Is Artificial Intelligence Better than Manpower? The Effects of Different Types of Online Customer Services on Customer Purchase Intentions

Artificial intelligence has been widely applied to e-commerce and the online business service field. However, few studies have focused on studying the differences in the effects of types of customer service on customer purchase intentions. Based on service encounter theory and superposition theory, we designed two shopping experiments to capture customers’ thoughts and feelings, in order to explore the differences in the effects of three different types of online customer service (AI customer service, manual customer service, and human–machine collaboration customer service) on customer purchase intention, and analyses the superposition effect of human–machine collaboration customer service. The results show that the consumer’s perceived service quality positively influences the customer’s purchase intention, and plays a mediating role in the effect of different types of online customer service on customer purchase intention; the product type plays a moderating role in the relationship between online customer service and customer purchase intention, and human–machine collaboration customer service has a superposition effect. This study helped to deepen the understanding of AI developers and e-commerce platforms regarding the application of AI in online business service, and provides reference suggestions for the formulation of more perfect business service strategies.