Service Scripts Research Articles

Tipping privacy: The detrimental impact of observation on non-tip responses

Digital point-of-sale platforms disrupted the norm of privacy-while-tipping. Previous research indirectly suggests that firms can increase—or at least not decrease—tips by reducing tipping privacy. The effects of tipping privacy on non-tip responses, defined as customer responses subsequent to the tip selection, including repatronage and word-of-mouth, remain unexamined. Related voluntary payment contexts (e.g., donations) suggest consumers sometimes prefer public observability and other times prefer privacy. We examine how and why tipping privacy affects non-tip responses. A field study and four controlled experiments find that diminished tipping privacy reduces non-tip responses because customers feel less generous and in control. Allowing customers to change initial tip amounts mitigates these detrimental effects. Providing insight into the inconsistent effects of privacy on tips, we find that diminished perceived control increases tip amounts, while diminished perceived generosity reduces tips. Managers adopting privacy-reducing technologies and service scripts should consider the damaging effects on non-tip responses.

Organizational resiliency through practice innovation: forced brand evolution in a prolonged exogenous service ecosystem disruption

PurposeThis paper aims to explore practice innovation and organizational resiliency during exogenous service ecosystem disruptions. This inquiry focuses on the extreme disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which required service firms to recodify long-established service scripts, adapt digital and physical material elements of the service encounter and ultimately reconfigure a system of practices. The specific context is forced practice innovation in Starbucks servicescape (kiosks and coffeehouses). Starbucks is best known for its custom beverages and third-place strategy. Their strict adherence to a complex service script and unique ordering practices altered during pandemic stay-home disease prevention mandates.Design/methodology/approachThematic coding consistent with prior research on practice innovation and diffusion and a grounded theory methodology was conducted. Data were triangulated and analyzed within and across a variety of sources. These include field notes from direct observation, interviews, focus groups, firm-authored collateral in the form of marketing communications and third-party authored secondary sources such as news, social media, blogs and forums.FindingsData reveal how practice innovation occurs through the reconfiguration of a system of practices, which support organizational resiliency and can force brand evolution, in prolonged exogenous service ecosystem disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic required service industries to adapt and recodify service scripts and alter physical and digital elements of service encounters. While the pandemic affected all firms in the sector, we argue that Starbucks' established scripts and third-place strategies, which characterized the brand experience, were particularly vulnerable. We find that practice innovation occurs through the reconfiguration of practice elements – competences, meanings and materiality – and restructures the service encounter. Practice codification, transposition, adaptation and stabilization support organizational resiliency and brand evolution. We find that Starbucks' brand experience emphasis on the third place is reconceptualized from an in-person community-based retailscape to a platform-based strategy necessitating script recodification and practice adaptation. Our analysis of Starbucks' kiosks and coffeehouses illuminates how a distinctly branded service encounter is constituted by a system of practices that can be reconfigured and diffused anew in the face of disruption.Originality/valueThe conceptualization of practice innovation as systems reconfiguration establishes a novel approach to understanding innovation in service ecosystems. The COVID-19 pandemic is a unique context to study a sector-wide exogenous extended service disruption. We focus on a firm with an elaborate pre-pandemic service script and commitment to a third-place brand experience guiding its system of practices. We reveal unique insights on practice innovation within service ecosystems during exogenous prolonged disruptions in which brands evolve through the recodification of service scripts and sustained reconfiguration of systems of practice.

Navigating Human-Chatbot Interactions: An Investigation into Factors Influencing User Satisfaction and Engagement

With the increasing integration of chatbots in various customer service contexts, understanding factors that influence user interactions is of paramount importance. While chatbots bring several benefits, their efficacy largely depends on user satisfaction, loyalty, and perceived utility. This study explores the nuances of consumer interactions with chatbot services and identifies ways to enhance these interactions for successful goal achievement. Through a multiple qualitative method approach, involving reflections, interviews, and focus groups, conducted an exhaustive investigation of the consumer experiences with chatbot interactions. The study focused on elements such as anthropomorphism, communication styles, service scripts, consumer emotions, and privacy and trust concerns. Our findings highlight that the anthropomorphism and communication style of chatbots significantly affect user satisfaction. The perceived utility of chatbots was found to be a multifaceted construct that substantially influences consumer engagement. Furthermore, this study identified negative emotions and privacy concerns as key determinants of consumer-chatbot interactions. These findings necessitate meticulous attention in chatbot design and function. By using the affordance theory, this research offers insights into managing the complex dynamics of satisfaction and dissatisfaction factors within consumer-chatbot engagements, contributing crucially to the human-computer interaction literature.

