Jeroen J.L. Schepers

I am a quantitative service marketing scholar, focused on the digitalization and robotization of frontline services and in particular the psychological responses of employees and customers to these transformations. 

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The service encounter is where the tyre meets the road. In the interaction with a firm’s employee(s) or technological interface(s), customers shape their attitudes towards the products and services of the firm. As positive customer experiences lead to customer satisfaction and loyalty intentions towards the company, creating high-quality service encounters is crucial for firms to be successful in the market.

Today’s service encounter is increasingly dominated by technology. Especially developments in artificial intelligence (AI) enable smart, customized service experiences that are available 24/7. For instance, hotels now implement check-in and luggage service robots, call centers are staffed by voicebots and chatbots, and health care providers empower patients in their treatment with wearable trackers. Although such technologies may provide customers more control over the service, they also dramatically change the relationship between customer and firm. This raises questions such as: Why and when do customers adopt these innovations? Do these technologies benefit or harm the value offered by the firm? How do employees and technology jointly deliver the best service for customers? I focus on answering these and other relevant questions. 

Firms also embed AI and algorithms in their products and services to make them “smart”. Service engineers now face copying machines that autonomously determine their optimal settings, service support employees operate on digital twins to offer remote maintenance of lithography machines, field service engineers wear hololenses and use augmented reality for faster and more accurate problem diagnosis, and financial advisors now collaborate with AI to realize “collaborative intelligence” in offering loans and other products to customers. How does this affect employees? Do they adopt these innovations? How can they use these technologies to perform better services? Do they still take responsibility for their work outcomes? Are they still being challenged and motivated by the problems they see, or does AI “shut them off”? This is another research direction in which I specialize.

• I have published papers in top marketing and business journals such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Service Management, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Information & Management, among others.
• My current h-index is 27; i10-index is 33 (according to Google Scholar, updated April 25).
• I have won several best paper awards in conferences (e.g., AMA Winter Educator's conference) and journals (e.g., Journal of Service Management, Service Industries Journal).

• Some of my papers have received awards for being highly cited or downloaded.

• I have won multiple best teacher awards, for courses both in bachelor and master programs.
• I have won the best reviewer award for Journal of Service Management.
• I am a member of the editorial review board of Journal of Service Research, and ad-hoc reviewer for International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and Journal of Service Management.

Education, student and PhD supervision

I love teaching and am honored to have won multiple best teacher awards at Eindhoven University of Technology. I have also supervised over 90 master theses, conducted in cooperation with a wide range of companies, and multiple PhD students whose work has been published in high-quality academic journals. I enjoy coaching young, talented people...

• to think critically;
• to conceptually model complex real-world service phenomena;
• to gather and analyze data in an academically valid and reliable way;
• to come up with valuable business implications;
• to write up their story in a concise, convincing, and attractive style;
• with the ultimate goal: to grow in their personal development and have a successful career within or outside of academia!

If you are interested in to deepen your knowledge in my field of research, and to invest in developing your personal skills to benefit your future career, then contact me for the possibilities for doing a Ph.D. under my supervision. Eindhoven University of Technology offers attractive opportunities for external Ph.D. candidates ("externe promovendi"). We offer you a customized trajectory of 3 to 5 years in which you can combine the work at your company with a Ph.D. project at the university.

Keynotes and workshops

I have been a keynote speaker on topics such as customer experience and AI in consumer services. On request, I also provide in-company workshops and seminars for management teams or employees. Interested? Get in touch!