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To help customers get quality feedback from the huge number of online reviews, online retailers attempt to generate evaluations from consumers of how helpful product reviews are. Drawing on signalling theory, this study proposes a comprehensive model to examine the influence of factors related to the reviewer (signaller), the review (signal) and the users (readers of the signal) on online review helpfulness via e‐commerce sites and apps. This study also includes the moderating role of product categories (goods/services) in the model. Data were collected from 466 Vietnamese respondents. Using a Smart Partial Lease Square 3.0, the outcomes indicate that online review information quality, online reviewer information credibility and two dimensions of receivers (e.g. users' attitudes towards information and information task‐fit) all have a significant influence on online review helpfulness; however, users' need for information has no impact on the helpfulness of online reviews. Interestingly, the product type (goods vs services) has a moderating effect between online review information quality/attitude towards information and online review helpfulness. This study contributes significantly to signalling theory and online review helpfulness by comprehensively incorporating three attributes that are paramount to online reviews: the review, the reviewer and the users. Additionally, the information is enriched by the investigation of the moderating effect of product categories (goods vs services) on the context of online review helpfulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research was conducted because there was a decrease in the number of customers of the Tirta Giri Nata Drinking Water Regional Public Company in Cirebon City during the 2021-2023 period. This research uses a qualitative method by collecting data through interviews, observation and documentation. This research uses public service theory which focuses on the five main service quality dimensions related to customer service by public water companies: Tangibles, responsiveness, reliability, assurance and empathy. This study uses an interactive model data analysis procedure, which begins with data collection and continues with data reduction, data visualization, and conclusion drawing as the final step. The results showed that the service quality of PERUMDA Tirta Giri Nata Cirebon City still did not meet the five main success indicators, namely reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangible. The conclusion of this study is that the quality of customer service at PERUMDA Tirta Giri Nata Cirebon City, especially in terms of administrative and technical complaint services, has not yet reached an optimal level. There are still shortcomings in fulfilling the expected dimensions and indicators of service quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In health insurance markets with regulated competition, regulators face the challenge of preventing risk selection. This paper provides a framework for analyzing the scope (i.e., potential actions by insurers and consumers) and incentives for risk selection in such markets. Our approach consists of three steps. First, we describe four types of risk selection: (a) selection by consumers in and out of the market, (b) selection by consumers between high- and low-value plans, (c) selection by insurers via plan design, and (d) selection by insurers via other channels such as marketing, customer service, and supplementary insurance. In a second step, we develop a conceptual framework of how regulation and features of health insurance markets affect the scope and incentives for risk selection along these four dimensions. In a third step, we use this framework to compare nine health insurance markets with regulated competition in Australia, Europe, Israel, and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modern language generation model ChatGPT, created by Open Artificial Intelligence (AI), is recognised for its capacity to comprehend context and produce pertinent content. This model is built on the transformer architecture, which enables it to process massive volumes of data and produce text that is both cohesive and illuminating. Service is a crucial component everywhere as it provides the basis for establishing client rapport and offering aid and support. In healthcare, the application of ChatGPT for patient service support has been one of the most significant advances in recent years. ChatGPT can help overcome language obstacles and improve patient satisfaction by facilitating communication with healthcare personnel and understanding of care. It can assist in enhancing the entire patient experience by offering personalised information and support to patients and making it more straightforward for them to communicate with healthcare professionals. Its goal can be to expedite and streamline service by promptly and accurately responding to customers. Businesses of all sizes increasingly use ChatGPT since it allows them to provide 24/7 customer support without requiring human contact. This paper briefly discusses ChatGPT and the need for better services. Various perspectives on improving customer and patient services through ChatGPT are discussed. The article also discussed the major key enablers of ChatGPT for refining customer and patient assistance. Further, the paper identifies and discusses the critical application areas of ChatGPT for customer and patient service. With its ability to handle several requests simultaneously, respond quickly and accurately to client questions, and gain knowledge from every interaction, ChatGPT is revolutionising customer and patient service. Its accessibility and compatibility with various communication channels make it a desirable solution for businesses looking to improve support. As technology advances, ChatGPT is positioned to become an essential tool for businesses wishing to provide speedy and customised service. Although ChatGPT may give convincing solutions, the chance of providing accurate and updated information poses a problem for its usage in service jobs that need accurate and up-to-date information. In future, various services will become better and more efficient due to ChatGPT and AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the impact of artificial intelligence-based chatbot technologies on enhancing communication and sales in the insurance sector. Topics discussed include the benefits of chatbots for customer service and sales support, challenges related to data privacy and user trust, and the role of anthropomorphism in improving customer engagement and satisfaction.

