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Human vs. Automated Sales Agents: How and Why

Customer Responses Shift Across Sales Stages
Martin Adam, Konstantin Roethke, Alexander Benlian

To cite this article:

Martin Adam, Konstantin Roethke, Alexander Benlian (2023) Human vs. Automated Sales Agents: How and Why Customer
Responses Shift Across Sales Stages. Information Systems Research 34(3):1148-1168. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1171

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 INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH
Vol. 34, No. 3, September 2023, pp. 1148–1168
https://pubsonline.informs.org/journal/isre ISSN 1047-7047 (print), ISSN 1526-5536 (online)

Human vs. Automated Sales Agents: How and Why Customer

Responses Shift Across Sales Stages
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Martin Adam,a,* Konstantin Roethke,a Alexander Benliana

a
Information Systems and E-Services, Technical University of Darmstadt, 64293 Darmstadt, Germany
*Corresponding author
Contact: adam@ise.tu-darmstadt.de, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9369-7203 (MA); roethke@ise.tu-darmstadt.de,
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3921-6952 (KR); benlian@ise.tu-darmstadt.de, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7294-3097 (AB)

Received: July 17, 2020
Revised: May 19, 2021; March 27, 2022;
August 11, 2022
Accepted: September 2, 2022
Published Online in Articles in Advance:
November 10, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1171
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Abstract. Customers in sales processes increasingly encounter automated sales agents
(ASAs) that complement or replace human sales agents (HSAs). Yet, little is known about
whether, how, and why customers respond to ASAs in contrast to HSAs across successive
decision stages of the same sales process. Even less is known about customer responses to
HSA-ASA combinations, where both agents assume distinct roles and focus on comple-
mentary tasks that are traditionally performed by only one single sales agent. Against this
backdrop, this paper explores the influence of increasingly common sales representative
(rep) types (i.e., ASA, HSA, and HSA-ASA) on customer decisions across sales stages.
Drawing on information processing theory and the literature on hedonic-utilitarian deci-
sion making, we investigate customer responses to text-based ASAs from vendor compa-
nies in two common early stages of email sales processes (i.e., sales initiation stages) when
customers successively decide whether to indicate their initial interest in an offer and then,
whether to provide their contact information. Specifically, we conducted two complemen-
tary multi-decision experiments, namely (1) a randomized field experiment in a high-
stakes sales initiation setting (n
325) and (2) a subsequent randomized online experiment
to complement the real-world insights (n
408). Our core findings reveal reversing effect
patterns of sales rep types across stages: although customers are more likely to indicate
their initial interest to HSAs (versus ASAs) because of HSAs’ higher levels of social pres-
ence, they are less likely to provide contact information to HSAs because of HSAs’ lower
levels of performance expectancy and effort expectancy. We also show that HSA-ASA
combinations can be reasonable options for single ASAs, yet contextual features of the sales
setting may affect differential customer responses to HSA-ASA combinations (versus
ASAs) in each sales stage. Taken together, we uncover shifting effect patterns in customer
responses to sales rep types across successive sales stages and shed light on the consecutive
underlying mechanisms that explain these shifts. These findings have significant implica-
tions for vendor companies seeking to allocate HSAs and/or ASAs effectively across vari-
ous decision stages in sales processes and beyond.

History: Wonseok Oh, Senior Editor and Khim Yong Goh; Associate Editor.
Open Access Statement: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You are free to download this work and share with others,
but cannot change in any way or use commercially without permission, and you must attribute this
work as “Information Systems Research. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s).” https://doi.org/10.1287/
isre.2022.1171, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License: https://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.”
Funding: This work was supported by the Center for Responsible Digitality (ZEVEDI) and the German
Research Foundation (DFG) [Grant 471168026].
Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1171.