Service staff makes me nervous: Exploring the impact of insecure attachment on AI service preference

This study examines customer preferences for AI versus human services, influenced by insecure attachment and service context. We conducted three studies with 1039 participants across six service scenarios. Study 1 demonstrated that customers exhibiting traits of insecure attachment, both anxious and avoidant, showed a preference for AI services in high-contact scenario, such as hair restyling. However, this effect was not significant in low-contact scenario, such as simple hair cutting. Study 2 replicated and extended the findings of Study 1 by manipulating customers' states of attachment in both high-contact (developing fitness plans) and low-contact (correcting fitness postures) service scenarios. Study 3 constructed a conditional mediation model and found that social anxiety significantly mediated the relationship between insecure attachments and the preference for AI services in high-contact scenario, such as customizing personal health insurance plans. This was not the case, however, for low-contact service like standard auto insurance purchases. This research adds to the existing literature by highlighting the influence of psychological characteristics on attitudes towards social robots. The findings offer insights for firms planning to implement AI services, suggesting careful design of AI service scripts and nuanced market segmentation.

Neurophysiological responses to robot–human interactions in retail stores

PurposeRetailers are increasingly considering the introduction of service robots in their stores to support or even replace service staff. Service robots can execute service scripts during the service encounter that can influence customer interactions and the overall experience. While the role of service agents is well documented, more research is needed to understand customer responses to a technology-infused servicescape and to investigate the value of service robots as interaction partners. The purpose of this study is to examine the degree of customer immersion in human-human or human-robot interactions across different stages of the service experience and to understand how immersion affects store visit duration under each condition.Design/methodology/approachAn experimental field study was developed to test the research hypotheses. The study was conducted in a retail store selling premium Italian leather goods with 50 respondents randomly allocated to one of two experimental conditions, interaction with a service robot or interaction with a human sales associate. Participants’ biometrics were collected to measure their immersion in the service encounter and to assess its impact on store visit duration.FindingsThe interaction with a service robot increases the level of customer immersion during the service encounter’s welcome and surprise moments. Immersion positively affects visit duration. However, participants exposed to a robot sales associate reported a shorter visit duration as compared to those who interacted with a human sales associate.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the emerging service and retail marketing literature on service robot applications applying a neuroscientific approach to the study of human–robot interactions across different moments of the service encounter. For managers, this study shows the conditions under which service robots can be successfully implemented in retail stores in accordance with the type of task performed and the degree of immersion generated in customers.

Having control or lacking control? Roles of job crafting and service scripts in coping with customer incivility.

Despite previous studies that examined factors that would help service employees cope with customer incivility, the role of employee-initiated job strategies has rarely been explored in the context of customer incivility. Drawing on the job demand-control model, we proposed that a high-control job strategy (such as job crafting) alleviates the deleterious effect of customer incivility on job performance through emotional exhaustion, whereas a low-control job strategy (such as service scripts) aggravates this effect. To test the proposed moderated mediation effects, we collected three-wave data from 272 hotel employees and their 54 team leaders over a 6-month period. As predicted, job crafting and service scripts performed contrasting moderating functions. Specifically, the customer incivility-emotional exhaustion relationship was weaker for employees who engaged in job crafting more often than for those who did not. Job crafting also mitigated the negative indirect effect of customer incivility on job performance through emotional exhaustion. In contrast, the customer incivility-emotional exhaustion relationship was more pronounced among employees who used service scripts more often. Service scripts further exacerbate the negative indirect effect of customer incivility on job performance through emotional exhaustion. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for occupational health research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Kedudukan Surat Edaran Gubernur Aceh Nomor 450/21770 Tentang Larangan Mengadakan Pengajian Selain Dari I’tiqad Ahlussunnah Waljamaah Yang Bersumber Dari Mazhab Syafi’iyah Terhadap Qanun Nomor 8 Tahun 2014 Tentang Pokok-Pokok Syariat Islam

