Impact of the requirement to wear face coverings for hospitality and retail businesses

Earlier this week, the government announced a new set of measures to contain the rise of Covid-19 cases in England. This included the requirement for face coverings (masks or visors) to be worn in a variety of settings. From the Gov.uk website: Customers in private hire vehicles and taxis must wear face coverings (from 23 September).Customers in … Continue reading Impact of the requirement to wear face coverings for hospitality and retail businesses

Slides from “Coping with chatbot service failure” talk

Here are the slides from my (online) talk at BML Munjal University, earlier this month. This talk draws on my work on identifying how artificial intelligence can destroy business value, and specifically the empirical work developed my doctoral student Daniela Castillo (paper here; discussion here and here). The talk was followed by a Q&A, where participants … Continue reading Slides from “Coping with chatbot service failure” talk

Small service failures, customer dissatisfaction and defection

Big service failures are bad news for business. They make for unhappy customers; they tend to result in complaints; and they may represent additional cost. If the company has really messed up and/or if the customers are very vocal, big failures may even get media’s attention, and lead to public embarrassment. But what about the … Continue reading Small service failures, customer dissatisfaction and defection

“Coping with chatbot service failure” webinar, 15th September, free

I am delivering a guest talk at BML Munjal University (India) on how customers react to failed service interactions with chatbots. Chatbots promise to deliver better customer experience through the collection and use of customer insight, and at a fraction of the cost of staff-based customer service. However, interactions with chatbots often fall below customer … Continue reading “Coping with chatbot service failure” webinar, 15th September, free

August 2020 round-up

August was a month in two halves. The first one was spent at home, in the UK, trying to squeeze in some relaxation in between meetings and other work commitments. The second one was spent in Portugal, trying to squeeze in meetings and other work commitments in between some relaxation. First half The number of … Continue reading August 2020 round-up

How inflated expectations can spoil a good experience

The kiddo has been keen to grow mushrooms at home. So, I followed Jennifer Ferreira’s lead, and ordered a growing kit from GroCycle. After placing my order, I got an e-mail confirming it, and promising to send me a notification when the order had been dispatched: The next day, the amount was deducted from my credit … Continue reading How inflated expectations can spoil a good experience

Planning a digital marketing campaign – Interview with @nelspoon

Last week I ran a session on Digital Marketing Campaigns, for the MBA class at City University Hong Kong. Nelson Jordan – a former student of mine who went on to pursue a very successful career in marketing - joined us as a guest speaker. We talked about his career, the range of clients he … Continue reading Planning a digital marketing campaign – Interview with @nelspoon

New paper: “Productive employment and decent work: The impact of AI adoption on psychological contracts, job engagement and employee trust”

Ashley Braganza, Weifeng Chen, Serap Sap and myself just had a paper published in the Journal of Business Research. The title of the paper is “Productive Employment and Decent Work: The Impact of AI Adoption on Psychological Contracts, Job Engagement and Employee Trust”. The paper examines the effect of the combined emerging work practices of gig work and AI-enabled work automation, … Continue reading New paper: “Productive employment and decent work: The impact of AI adoption on psychological contracts, job engagement and employee trust”

The A-level algorithm debacle shows us that algorithms + poor data = myths with a veneer of legitimacy

UK students due to sit exams this Spring (for instance, A-level exams, for entrance into University), saw their examinations cancelled, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the need to avoid group gatherings. Instead, as explained in the gov.uk website: “For each student, schools and colleges have provided a ‘centre assessment grade’ for each … Continue reading The A-level algorithm debacle shows us that algorithms + poor data = myths with a veneer of legitimacy