Keywords: sales agent • email • information processing • hedonic-utilitarian decision making • decision stages • sales funnel •
randomized field experiment

1. Introduction called email sales initiation stages), customers increas-

Customers in various sales settings increasingly encoun-
ter automated sales agents1 (ASAs) that emulate human-
human interactions and complement or replace human
sales agents (HSAs). Particularly in the early stages of
vendor companies’ email sales processes (hereinafter
ingly encounter text-based ASAs that undertake cus-
tomer outreach via email. For example, ASAs, such as
7Targets’s Assistant (2022), Conversica (2022), Pega’s Email
Bot (2022), and Salesforce’s Einstein Assistant (2022), can
initiate email communications with customers for sales

1148
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
offers, elicit interest, and finally, collect contact informa-
tion to schedule sales appointment meetings for the
specification and finalization of sales offers via more per-
sonal communication channels (e.g., live chats or phone
communication). The deployment of ASAs in the email
sales initiation stages is particularly consequential for
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vendor companies because email is one of the most effec-
tive business communication channels in technology-
mediated sales, often outranking websites and chats
(e.g., The Relevancy Group 2017, Econsultancy 2019).
Moreover, the largest number of customers are influ-
enced in sales initiation stages, making it hard to com-
pensate for early mistakes in the later stages of the
sales process. As such, it comes as no surprise that
more than 50% of enterprises engage in some form
of email communication automation and consider
ASAs an explicit means through which to communi-
cate with customers (e.g., Gartner 2017, Statista 2021).
Given these reports and developments, deploying
ASAs in sales processes can be considered one of the
most relevant technological trends for vendor com-
panies at the customer interface.
The increasing deployment of ASAs is closely con-
nected to the ongoing transformation of business proc-
esses because of the automation of routine processes
and the resulting complementation or substitution of
HSAs with ASAs (e.g., Daugherty and Wilson 2018, Rai
et al. 2019). In contrast to HSAs, ASAs promise unpre-
cedented utilitarian value (i.e., functional benefits, goal
achievement) through unique and scalable perform-
ance and efficiency gains in communication channels
for both customers and vendor companies, such as
through cost savings, 24/7 availability, and reduced
response times (e.g., Puntoni et al. 2021, Schanke et al.
2021). At the same time, customers may anticipate
drawbacks in interactions with automated agents (e.g.,
Dietvorst et al. 2015, 2018; Srinivasan and Sarial-Abi
2021). For instance, customers may perceive that ASAs
provide less hedonic value (i.e., affective benefits, expe-
riential pleasure) than HSAs, such as by displaying a
lack of depth, compassion, and warmth (e.g., Castelo
et al. 2019, Longoni and Cian 2022). Given these asso-
ciations, customers may respond differently to ASAs
versus HSAs depending on whether they prioritize
hedonic or utilitarian value at different sales stages. As
such, it may even be better for customers to encounter a
combination of an ASA and an HSA, where both agents
assume distinct roles and focus on complementary
tasks that are traditionally performed by only one sin-
gle sales agent (e.g., Exceed.ai 2019, Paschen et al. 2020).
In one prevalent combinatorial type that emphasizes
relative strengths, the HSA is presented as being in
charge of customer communication, while the ASA is
presented as being responsible for sales offer specifica-
tions in the later stages of the sales process (hereafter
referred to as HSA-ASA).
1149
Surprisingly, although customers are increasingly
dealing with ASAs, research has devoted only limited
attention to examining differential customer responses to
sales representative (rep) types (i.e., ASA, HSA, and HSA-
ASA), particularly across key email sales initiation stages
(i.e., customers’ initial interest indication and contact infor-
mation provision). From our review of the information sys-
tems literature on recommendation agents and related
research, we highlight three salient issues.
First, prior studies on customers’ acceptance of HSAs
and ASAs have mainly taken a monolithic view of sales
processes, treating them as single-stage phenomena. For
example, previous research has mainly investigated the
degree to which customers accept advice and purchase
products from HSAs versus ASAs (e.g., Castelo et al. 2019,
Luo et al. 2019b). Yet, customers in various sales settings
need to make subsequent decisions and thus, pass through