The provisions of Permendagri Number 55 of 2010 concerning Administration of Service Scripts within the Ministry of Home Affairs Article 1 43 states that Circular Letters are official texts containing notifications, explanations, and/or instructions based on how to carry out certain things that are considered important and urgent. Then in the Regulation of the Head of the National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia Number 2 of 2014 concerning Guidelines for Official Manuscripts, circulars are classified as products of official manuscripts. So ideally the Circular Letter is only a communication tool in the form of notification to internal circles. The issuance of the Circular Letter of the Governor of Aceh Number 450/21770 concerning the Prohibition of Holding Recitations Other than I'tiqad Ahlussunnah Waljamaah which is sourced from the Syafi'iyah School of Law by the Acting Governor of Aceh has created a new problem, namely the forcible dissolution of the recitation by a group calling itself a warrior. ASWAJA, as well as the Aceh Governor's Circular has reduced the rights of citizens protected by the constitution, the Head of the Aceh Ombudsman gave the opinion that the SE was revoked by the issuance of the SE it would lead to intolerance between religious communities and enter the realm of maladministration. The approach method in this research is using a sociological juridical method using a statute approach, a historical approach, and a case approach. The results of research from the Aceh government in making policies were formed by the Aceh People's Representative Council (DPRA) and the Aceh Governor on the advice and input of the MPU, but in terms of the formation of the SE issued by the Aceh Governor this is a regulation that comes from freies ermessen or discretion it is only an official document. Thus, the SE needs to be supervised by the Ombudsman, DPRA, and also the State Administrative Court as an institution in the public service.

판매원이 경험한 고객 쇼루밍 행동이 판매원 창의성을 매개로 직무성과에 미치는 효과: 서비스 스크립트의 조절적 역할을 중심으로*

A recent interest in multi-channel retailing is customer showrooming behavior which has appeared as one of the important issues in the dynamic retailing environments. Customer showrooming behavior refers to shopping behavior by consumers who intentionally benefit from the explanations and services of on retailers in on channel before actually purchasing from a different retailers in another channel. It was reported that in all 68% of US Internet users had decided to buy online channel decided to first check products at traditional offline store. This statistics imply the seriousness of the customer showrooming behavior and various researchers have expressed their concern over rising showrooming phenomenon. Although research studies in the past have deal with behaviors related consumer showrooming like cross-channel free riding, channel switching behavior, but individual studies on showrooming from a employee, namely, salesperson perspective have not been conducted yet. With this focus, we concentrate on offline retailing salesperson, surprisingly largely ignored stakeholders in multi-channel studies. This study aims to examine the mediating effect of salesperson creativity on the relationship between experienced customer showrooming behavior and job performance using department store salesperson samples. Second, we investigate the moderating effect of service scripts that weaken the effects of experienced customer showrooming behavior and salesperson creativity. Also, this study seek to examine the moderating effects of service script on the mediating effect of salesperson creativity. Noting the theoretical and empirical supports provided by past studies, we formulated the following hypotheses. <Figure 1> presents the research model. Figure 1 Research model and empirical analysis result χ2(215)=626.15, p<.05, RMSEA=.07, TLI=.91, SRMR=.05, CFI=.92 Hypothesis 1: Salesperson creativity will mediate the positive relationship between customer showrooming behavior and job performance. Hypothesis 2: Service scripts will moderate the positive relationship between customer showrooming behavior and salesperson creativity. Specially, the positive relationship between customer showrooming behavior and salesperson creativity will be weaker with high levels of service script Hypothesis 3: Service Scripts will moderate the mediating effect of salesperson creativity on the relationship between customer showrooming behavior and job performance such that the indirect effect of customer showrooming behavior on job performance is weaker when service scripts is high. We collected data from salespersons who were working in a department store. We contacted the human resources department of the store and obtained permission to survey their staff. Specifically, they facilitated the distribution of the survey instruments to a total 600 full-time salespersons who were working in various sales units in the department store. The process yielded a total of 397 questionnaire responses, representing a response rate 69.1%. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the measurement items using M-plus. The measurement model fit the data well(fit indices: χ2(215)=626.15, p<.05, RMSEA=.07, TLI=.91, SRMR=.05, CFI=.92). All the measure demonstrated strong composite reliabilities(CR) ranged from .80 to 93(see Table 1). Also, we confirmed the condition for discriminant validity among the constructs. All the average variance extracted(AVE) values were greater than the squared correlations between a construct and any other variable(see Table 1). Table 1 The results of Confirmatory factor analysis construct item Standardized loading t Cronbach

