Artificial intelligence (AI) in service marketing: an avalanche of change is in the horizon

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to change the landscape of service marketing. Customer service is especially set for a radical change in the coming days. Recent advancements in Generative AI, which is large language models (LLMs) to produce more natural bot-based conversations in customer service, are ready to enhance the capabilities of service providers across industries (Martineau, 2017). Service-oriented sectors such as telecom, healthcare, aviation, hospitality, banking, finance, ridesharing and ed-tech to name a few are resorting to AI-based solutions to deal with repetitive service tasks with maximum efficiency and minimum error. Though there is concern over employment of the customer service personnel, new job opportunities are also on the horizon. Experts reckon that the juxtaposition of both humans and machines is quite possible to give customers the best possible experience and optimize the resources and capabilities of companies (Johri et.al., 2021). Certainly, companies that need to deal with a massive customer pool, want to stay ahead of the competitive game or have budget constraints and workforce shortages, can take advantage of the early development of AI to ensure the best possible customer experiences (Blake, 2023). This article mainly narrates how global buzzword AI is impacting service marketing in general and customer services in particular. Along with demand-side development in improving customer experience bolstered by AI to supply-side development in the emerging AIaaS (Artificial Intelligence as a Service) industry, this article elucidates scholarly contributions to AI-related academic and industry focused research endeavors in recent times. The changeover due to AI in the global economy and labor force (one of the major stakeholders in the service-based economy) is also illustrated in this quasi-bibliometric article.