multiple decision stages in which customers prioritize and
process information differently (e.g., Bettman et al. 1998,
Huang et al. 2019). Especially in the early stages of email
sales processes (e.g., Peppers and Rogers 2004, Wood-
pecker 2022), customers are likely to change priorities
across decision stages and related decisions, as they first
decide (1) whether to indicate their initial interest in a sales
offer before deciding (2) whether to provide contact infor-
mation for further sales interactions. Given these changes
in priorities, customers may respond differently to HSAs
than ASAs across consecutive decision stages. Thus, it
is theoretically intriguing to move beyond customer re-
sponses in single-stage sales processes and the implicit
assumption of uniform and stable effects of sales rep types.
In doing so, we may reveal shifting customer responses to
sales rep types across successive decision stages and dem-
onstrate that HSAs and ASAs have distinct strengths in dif-
ferent decision stages.
Second and relatedly, previous studies on customer
acceptance of HSAs and ASAs have mainly looked at the
direct effects of sales rep types on single-decision out-
comes, such as whether customers accept a product rec-
ommendation or a sales offer from HSAs versus ASAs
(e.g., Castelo et al. 2019, Longoni and Cian 2022). A few
papers have also examined isolated effect mechanisms
(e.g., trust, eeriness) that explain single-stage decisions
(e.g., Castelo et al. 2019, Mende et al. 2019). Yet, previous
research has largely neglected to explicate the distinct
mechanisms underlying the potentially changing direct
effects of sales rep types across consecutive customer
decisions. Indeed, customers may differentially prioritize
hedonic and utilitarian attributes of sales reps and thus,
make different hedonic-utilitarian attribute trade-offs
across different sales stages, which may explain shifting
customer responses to HSAs and ASAs. The implications
of potentially changing explanatory mechanisms are
important: without knowing why ASAs (versus HSAs)
may be superior in influencing customer responses at a
certain stage, vendor companies may assume they are
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
1150
more appreciated and thus, more effective in situations
where the exact opposite is perhaps true.
Third and lastly, previous research has mainly investi-
gated customer acceptance of different types of ASAs
(e.g., Qiu and Benbasat 2009, Li and Karahanna 2015) or
responses to HSAs versus ASAs (e.g., Burton et al. 2019,
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Castelo et al. 2019). Recent research has started to shed
light on the hitherto “missing middle” in which HSAs
and ASAs are not presented in isolation but in combina-
tion; that is, humans are an integral part of a sales rep
configuration (Daugherty and Wilson 2018). For exam-
ple, initial studies on HSA-ASA combinations have
investigated ASAs performing the same activities as
HSAs (e.g., Xu et al. 2020) and ASAs acting as subordi-
nates to HSAs (e.g., McLeay et al. 2021, Longoni and
Cian 2022). Yet, we still know little about customer
responses to HSA-ASA combinations having distinct
roles and performing complementary tasks, especially in
situations in which the HSA is in charge of customer
communication, while the ASA is responsible for sales
offer specifications. This lack of research is puzzling
because both research and practice point toward the syn-
ergistic value of employing HSAs and ASAs together,
especially in distinct and complementary roles (e.g., Jain
et al. 2021, Fügener et al. 2022). As such, it is of scholarly
interest to investigate customer responses to HSA-ASA
combinations relative to HSAs and ASAs in isolation.
Against this backdrop, our paper aims to address the fol-
lowing research question:
How and why do customers differentially respond to sales
rep types (i.e., ASA, HSA, HSA-ASA) across critical sales
stages (e.g., email sales initiation stages)?
To answer our research question, we conducted a
multi-method investigation (e.g., Mingers 2003, Venka-
tesh et al. 2013) in the form of two complementary multi-
decision experiments. Specifically, we investigated how
and why customers respond to sales rep types (i.e., ASA,
HSA, and HSA-ASA) when making two crucial deci-
sions in the email sales initiation stages (i.e., the initial
interest indication and contact information provision).
First, we partnered with the sales department of a lead-
ing European pharmaceutical company to design and
implement a randomized field experiment with real
customers (n
325). The study reflected a high-stakes
field setting with serious consequences for both the
pharmaceutical company and the customers in the
form of potentially high-volume sales transactions of up