With the proliferation of the use of chatbots across industries, business-to-business (B2B) businesses have started using cognitive chatbots for improved customer service which signifies our research. By extending the Technology Acceptance Model and Information Systems Success Model, this study examines personalised contextual customer service using cognitive chatbot. A quantitative research method is applied to the primary data collected from 300 respondents of B2B businesses. The study contributes to the limited research on chatbots and suggests improvement in customer service. The findings provide evidence of high value by customers, particularly while checking for real-time information on reliability and accessibility of products/services. The automated answers to repetitive questions on the recurrent issues create a seamless experience for the customers. This research makes significant theoretical contributions by integrating two models into a simplified model in chatbot literature and manifest that trust affects the willingness to use the cognitive chatbot which drives automation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, U.S. advocates and funders have supported direct cash transfers for individuals and families as an efficient, immediate, and non‐paternalistic path to poverty alleviation. Open questions remain, however, about their implementation. We address these using data from debit card transactions, customer service call‐line logs, and in‐depth interviews from a randomized control study of a monthly unconditional cash gift delivered via debit card to mothers of young children living near the federal poverty line. Because much of the impact of the intervention occurs through mothers' decisions about how to allocate the Baby's First Years (BFY) money, we argue that implementation science must recognize the role of policy targets in implementing policy, not just in terms of policy outcomes but also policy implementation processes. Further, our analysis shows that mothers experience key aspects of the cash intervention's design as intended: they viewed the cash gift as unconditional and knew the money was reliable and would continue monthly, receiving the correct amount with few incidents. Delivering funds via debit card worked well, offering mothers flexibility in purchasing. We also illuminate how design features shaped mothers' experiences. First, although they knew it was unconditional, the social meaning of the BFY money to mothers—seen as "the baby's money"—shaped their engagement with and allocation of it. Second, low public visibility of mothers' receipt of this money limited the financial demands or requests from others, potentially facilitating more agency over and a greater ability to use the money as they chose, without claims from kin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the criteria for evaluating human–chatbot collaboration in customer service using the socio-technical systems theory. Interviews with 28 customer service managers, conversational designers, and human agents revealed their evaluation criteria diverged. Managers prioritized the chatbot's technical capabilities and preferred a standalone customer service chatbot, while conversational designers prioritized the social aspect, focusing on the chatbot as a support tool for human agents and customers. Human agents mainly evaluated the chatbot as a means to increase job satisfaction. These distinct criteria highlight the importance of an aligned approach in human–chatbot collaboration. To improve this collaboration, integrating the chatbot into customer data systems was suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the challenges that businesses have when it comes to adjusting to current circumstances and improving their door-to-door delivery processes, it has been observed that delivery agents are the primary cause of troubles. Ensuring reliable transportation of air-to-sea cargo on a global level continues to provide a significant and difficult obstacle. The absence of a formal contractual arrangement between worldwide air and sea freight intermediaries and their clients has resulted in the prompt settlement of various concerns, such as missing merchandise, shipment delays, and damaged goods. The current study used a quantitative research approach to examine three hypotheses by considering four variables: "Assurance," "Legal Risk," and "Informal Contract" as the independent variables, and "Delivery of package by agents" as the dependent variable. The results of the study demonstrate that all of the independent variables exerted a significant influence on the dependent variable. The study revealed that "assurance" and "perceived legal risk," exert a beneficial influence on the establishment of informal contracts between Malaysian international air and sea cargo-agents and their customers in the context of shipping. The variable of "assurance" has a notable influence on the "Delivery of package by agents". The findings also carry substantial significance for customers, as it offer valuable insights into the uncertainties and obstacles associated with the informal agreements between Malaysian international air and sea cargo agents and their customers pertaining to shipping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Telecommunications operators are tasked with enhancing service quality, reducing operational costs, and preserving customer privacy. This study presents an innovative application of large language models (LLMs) integrated with the LangChain technology framework, aimed at revolutionizing customer service in the telecom sector. The LangChain framework features a Knowledge Organizing Module and a Knowledge Search Module, both designed to refine customer support operations. The research develops an LLM‐based approach to improve the segmentation and organization of knowledge bases, tailored for the telecommunications industry. This approach ensures seamless integration with existing LLMs while preserving distinct knowledge domains, crucial for search accuracy. Additionally, the framework includes an advanced information security protocol with a robust filtering system that effectively excludes sensitive data from the model's outputs, enhancing data security. Empirical findings indicate that the ChatGLM2‐6B+LangChain model outperforms the baseline ChatGLM2, demonstrating heightened effectiveness in telecom‐specific tasks and outstripping even more sophisticated models like GPT‐4. The implementation of this LLM‐based framework within telecom customer service systems has significantly sharpened the precision of knowledge recommendations, as reflected by a dramatic increase in acceptance rates from 15% to 70%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The goal is to understand how organizations adapt to the requirements of digitalization and what actions they take to remain competitive in a dynamically changing environment. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on an analysis of data collected through a survey conducted in April and May 2023 among 303 respondents. Findings: An organization's agile practices in the e-commerce development process are closely related and mutually supportive. Strong correlations between different practices indicate that success in e-commerce depends on a comprehensive and integrated approach to the use of digital technologies, which enables organizations to respond effectively to changing market conditions and customer needs. Research limitations/implications: Limitations of the study include the potential lack of representativeness of the research sample, the reliance on self-assessment data, and the lack of long-term data. Further research may focus on expanding the research sample, conducting long-term studies, and exploring success factors in the implementation of agility. Practical implications: The article offers recommendations for companies on how to develop organizational culture, invest in training, adopt new technologies, and increase operational agility through agile practices to improve competitiveness and resilience in the digital age. Social implications: The importance of fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation in organisations is highlighted, which can contribute to economic growth and job creation in the digital economy. Originality/value: The article stands out for its comprehensive analysis of agile practices in the context of digitalization, combining a literature review with empirical research. Practical recommendations provide valuable guidance for companies seeking to effectively transform the challenges of digital transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Productivity is known as the result of comparing output with input. The greater the output with minimal input, the greater the profit for the company. As a mining service company, PT GSP must be able to provide equipment in accordance with the production target given by its customers. After analyzing the design process, the next problems are that the company will still insist on using all the tools available. The next problem is how to accommodate all the tools and maximize their performance. From periodic improvement that has been done, evaluation of the results was performed and it showed a significant development. The results of the improvement on the front loading area made the delay time of the loading equipment decrease significantly as a result of the improvement and increased the productivity of the equipment significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: With the great changes brought by information technology, there is also a challenge for the elderly's acceptance. This study aimed to determine the antecedents of elderly people's usage intention of financial artificial intelligent customer service (FAICS) and to examine the relationships between various factors and thus to help them better adapt to the digital age. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed method, including the qualitative and quantitative study, was utilized to explore answers of the research questions. As the qualitative study, the authors used semi-structured interviews and data coding to uncover the influencing factors. As the quantitative study, the authors collected data through questionnaires and tested hypotheses using structural equation modeling. Findings: The results of data analysis from interviews and questionnaires suggested that perceived anthropomorphism and virtual identity of elderly users have a positive impact on their perceived ease of use, and the perceived intelligence of elderly users positively influences their perceived ease of use, satisfaction and perceived usefulness. Additionally, the elderly's cognition age can moderate the effects of perceived usefulness and satisfaction on their usage intention of FAICS. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by taking the elderly group as the research participants and combining those influencing factors with technology acceptance model and information systems success model. The findings provide a basis for accelerating the promotion of FAICS and help address the problem that the elderly have difficulty adapting to a new technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition to Industry 4.0 means a new era in manufacturing with a new level of production automation, human-to-machine cooperation and product customization. It provides many benefits and opportunities to both enterprises and consumers and allows for principally new level of cooperation. At the same time, the complexity of business processes, large volume and the complex structure of data generated and processed by different Industry 4.0 technologies create serious challenges for Business Process Management. Process mining (PM) can tackle these challenges. PM is a relatively young discipline that is positioned between process-centric and data-centric approaches and focuses on discovering, conformance checking and enhancement of end-to-end business processes. Moreover, new types of PM deal with performance analysis, comparative analysis of several processes, making predictions and triggering improvement actions. This systematic literature review studies the applicability of PM in Industry 4.0 and the benefits that PM can provide to each of the four aspects of Industry 