서비스 스크립트가 브랜드감정에 미치는 영향: 소비자관점의 접근

본 연구는 서비스 스크립트를 고객의 관점에서 접근하여 서비스 스크립트가 고객의 브랜드감정에 긍정적으로 영향을 미치는지, 소비자접점만족이 서비스 스크립트와 고객의 브랜드 감정사이에서 매개변수로서 역할을 하는지 검토하였다. 아울러 소비자특성변수로서 소비자 혁신성과 소비자권리의식이 서비스 스크립트와 고객의 브랜드 감정에 미치는 부정적 조절효과에 대해 검토하였다. 가설검증을 위한 자료는 베트남의 미용ㆍ건강관리서비스를 이용하는 고객으로부터 획득하였으며, 300개의 설문지를 배포하여 278개의 자료를 회수하였으며, 최종 분석에 투입된 자료수는 252개였다. 자료의 분석 결과 서비스 스크립트의 브랜드감정에 대한 긍정적 영향과 고객의 서비스접점만족의 매개효과는 유의하게 나타나 가설이 지지되었으나 서비스 스크립트와 브랜드감정사이에서 고객혁신성과 고객권리의식의 조절효과에 대한 가설은 지지되지 않았다. 가설검증 결과에 대한 해석은 토론을 통해 제시하였다. 본 연구는 서비스 스크립트에 대한 연구를 확장하여 기존 연구에서 소홀하였던 고객관점의 서비스 스크립트의 영향을 고객의 감정적 차원에 초점을 맞춰 검토하고 조절변수로서 소비자특성변수의 도입을 시도했다는데 의미가 있다. 연구결과에 의거하여 서비스업에 대한 실무적 함의를 제시하였으며, 향후 연구방향에 대해서 논의하였다.

Resource Integration of Service Providers and Utilization of Service Scripts in Value Co-Creation

Resource Integration of Service Providers and Utilization of Service Scripts in Value Co-Creation

The effect of self-efficacy on job performance through creativity: the moderating roles of customer incivility and service scripts

PurposeThis study aimed to examine the effect of self-efficacy on job performance through creativity. We predicted that exposure to customer incivility and rigid service scripts will moderate the mediating effect of creativity on the relationship between self-efficacy and job performance.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were collected from 397 salespersons who were working in a department store in South Korea. The PROCESS macro was used to test the study hypotheses.FindingsThe results revealed that the positive relationship between self-efficacy and job performance was partially mediated by creativity. Furthermore, exposure to customer incivility and rigid service scripts weakened the positive effects of self-efficacy on creativity. Finally, customer incivility and rigid service scripts also dampened the positive effects of self-efficacy on job performance through creativity.Research limitations/implicationsSales organizations should understand that the extent to which self-efficacy improves job performance by enhancing creativity is contingent on the extent to which salespersons are exposed to customer incivility and are required to adhere to rigid service scripts in the workplace.Originality/valueOur findings paint a more complete portrait of the beneficial effects of self-efficacy. Specifically, they suggest that the development of creativity is an important mechanism that underlies the process by which internal resources enhance job performance and that customer incivility and service scripts weaken this relationship.

Managing the human–chatbot divide: how service scripts influence service experience

PurposeBrands are increasingly considering the use of chatbots to supplement, or even replace, humans in service interactions. Like humans, chatbots can follow certain service scripts in their encounters, which can subsequently determine the customer experience. Service scripts are verbal prescriptions that seek to standardize customer service interactions. However, while the role of service scripts is well documented, despite the increasing use of chatbots as a service mechanism, less is known about the effect, on consumers, of different service scripts presented during chatbot service encounters.Design/methodology/approachAn experimental scenario was developed to test the research hypotheses. Respondents were randomly allocated to scenarios representing a 2 (service interaction: human, chatbot) × 2 (service script: education, entertainment) design. A total of 262 US consumers constituted the final sample for the study.FindingsThe findings indicate that when employing an education script, a significant positive effect occurs for human service agents (compared to chatbots) in terms of both satisfaction and purchase intention. These effects are fully mediated by emotion and rapport, showing that the bonds developed through the close proximity to a human service agent elicit emotion and develop rapport, which in turn influence service outcomes. However, this result is present only when an educational script is used.OriginalityThis paper contributes to the emerging service marketing literature on the use of digital services, in particular chatbots, in service interactions. We show that differences occur in key outcomes dependent on the type of service script employed (education or entertainment). For managers, this study indicates that chatbot interactions can be tailored (in script delivered) in order to maximize emotion and rapport and subsequently consumer purchase intention and satisfaction.