to e20,000 per customer. Subsequently, we applied an
analogous design in a randomized online experiment
(n
408) to complement the findings from our random-
ized field experiment with an exploratory investigation
of the consecutive underlying mechanisms that explain
the observed direct effects of sales rep types across the
email sales initiation stages.
Based on our insights, we make three main contribu-
tions. First, in advancing prior work that has largely
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
focused on the effects of sales rep types in single-stage
sales processes (e.g., Castelo et al. 2019, Luo et al.
2019b), we shed light on their disparate effects across
multiple consecutive decision stages. Our results reveal
whether and how customer responses to HSAs versus
ASAs shift, highlighting that the effects of sales rep
types are not uniform across decision stages and are
more complex than previously noted. Second, depart-
ing from studies that mainly looked at the direct effects
of sales rep types (e.g., Burton et al. 2019, Longoni and
Cian 2022), we shed light on key consecutive explana-
tory mechanisms (i.e., social presence, performance ex-
pectancy, and effort expectancy) underlying the direct
effects of sales rep types in different stages of email
sales initiations. As such, we unpack distinct explanatory
mechanisms that explain why customer responses shift
across sales stages and reveal that the effects of sales
rep types must be considered together with customers’
hedonic-utilitarian attribute trade-offs during sales proc-
esses. Third, our paper is one of the first to move beyond
treating customer responses to ASAs versus HSAs as
two mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive choice
options (e.g., Burton et al. 2019, Castelo et al. 2019). Our
research shows that although promising HSA-ASA com-
binations (such as those in which HSAs and ASAs assume
distinct yet complementary roles) can be viable options
for single ASAs, contextual features of the sales settings
are important boundary conditions (the when) that may
shape customer responses to HSA-ASA combinations in
each sales stage, and ultimately, the response shifts across
stages. In doing so, we provide valuable insights into cus-
tomer responses to increasingly relevant combinatorial
sales rep types above and beyond HSAs and ASAs that
act in strict isolation from one another. Taken together,
our findings suggest that vendors should carefully con-
sider the priorities of their clients at various decision
stages of the sales process and employ the appropriate
sales rep types.
2. Related Literature and
Theoretical Background
2.1. Customer Responses to Automated
Sales Agents
Early research on recommendation agents has treated
ASAs as a specialized form of recommendation agent—
namely, one that specifically intends not only to recom-
mend products but also, to initiate and close sales (e.g.,
Qiu and Benbasat 2009, Li and Karahanna 2015). This
early research primarily analyzed customer acceptance
of ASAs in isolation and without any reference groups
(e.g., in contrast to HSAs), focusing on the design of
their interface features, such as recommendation pre-
sentation (e.g., set size, sorting cues) (e.g., Tam and Ho
2005, Komiak and Benbasat 2006) and avatar features
(e.g., anthropomorphism, explanation facility) (e.g.,
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
Wang and Benbasat 2007, Qiu and Benbasat 2009).
Because of the increasing emergence of ASAs in sales
contexts (e.g., Mende et al. 2019, Luo et al. 2021,
Schanke et al. 2021), recent research has started to
make comparisons between HSAs and ASAs (e.g., Bur-
ton et al. 2019, Castelo et al. 2019), investigating cus-
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tomer responses to HSAs versus ASAs and the related
effects of these sales rep types on, for instance, per-
ceived decision quality (Xu et al. 2017), consumption
(Mende et al. 2019), and sales (Luo et al. 2019b).
More recently, scholars’ interest in the deployment of
HSA-ASA combinations has been increasing (e.g.,
Daugherty and Wilson 2018, Jain et al. 2021). For exam-
ple, studies on HSA-ASA combinations have inve-
stigated HSAs performing the identical activities as
ASAs (Xu et al. 2020), HSAs acting as managers of
ASAs (e.g., Longoni et al. 2019, McLeay et al. 2021,
Longoni and Cian 2022), and the resulting effects of
these combinations on, for instance, recommendation
uncertainty (Xu et al. 2020) and feedback effectiveness
(Luo et al. 2021). Indeed, researchers and practitioners
increasingly consider that the most effective configura-
tions may not simply be “set-and-forget-it automations”
that no longer include humans but rather, those that derive
their power from combinations between humans and
machines (e.g., Xu et al. 2014, 2020; Fügener et al. 2022).
