Examining the effects of AI contactless services on customer psychological safety, perceived value, and hospitality service quality during the COVID‐19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence (AI) contactless services thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, while their consequences remained unclear. Based on media equation theory and means-end chain theory, this study proposed a model explaining the effect of AI contactless services on customers’ psychological safety, perceived control, hedonic value, and service quality. Data were collected from hotel customers with an online panel survey and a site survey in Wuhan, China. Chi-square statistics indicated that there were no significant differences between the two datasets. A structural equation modeling analysis of the combined data (n=316) suggested that two dimensions of AI contactless services led to the examined customers’ psychological safety, which in turn positively influenced their hedonic value and service quality but negatively affected their perceived control. Additionally, customer psychological safety was found to mediate certain relationships between contactless service attributes and perceived value. The research findings contribute to AI service applications and influence theoretically and practically.

人工智能 (Al) 非接触式服务在COVID-19大流行期间蓬勃发展, 但其后果尚不清楚. 基于媒介方程理论和手段-目的链理论, ;本研究提出了一个模型来解释人工智能非接触服务对顾客心理安全、感知控制、享乐价值和服务质量的影响. 数据是通过在线小组调查和中国武汉的现场调查从酒店顾客那里收集的. 卡方检验表明两组数据之间无显著性差异. 对组合数据(n=316)的结构方程模型分析表明，人工智能非接触式服务的两个维度导致了被调查顾客的心理安全，这反过来对他们的享乐价值和服务质量产生积极影响，但对他们的感知控制产生消极影响. 此外，顾客心理安全在非接触式服务属性与知觉价值之间具有中介作用. 本文的研究成果对人工智能服务的应用具有重要的理论和实践意义.

KEYWORDS:

• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• contactless services
• psychological safety
• perceived control
• hedonic value
• hospitality service quality

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (NSSFC) under Grant No. 19CGL031.