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Top1. Introduction
Information and communication technology have transformed the service sector significantly over the last two decades (Piccoli et al., 2017). It represents the vast variety of information systems that empowers service firms to provide high-quality services at a cheaper cost to enhance the overall customer experience among all age group customers (Khan et al., 2020). Specifically, self-service technologies (SST) through online and offline channels are playing a critical role in advancing services and empowering customers to opt for better choices (Ostrom et al., 2015). The example of the online self-service channels included banking, share trading, paying bills, recharge, reservation, ordering, and booking (Agrawal and Mittal, 2019; Mittal and Agrawal, 2016). On the other hand, self-service through offline channels included vending machines, telecommunication systems, kiosks, self-checkout systems, touchpad, and scanners (Wang et al., 2017; Kushwaha and Agrawal, 2016). These are in high demand among customers as well as service providers due to reasonable cost and time-saving (Gummerus et al., 2019). With the massive usage of these, service firms are able to meet the huge service demand without adjusting their staff levels (Bacile, 2020). Unfortunately, it is helping firms to hide behind an electronic firewall that insulates a firm to minimize human contact with its customers. As far as customers are concerned, they get the direct opportunity to access products and services by these devices across 24X7 to fulfill their needs (Giebelhausen et al., 2014). Thus, they are becoming independent from service personnel (Parasuraman and Colby, 2015). However, sooner or later a customer realizes the importance of human interaction when he is stuck somewhere during the service process. There could be many reasons for it. Maybe, the replacement of traditional services with high-tech interfaces does not fit for all age group customers. Also, it may happen that firms don’t fulfill the promises made earlier. Importantly, when customers are in trouble or want an immediate solution for their problems, they seek direct needed interaction from service providers where they have done business with. And when they interact with these devices in such situations, they get frustrated and annoyed because machines are far away from the emotional element and do not empathize with people. Eventually, these customers seek other options and a firm loses its customers. Though, where would they go? Presently, the majority of firms are offering services through advanced technologies. Uber Eats, Zomato, and Swiggy are the most popular online restaurant apps. In the same vein, the OYO rooms app, commonly known as OYO for booking budgeted hotels across the world. Usually, these apps end-up services with human contact, but how bottom-level employees interact with customers is always in a dilemma. Due to multiple conflicts and stress, these employees face many challenges from a firm, managers, and customers (Fukawa and Erevelles, 2014). It affects their interaction with customers. Sometimes, service employees experience dilemmas when reacting to customer’s misdemeanors such as lying, cheating, and illegitimate returns (Ma and Zhong, 2021; Greenbaum et al., 2014). The complexity of these dilemmas varies in different service settings (Yagil and Shultz, 2017). It has been noticed that in such situations service employees always in a hurry to complete the service without taking care of customers completely which negatively affects their relationship. Ultimately, service firms lose customers. Despite these service innovations customer services seem to be worsening across the world. Therefore, it is imperative to understand different age group customers' experiences while using smart technologies to address current customer strategies and practices in the service sector. Some past studies suggested that customer age is one of the most important variables to determine the production, process, delivery, and consumption of a service (Lecoeuvre et al., 2021; Yin et al., 2013). Thus, the present study not only tries to identify the inabilities of service firms to connect to different age group customers whilst the era of smart technologies but also addresses how to overcome these issues.