Qualitative study investigates the impact of AI chatbots on service quality in retail supermarkets, suggesting improvements in resource-limited contexts.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have been deemed as increasingly transforming global industries, with especially a growing relevance in addressing service quality challenges in retail sectors within developing economies. This study investigates the influence of AI-powered chatbots on customer service delivery in South African retail supermarkets. Adopting an interpretivist paradigm, qualitative data were collected from online shoppers and retail employees across three major food retailers. Thematic analysis using NVivo revealed that chatbots enhance customer-centric service delivery and enable retailers to extract actionable insights from consumer data. These findings highlight the potential of AI chatbots to improve service quality in resource-constrained contexts. Future research should incorporate quantitative methods, assess long-term effects, and consider ethical frameworks for responsible AI deployment.
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Moloeloe et al. (2026) studied this question.
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