4.0: smart factories, smart products, new business models and new customer services. Approaches of PM proposed in the selected studies are analysed and classified according to two dimensions of the study: PM and Industry 4.0. The research gaps identified while performing the systematic literature review show possible directions for further research in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on observations, the processing of report card scores in MTs N 4 Kebumen is still manual, so a lot of time and energy is needed to carry out the task. In addition, the distribution of report cards is also still conventional because parents must come to school to take them; for this reason, a report card application is needed that can improve services to students quickly in terms of distributing report card scores while making it easier for teachers to fill in report cards. The purpose of this study is to design a web-based valueprocessing application. In designing this application, the author uses the stages of SDLC development with the Waterfall process model. The design of this web-based report card processing information system can improve the quality of report card processing in MTs N 4 Kebumen. The programming language that the author uses is PHP, and uses a MySQL database. The authors used black box testing to test the system's feasibility. The final result of this research is creating a web-based MTs N 4 Kebumen report card application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving fulfillment efficiency is critical for long-term sustainability of online grocery retailing. In this paper, we study reducing order fulfillment cost by order consolidation. Motivated by the observation that a significant percentage of buyers place multiple orders within a short time interval, we propose a scheme that attempts to consolidate such "multiorders" to reduce the number of parcels and hence, the shipping cost. At the same time, it cannot significantly disturb the existing order fulfillment process or undermine the customer service level. Successful execution of the scheme requires a prediction of multiorder probabilities and a control policy that selectively prioritizes order processing. For the prediction task, we formulate a binary classification problem and use machine-learning algorithms to predict in real time the probability of a multiorder. For the control task, our proposal is to hold arriving orders in a temporary order pool for potential consolidation and to determine the release timing by a dynamic program. The proposed solution is estimated to capture 92.8% of all the multiorders at the cost of holding the orders for about 20.3 minutes on average. This translates to more than 10 million U.S. dollars of order fulfillment cost saving annually. History: This paper was refereed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study explores the moderated mediation effect, wherein collective mindfulness attenuates the hypothesised relationship between customer incivility, service sabotage and psychological well-being and is supported by the conservation of resources (COR) theory. Design/methodology/approach: Multiwave and multisource data were collected from 315 frontline employees (FLEs) working in 32 Indian bank branches. Using HLM 7.00, the authors tested a multilevel model in which branch-level collective mindfulness moderated the association amongst individual-level customer incivility, psychological well-being and service sabotage. Findings: A higher level of collective mindfulness had a profound cross-level effect on the association between customer incivility and service sabotage through psychological well-being. Originality/value: Distinct from prior research that focussed on individuals' personal resources as a buffer against customer incivility, the authors' study identified branch-level collective mindfulness as a boundary condition that helps employees experiencing customer incivility decrease service sabotage. By uncovering a branch-level variable that reduces the negative impact of customer incivility on service sabotage, the authors' study offers valuable insights for banks to enhance customer service at their branches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is much research on coordinating the dual‐channel supply chain using the revenue‐sharing contract, it is unclear if there is a better mechanism design in the buy‐online‐and‐pickup‐in‐store (BOPS) mode. In this channel integration environment, the customer service provided by the bricks‐and‐mortar store is critical to the chain's success. Based on a stackable game model, we analyze the contract methods for the cases of revenue sharing and no revenue sharing, where the latter is classified into two types: All the credit goes to the offline or online channel. Focusing on improving consumer service and supply chain performance in the BOPS mode, we observe that revenue sharing is not necessarily the best contract type, while the non‐revenue‐sharing contract of a lump‐sum subsidy plus quantity discount can coordinate the supply chain. We also analyze the impacts of some endogenous parameters and derive the conditions for the equilibrium outcomes. We find that revenue sharing cannot effectively stimulate the offline channel to improve its service effort as the offline channel is more concerned about service cost sharing than revenue sharing. The results are similar to those of revenue allocation to the online or offline channel in the BOPS mode, but the conditions are slightly different. Conducting numerical studies to gain insights from the analytical findings, we find that the subsidy contract is better than the revenue‐sharing approach under various market conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent customer service avatars are widely used on online public welfare platforms. Interactions with intelligent customer service avatars may influence an individual's online giving behavior. Intelligent customer service avatars are characterized by both formal and behavioral realism dimensions. However, the existing literature focuses on exploring the impact of one of the dimensions of intelligent customer service avatars on individuals' online donation behavior, and less literature focuses on the joint impact of both dimensions of the avatars on individuals' online donation