An Investigation of the Technology-Infused Frontline Employee Service
(A2019-9869)

AUTHORS

Theresia Mennekes, University of Siegen; Tobias Roeding, University of Siegen; Gerhard Wagner, University of Siegen; Sascha Steinmann, University of Siegen; Hanna Schramm-Klein, University of Siegen

KEYWORDS

Retailing; Technological-infused Frontline Employee Service; POS

ABSTRACT

The growing multiplicity of technologies that can be used at the point of sale (POS) offers new avenues, creates new challenges for technology-infused frontline employee services and needs further empirical investigation. In particular, it is of interest how technology-infused frontline employee services affect the customer’s evaluation of the employee competences. Therefore, this research examines the effects of technology-infused frontline employee services in a traditional retail environment field study (Study 1, N=314). Building up on the findings, we replicate and extend the study with a specific focus on different perception across independent retailers and retail chain stores in an online experiment (Study 2, N=677). The results indicate that customers’ evaluation of frontline employee competences is negatively influenced when providing technology-infused frontline employee services at the POS in the case of independent retailers.