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Cited by 289

The DOI matches its OpenAlex record; 51 of the 51 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Touch Versus Tech: When Technology Functions as a Barrier or a Benefit to Service Encounters

Open access
Michael D. Giebelhausen, Stacey G. Robinson, Nancy J. Sirianni, Michael K. Brady·2014·Journal of Marketing
DOI 10.1509/jm.12.0056
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Abstract

Interpersonal exchanges between customers and frontline service employees increasingly involve the use of technology, such as point-of-sale terminals, tablets, and kiosks. The present research draws on role and script theories to demonstrate that customer reactions to technology-infused service exchanges depend on the presence of employee rapport. When rapport is present during the exchange, the use of technology functions as an interpersonal barrier preventing the customer from responding in kind to employee rapport-building efforts, thereby decreasing service encounter evaluations. However, during service encounters in which employees are not engaging in rapport building, technology functions as an interpersonal barrier, enabling customers to retreat from the relatively unpleasant service interaction, thereby increasing service encounter evaluations. Two analyses using J.D. Power Guest Satisfaction Index data support the barrier and beneficial effects of technology use during service encounters with and without rapport, respectively. A follow-up experiment replicates this data pattern and identifies psychological discomfort as a key process that governs the effect. For managers, the results demonstrate the inherent incompatibility of initiatives designed to encourage employee–customer rapport with those that introduce technology into frontline service exchanges.

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OpenAlex · 10.1509/jm.12.0056

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Metadata

Authors
Giebelhausen, M. D., Robinson, S. G., Sirianni, N. J., & Brady, M. K.
Venue
Journal of Marketing
Publisher
SAGE Publishing
Published
2014-04-14
Volume
78
Issue
4
Pages
113-124
ISSN
0022-2429 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1509/jm.12.0056
OpenAlex
W2083870950
Cited by
289
References
51
FWCI
34.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Touch Versus Tech: When Technology Functions as a Barrier or a Benefit to Service Encounters. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1509/jm.12.0056
The paper
Giebelhausen, M. D., Robinson, S. G., Sirianni, N. J., & Brady, M. K. (2014). Touch Versus Tech: When Technology Functions as a Barrier or a Benefit to Service Encounters. Journal of Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.12.0056

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.