behavior. This paper explores the impact, mechanisms, and boundary conditions of two dimensions of intelligent customer service avatars on online donation behavior. The results of the study indicate that intelligent customer service avatars with high (vs. low) formal or behavioral realism positively influence individuals' online donation behavior, and that intelligent customer service avatars with high formal-high behavioral realism have the greatest positive impact on individuals' online donation behavior. Psychological closeness mediates the above effects. Importantly, the effect of intelligent customer service avatars on individuals' online donation behavior was more significant in the high (vs. low) attachment anxiety group. This study not only has important theoretical implications for the fields of avatar marketing, charitable giving, and consumer attachment style research, but also has important practical implications for promoting the future development and contextual use of intelligent customer service avatars in the charitable sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extensive study was conducted to enhance the prediction of customer turnover in an online retail and distribution organization. The study combines data from surveys, consumer comments, and financial records to uncover themes from textual assessments using state-of-the-art methodologies. Methods such as Dirichlet Multilayer Perceptron Mixing, Latent Dirichlet Allocation and Random Sampling fall within this category. In addition to its usage for assessing geographic data for location-based consumer segmentation, DBSCAN is a crucial tool for this investigation. Model development for churn prediction and root cause analysis makes use of logistic regression and extreme gradient boosting. The statistical and practical benefits of the proposed paradigm are shown via comparison to existing options. A model's predictive efficacy may be evaluated using the area under the curve or the lift metric. The research also introduces the concept of "Consumer-driven energy-efficient WSNs architecture for Personalization and contextualization in E-commerce Systems," which suggests using wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to collect data efficiently, provide customized service and provide context for online purchases. Overall, the research demonstrates the effectiveness of machine learning in harnessing consumer input for strategic decision-making, illuminating the potential of creative sensor network integration in enhancing e-commerce personalization and contextualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Branding recipes need upgrades by the trending fashions; as a valuable asset of the entity managing brands is a complex phenomenon. Therefore, it has gained an overpowering thirst to examine the integrated framework that provides insights into the customer-based brand equity model and the corporate ability associations. Based on the customer-based brand equity model this research identifies the relationship between customer-based brand equity model dimensions and corporate ability associations. A previously adapted survey instrument was distributed among general consumers of durable shopping goods in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa by employing a purposive sampling technique. The data was assessed through AMOS SPSS; confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were employed to examine the relationship between the customer-based brand equity model and corporate ability associations. The findings of the study support all six sets of hypotheses which revealed that brand equity dimensions impart a significant and positive impact on corporate ability associations. The current study contributes to the literature by developing an integrated model that combines all the constructs of the customer-based brand equity model and corporate ability associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the ubiquitous digitalization of everyday life and associated inequalities presupposes rich conceptualizations of the associated social dynamics. Accordingly, we investigate digital service domestication as a social dimension of people's lives, building on concepts that center users' everyday lives and agency. We adopt the perspective of people who find the use of digital services difficult and examine the hurdles they face when attempting access. Our data consists of semi-structured interviews with migrant women (N = 22) living in Finland, where most essential services are digitalized. The study highlights the societal boundedness of the participants' agency, which we maintain is a key dynamic of inequality. We classify digital services in four categories, interactive communication services; information, media, and entertainment services; private customer services, and public health and social welfare services. The first two are voluntary digital services that did not create insurmountable barriers for the participants, but enabled them to conduct action they valued. By contrast, essential private and public services require mastering more complicated service technologies, a foreign language, and complex contents. Our results highlight how diversity-blind essential digital services produce and reinforce inequalities. Our analysis emphasizes the need for researchers to consider the coercive dimensions of digitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding users' exact feelings and enhancing enterprise customer relationship management depend heavily on emotion and sentiment analysis in intelligent customer service conversations. However, the research that is currently available analyzes either emotion or sentiment. This paper proposes a multi-task ensemble model that can perform multiple tasks of emotion and sentiment analysis simultaneously. This ensemble model via a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) network develops three deep learning models based on convolutional neural network (CNN), long short-term memory (LSTM), and gated recurrent unit (GRU) for predicting intelligent customer service dialogue emotion and sentiment analysis, including "emotion classification and intensity", "valence and arousal for emotion", "valence and arousal for sentiment", and "3-class categorical classification for sentiment". The underlying problems