Evaluation of The Officer’s Behaviour in Public Services of The Nuclear Minerals Technology

Service behaviour is defined generally as service behaviour that refers to official job descriptions and service scripts and completes core service tasks using standard service procedures. Evaluation of the behaviour of service officers has the opportunity to trigger continuous improvement in service quality to improve organizational performance—primary data from 73 questionnaires, which are the result of customer satisfaction assessment of nuclear mineral technology services. Data analysis used descriptive frequency statistics that provide a typical condition of the diversity of data. The behavioural evaluation results show that service personnel is polite, not selective; all customers have the same position, officers complete services according to the agreed period, officers complete services following service requirements. This research provides evidence that uncertainty in serving customers requires frontline employees to take personal initiative to anticipate customer needs, prevent and eliminate potential obstacles in service delivery, and continuously identify new opportunities to improve service quality.

Feeling Manipulated: How Tip Request Sequence Impacts Customers and Service Providers?

Technology is changing frontline service scripts. Businesses are now using mobile point-of-sale applications (e.g., Square) and mobile technology (e.g., iPad) to prompt customers for tips. Tip requests are occurring more frequently at the start of service transactions, before any service has been provided. This research examines how requesting a tip either before or after service completion affects customers and service providers. We test the effects of preservice versus postservice tip sequence in four studies (a natural experiment in the field and three controlled experiments) across food and beauty service contexts. Findings reveal that requesting a tip before (vs. after) completing a service leads to smaller tips, reduced return intentions, diminished word-of-mouth intentions, and lower online ratings. Inferred manipulative intent is revealed as the psychological mechanism underlying the harmful effects of requesting a tip before service. Findings suggest that emphasizing the benefits of automated point-of-sale systems can reduce, but not eliminate, the negative effects of preservice tip requests. Contrary to norms within the service industry, we find that service providers should avoid requesting tips before serving customers.

Customer Ethnic Bias in Service Encounters

As ethnic diversity continues to rise, customer bias in interethnic service encounters becomes an increasingly problematic issue for the parties involved, the service firms, and society at large. Against this background, the aim of our research is to examine ethnically biased customer responses, their key psychological mechanisms, and the effectiveness of enacted service scripts to shape interethnic service encounters. Building on the aversive racism framework and homophily theory, we propose a baseline effect of majority customers’ ethnic bias toward minority employees in the form of less positive behaviors in interethnic service encounters. In an initial laboratory study, we use experimental video simulations of frontline service encounters and confirm the robustness of this effect across two replications. In a subsequent field experiment, we test an extended framework of customer responses to interethnic service encounters, finding that customers’ experience of rapport and identification with the firm represent two serial mediators that facilitate the effects of interethnic service encounters on customer loyalty intentions. Together, these contributions enrich our understanding of how psychological mechanisms facilitate the incidence of ethnically biased customer behavior and also provide insights into viable ways to improve such encounters.

“Making Over” Poor Women: Gender, Race, Class, and Body Size in a Welfare‐to‐Work Nonprofit Organization

Drawing on 13 months of participant observation at a welfare‐to‐work nonprofit that provides unemployed poor women with used business attire, I assess the extent to which—and how—this “objectified cultural capital” is transmitted to clients. I advance prior theorizing in this area by considering whether clients’ “bodily capital” impacts the services they receive. I find that despite providing needed services to clients, the organization reifies many of the inequalities it seeks to remedy. When sorting clothing donations, staff and volunteers curate particularly classed embodiments by selecting garments that are work‐appropriate yet not luxurious. Also, well‐intentioned efforts to provide a luxurious shopping‐esque experience for clients ironically produces service scripts that facilitate control over clients’ behavior. Finally, service interactions reproduce inequities between different types of clients along the lines of race, class, and body size, such that clients with more privileged bodily capital fare better than those with stigmatized embodiments. I use these findings to caution against romanticized understandings of philanthropic efforts to remedy social inequality, while also underscoring the importance of taking embodiment—particularly the striking social disadvantages of larger body size—into account when examining the intersections of gender, race, and class.

