrelated customer responses is scarce. To address this matter, this book presents four distinct yet related studies to investigate the impact of digital technology on frontline employees, customers, and ultimately service firms. The results and implications provide meaningful insights for theory and practice.

About the author Sonja Christ-Brendemühl studied business administration at the University of Mannheim with a specialization in organization, marketing and psychology. After her studies, she was responsible for corporate communications at an international HR service provider. Since 2018, she has been teaching and researching at the Institute of Management at the University of Koblenz-Landau, focusing on the question of how frontline employees and customers deal with the increasing technology infusion in service encounters.