cover two granularity analysis (i.e., coarse-grained and fine-grained) in the intelligent customer service domain. Experimental results suggest that the proposed multi-task ensemble model outperforms the single-task framework, and the method performs well in emotion and sentiment analysis tasks in intelligent service conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service organizations, particularly in the hospitality sector, are constantly under pressure to meet the ever-increasing and ever-changing expectations of the customers, in an innovative manner; making employee creativity a mainstream demand. Researchers and practitioners are pondering ways to frame employee creativity in the hospitality industry. This study aims to empirically investigate the role of positive affect in framing employee creativity in the hospitality industry. The broaden-andbuild theory was employed to explain the framework under study, examining relations between affective, cognitive, psychological, and social factors that may shape employee creativity in the hospitality industry. Data was collected from 391 employees, working in hotels and restaurants in Pakistan, on a structured survey, by using a purposive sampling approach. The PLSSEM approach was considered for data analysis. The findings show a positive relationship between positive affect and perspective-taking. The previously understudied relationship between perspective-taking and thriving at work was found significant. The relationship of perspective-taking with structural and relational social capital was also found significant. Supporting prior research, our results show that thriving at work and relational social capital lead to employee creativity. Interestingly, the relationship between structural social capital and employee creativity was insignificant. This study provides valuable insights for practitioners and hospitality managers to shape employee creativity by considering positive affect as a stimulator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influential roles of supervisor's leadership in the context of a small store are not studied and it is unclear how it affects the attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of frontline service employees. Drawing on the social exchange theory, the purpose of this study is three folds. First, this study aims to examine the role of supervisors' authentic leadership and supervisor ostracism on frontline service employees' perceived supervisor trust. Second, this study investigates the effects of frontline service employees' perceived supervisor trust on commitment to customer services and store affective commitment. Finally, the positive role of store affective commitment on frontline service employees' commitment to customer services is examined. A survey-based was used to collect 203 responses from frontline service employees of coffee shops in Korea. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) was conducted to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that a supervisor's authentic leadership is positively whereas supervisor ostracism is negatively associated with supervisor trust. Similarly, supervisor trust has a significant positive effect on the frontline service employee's commitment to customer services and store affective commitment. Finally, frontline service employees' store affective commitment has a significant positive effect on the commitment to customer services. This research offers practical implications for managers of frontline service employees, particularly in the selection, training, promotion, and socialization process of supervisors of small stores in general and in coffee shops in particular. Practitioners interested to increase frontline service employees' commitment to customer services and store affective commitment can leverage the findings of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Career stress is one of the most important and challenging risk factors among employees because of its vast effect on mental and physical health. This research was conducted with the aim to compare the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and bioenergy economy-based health improvement (BEHI) program on occupational stress and psychosomatic symptoms of distressed employees. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted using a pretest-posttest design. The targeted population of the study comprised all employees of the customer service management department of Telecommunications Company in Isfahan, Iran, in the year 2018. Purposeful sampling was employed, and 60 candidates exhibiting distress symptoms were randomly assigned to 3 groups (MBSR, BEHI, and control groups), each consisting of 20 individuals. Data collection was performed using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6; Kessler et al., 2003), Stressful Life Event (SLE) Questionnaire (Roohafza et al., 2011), Occupational Stress Questionnaire (Cousins et al., 2004), and Screening for Somatoform Symptoms-7 (SOMS-7) questionnaire (Ebrahimi et al., 2018). The experimental groups participated in the MBSR (Kabat-Zinn, 1990) and BEHI (Goli, 2022) program training sessions. The control group received no intervention. The data were assessed in SPSS software. Results: Both the BEHI program and MBSR therapy significantly decreased the occupational stress (F = 2.78) and psychosomatic symptoms (F = 3.63) of distressed employees (P < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental groups in the posttest (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Both programs could reduce the employees' distress on worksites and could be beneficial for healers to mitigate the psychosomatic manifestations of occupational stressors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's rapidly advancing digital era, service provider applications such as Grab have become an integral part of people's lives, especially in urban areas. Despite providing convenience in mobility and time efficiency, users of such applications often encounter challenges such as product non-compliance with what was promised, resulting in losses that require accountability from the business entities. In this context, Consumer Protection Law becomes crucial as the foundation for both parties in transactions. However, in reality, many consumers still struggle to obtain