Scripted communication for service standardisation? What analysis of conversation can tell us about the fast-food service encounter

In highly routinised service encounter interactions, communication is often guided by service scripts that are the material embodiment of institutional expectations of how the service interaction is to be conducted. However, counter to common belief that scripted communication is well-controlled and homogeneous in its execution, observation of actual talk reveals interesting patterns and variations that reflect the ways in which participants make meaning of and perform their respective roles within the interaction towards achieving the overall goal of the service communication. Applying the analysis of speech functions and sequential order of talk in audio-recorded verbal exchanges between servers and customers at the service counter of a fast-food restaurant, acts in the fast-food service interaction are interpreted and explained in relation to management-prescribed service script, servers’ script-in-use and customers’ script within an institutional discourse framework. Findings from the study have important implications for service management and training as it addresses the tension between the practices on the ground and those sanctioned by the organisation.

Do service scripts exacerbate job demand-induced customer perceived discrimination?

PurposeThis research aims to investigate the contingent influence of service scripts on the links between service employees’ job demands and customers’ perceptions of discrimination.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on prior conceptual and empirical work, as well as conservation of resources theory, the authors propose a conceptual model comprising job demands (job stress and role ambiguity) and two dimensions of perceived discrimination.FindingsA unique, dyadic data set reveals that the two focal job demands positively affect customers’ perceptions of discrimination. Service scripts enhance those negative relationships, such that they have resource-depleting and job demand-exacerbating effects.Originality/valueThis study offers the first research to link customer perceived discrimination with employee antecedents. These insights, in turn, have several key theoretical and managerial implications, and they offer directions for further work in this arena.

Effects of nursing service script on health education of hospitalized patients with pulmonary tuberculosis

Objective To explore the effects of application of service script on health education of hospitalized patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. Methods A total of 200 hospitalized patients with tuberculosis from June 2016 to October 2016 were randomly divided into the experimental group (104 cases) and the control group (96 cases) . Patients in control group received routine health education. According to the disease development stages of hospitalized patients, the treatment processes including admission education, various examinations education, medication education, reasonable diet education, risk prevention education, discharge precautions and other contents related to health education, were declared by charge nurses. The experimental group received a series of service scripts to carry out health education. Results After the health education according to nursing service scripts, the awareness rates of patients in the experimental group and control group were 92.9% and 80.15%. The difference between two groups was statistically significant (χ2=118.15, P<0.01) . Patients satisfaction rates in the experimental group and control group were 99.38% and 93.49% with statistically significant difference (χ2=103.82, P<0.05) . Conclusions The application of the service scripts in the health education of tuberculosis patients improves the knowledge level and the satisfaction of patients. Key words: Tuberculosis, pulmonary; Health education; Nursing service script; Nursing quality

Role Ambiguity: a Problem or a Challenge Facing Contemporary Hospitality Industry. The Critical Role of Employees’ Creativity

Background . Delivering exceptional service experience and creating customer satisfaction and loyalty seems to be crucial for survival of a hotel organization and success in today’s highly competitive market. Gaining competitive advantage requires extreme responsiveness and sensitivity from hotel employees towards guests and treating them in a very individual manner. This may make rigid service scripts prevent maintaining this flexibility, which often leads to serious problems connected with role ambiguity experienced by employees. Research aims . This study attempts to seek an answer to the question: how to minimize the role ambiguity experienced by hotel staff. Therefore, the relationship between hotel employees’ creativity and role ambiguity is analyzed. Additionally, selected conditions that promote employee’s creative performance are also investigated. Methodology . In order to achieve the study aim, the literature review, including empirical findings of previous studies, and empirical research based on a survey method were employed. The study was conducted among all hotel employees having direct face-to-face and voice-to-voice interactions with hotel guests, working in two hotels located in the Pomeranian Voivodeship, precisely in Tricity, as the tourist destination of Northern Poland. Key findings . The results showed a negative and significant correlation between employee creativity and role ambiguity. It may confirm that in the face of dynamically changing customer needs and preferences, employees’ creativity when serving customers may lead to reducing employees’ uncertainty how to perform effectively to provide outstanding service. The findings also revealed that both employees’ intellect/imagination (as a personality variable) and skill variety (as a job characteristic) should be taken into account to increase creativity in the workplace, as both of them positively related to hotel employees’ creativity in this study. Despite the fact that the study findings should not be generalized, the results provide some important information for substantive discussion and a context for a wider range of further studies. Discussion and managerial implications were also provided and directions for future research were formulated.