compensation for their losses, indicating the weak consumer protection, especially in electronic transactions, in Indonesia. This study aims to highlight the need for more effective protection for consumers so that their rights can be fulfilled. By analyzing regulations and business practices, this research aims to evaluate the level of existing protection and concludes that efforts to protect consumers need to be enhanced. The implication of this research is the need for collaborative efforts among the government, companies, and service platforms to improve consumer protection and enhance the quality of services and products offered to consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Retos, Revista de Ciencias Administrativas y Económicas is the property of Universidad Politecnica Salesiana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: The aim of the article is to analyze the operation of company X in the context of logistic customer service in practice. Design/methodology/approach: The idea of the work is to present the theoretical part of customer service and compare it to logistic customer service in practice. It also includes comparisons of practical solutions of company X to theoretical requirements. Findings: The research issue discussed in the article was a survey. Its purpose is to present customer service in Patrick's Day in company X. 81 people of different genders and age groups responded anonymously to the survey questions 15- >60 years. General knowledge of the logistics industry and responses from opinion makers were taken into account. The responses of the surveyed people were presented graphically along with their descriptions. Research limitations/implications: The practical part is intended to reflect the actual compliance of company X with the imposed rules. The Logistics Customer Service Principles were created to ensure a consistent and effective approach to customer service in the context of logistics. Practical implications: The type of customer service strategy depends on the specific goals and needs of a given business. The essence of logistic customer service is the effective management of the flow of products and services from the place of production to the place of consumption in order to meet customer needs. Logistics customer service covers many aspects, such as planning, controlling and monitoring the flow of goods, inventory management, transport, warehousing and coordination of activities between various links in the supply chain. Social implications: Customer service also means the ability to accept customer opinions and comments with an open mind. Customers should be able to express their opinions and complaints and then respond effectively. Originality/value: The article draws attention to the importance of a non-routine approach to the dynamics of opportunities. This is important for management as a scientific discipline, but also for managers, which indicates various possible development paths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to develop an empathetic and user-centric customer support service design model. Though service design has been a critical research focus for several decades, few studies focus on customer support services. As customer support gains importance as a source of competitive advantage in the present era, this paper aims to contribute to industry and academia by exploring the service design model. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopted a theories-in-use approach to elucidate mental models based on the industry's best practices. In-depth interviews with 62 professionals led to critical insights into customer service design development, supported by service-dominant logic and theory of mind principles. Findings: The ensuing insights led to a model that connects the antecedents and outcomes of empathetic and user-centric customer service design. The precursors include people, processes and technology, while the results are user experience, service trust and service advocacy. The model also emphasises the significance of the user's journey and the user service review in the overall service design. Research limitations/implications: The model developed through this study addresses the critical gap concerning the lack of service design research in customer support services. The key insights from this study contribute to the ongoing research endeavours towards transitioning customer support services from an operational unit to a strategic value-creating function. Future scholars may investigate the applicability of the empathetic user service design across cultures and industries. The new model must be customised using real-time data and analytics across user journey stages. Practical implications: The empathetic and user-centric design can elevate the customer service function as a significant contributor to the overall customer experience, loyalty and positive word of mouth. Practitioners can adopt the new model to provide superior customer service experiences. This original research was developed through crucial insights from interviews with senior industry professionals. Originality/value: This research is the original work developed through the key insights from the interview with senior industry professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanoid robots can serve as in‐store communication medium, providing functional as well as hedonic value. Previous studies have demonstrated their proficiency in providing functional value, such as guiding customers, advertising products, or carrying groceries. However, in a retailing context, engaging customers often requires more than meeting their basic functional needs. This study is the first to examine the potential of humanoid service robots (HSRs) in providing hedonic value as well, comparing their performance to that of more traditional in‐store media in entertaining customers. Based on media richness effectiveness theory, the role of robot voice is also investigated. An experimental field study was performed administering a fun quiz to passers‐by at an airport store considering three conditions (via tablet, robot with voice, or robot without voice). The results show that the quiz via a humanoid robot (as compared to via a tablet kiosk) provides customers more functional and hedonic value. While functional value favorably affects loyalty intentions mainly via enhanced store image, hedonic value has a direct and indirect effect mainly via store attitude. Adding voice to the HSR does not seem to provide significant added value. Data on actual purchase behavior also hint at superiority of the robot over a traditional tablet kiosk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence plays an important role in the field of personal computers. Right now personal computers are part of our lives, so AI should be used in all everyday tasks. Humans are great thinkers, but machines can be more effective at counting than humans. The machine cannot fully explain different conditions, but it can create a different type of connection between different salient points and features. Either way, there can be many benefits to establishing machine learning computing in our daily lives. Machine learning or machine learning is one of the subsets of artificial intelligence that enables systems to learn and improve automatically without explicit programming, and controlling the credit risk of real bank customers is one of these benefits that can help the monetary and banking system to improve conditions and reduce risk. Therefore, the use of machine learning to create an algorithm to manage credit risks is a topic addressed in this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luxury brands in various industries are one of the most attractive and profitable segments of the market, which, in addition to economic advantage, helps to develop the quality level of those products in the world by creating competition among luxury brands. Meanwhile, marketers and brand owners are constantly creating loyalty programs for their fanatical consumers. The purpose of this research is to identify the mental pattern of fanatical consumers towards luxury brands. The current research is of mixed exploratory type and was done using the Q method. The statistical population of this research is the customers of luxury watch brands. A sufficient number of statistical samples were asked based on theoretical saturation in a purposeful and accessible manner, six experts familiar with the subject were interviewed, and in a small part, 38 fanatical customers were interviewed to sort sample expressions into They were selected purposefully. The mental model of obsessive consumers included four types: devoted, deceitful, pleasure-seeking, and dysfunctional, which explained about 79% of the variance of the views. Fanatic and dedicated consumers were the dominant model of this research. Finally, implementation suggestions were presented for each of the mental patterns of fanatical consumers for the use of luxury brand owners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controllable Text Generation (CTG) aims to modify the output of a Language Model (LM) to meet specific constraints. For example, in a customer service conversation, responses from the agent should ideally be soothing and address the user's dissatisfaction or complaints. This imposes significant demands on controlling language model output. However, demerits exist among traditional methods. Promoting and fine-tuning language models exhibit the "hallucination" phenomenon and cannot guarantee complete adherence to constraints. Conditional language models (CLM), which map control codes into LM representations or latent space, require training the modified language models from scratch and a high amount of customized dataset is demanded. Decoding-time methods employ Bayesian Rules to modify the output of the LM or model constraints as a combination of energy functions and update the output along the low-energy direction. Both methods are confronted with the efficiency sampling problem. Moreover, there are no methods that consider the relation between constraints weights and the contexts, as is essential in actual applications such as customer service scenarios. To alleviate the problems mentioned above, we propose Controllable Text Generation with Generative Adversarial Networks (CTGGAN), which utilizes a language model with logits bias as the Generator to produce constrained text and employs the Discriminator with learnable constraint weight combinations to score and update the generation. We evaluate the method in the text completion task and Chinese customer service dialogues scenario, and our method shows superior performance in metrics such as PPL and Dist-3. In addition, CTGGAN also exhibits efficient decoding compared to other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Prior research examining cultural effects on customer service expectations has primarily used more generic Western cultural theory on an aggregate scale or with only a single variable to draw conclusions on a customer's underlying reasoning for buying a service. This study aims to focus on culturally distinct clusters within non-Western nations, specifically exploring within-cluster differences in service expectations within the Confucian Asia cluster. Design/methodology/approach: This study developed a measurement model of Chinese cultural values and service expectations, consisting of a three and five-factor structure, respectively. Data from a sample of 351 diners were analysed using SmartPLS software. The data was compared with similar studies within the Confucian Asia cluster to understand the culture effect on service expectations and within-cluster variations. Findings: The findings underscore the varying importance of cultural values in shaping customer service expectations, emphasizing their relative, rather than equal, significance. The study provides insights into potential within-group differences in customer service expectations within the same cultural cluster – without losing sight of the fundamental cultural heterogeneity of the Confucian culture. Practical implications: Managers should leverage the distinct cultural values of their operating country to gain insights into diverse customer groups, predict their behaviours and meet their needs and expectations. Originality/value: This study offers valuable insights to both service management scholars and practitioners by focusing on culturally distinct clusters of non-Western nations and exploring their effects on variation in service expectations within these clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]