A previously largely under-researched combination is
where HSAs act in complementary partnership with
ASAs, where an HSA and an ASA assume distinct roles
that are traditionally performed by only one single sales
agent (e.g., Paschen et al. 2020). In a prevalent type of
HSA-ASA combinations, the HSA manages customer
communication to elicit initial product interest and con-
tact information in the very early stages of sales proc-
esses, while the ASA is deployed to take care of more
analytical and operational tasks, such as specifying sales
offers in the later sales stages. As such, these HSA-ASA
combinations comprise “two parties—one human, one
automated—each doing what they do best to close the
deal” (Exceed.ai 2019). Both research and practice antici-
pate orders-of-magnitude increases in productivity and
high synergy potentials through allocating HSAs and
ASAs to distinct yet complementary roles (e.g., Rai et al.
2019, Jain et al. 2021, Fügener et al. 2022). Therefore,
HSA-ASA combinations have the potential to outper-
form both single sales agents and teams of same-kind
sales agents (e.g., two HSAs) and thus, may be particu-
larly appreciated by both customers and vendors.
Although existing studies on differential customer
responses to sales rep types (i.e., ASA versus HSA ver-
sus HSA-ASA) provide an initial understanding of the
effects of ASAs while accounting for the presence or
absence of HSAs, the differential effects of sales rep
types are still largely underexplored, resulting in “a
surprising lack of empirical research investigating the
differences” (Xu et al. 2017, p. 852). The recent surge in
1151
research on the effects of sales rep types coincides with
the fact that ASAs increasingly permeate technology-
mediated communication channels (e.g., email, phone,
chat), particularly because of their advances in conver-
sational capabilities (e.g., natural language processing
and understanding) (e.g., Benbya et al. 2021, Schanke
et al. 2021). In these channels, customers are even often
unable to distinguish ASAs from HSAs (e.g., Luo et al.
2019b). Yet, despite this technological progress, evi-
dence that customers consistently appreciate ASAs
over HSAs in sales processes is largely lacking. In fact,
customers have indicated that they prefer HSAs to
ASAs, particularly in hedonic-focused situations that
are, for example, highly subjective and emotion ori-
ented (e.g., Castelo et al. 2019, Longoni and Cian 2022).
Moreover, research has mostly neglected HSA-ASA
combinations in which HSAs and ASAs perform com-
plementary tasks and are presented as one team to
customers, in contrast to studies on HSAs and ASAs
performing identical tasks (e.g., Xu et al. 2020) or
being on different status levels (e.g., Longoni et al. 2019,
McLeay et al. 2021). Lastly, previous research on cus-
tomer responses to sales rep types has mainly treated
sales processes as a single-stage phenomenon but rarely
considered sales processes with multiple, successive
stages (e.g., Xu et al. 2017, Castelo et al. 2019), although
customers in the process of exploring, evaluating, and
purchasing an object of interest often face multiple deci-
sions and thus, go through different decision stages
(e.g., Choudhury and Karahanna 2008). Consequently,
potentially shifting customer responses to sales rep
types along the decision stages in sales processes are
likely and important to consider, yet hitherto, they have
been largely under-investigated. Against this backdrop,
it is of scholarly interest to elucidate whether, how, and
why the effects of sales rep types on customer res-
ponses persist or change across consecutive decision
stages of sales processes.
2.2. Customer Information Processing and
Hedonic-Utilitarian Attribute Trade-Offs in
Sales Initiation Stages
According to information processing theory (e.g., Newell
and Simon 1972, Simon 1978), humans process the infor-
mation they receive rather than merely responding to it.
Information processing hereby mainly follows a linear
sequence: humans first perceive a large amount of infor-
mation and process it at a superficial level. For deeper
processing, they then prioritize the information and use
attention to separate relevant from irrelevant information.
Consequently, information processing is mainly about
trade-offs, in that humans can only deeply engage with
information when prioritizing and considering a small
amount of the available information.
The marketing and information systems literature
(e.g., Bettman et al. 1998, Lambrecht et al. 2011, Huang
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
1152 Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
et al. 2019) has drawn on information processing theory
as a theoretical lens to postulate that as customers move
through different decision stages in the sales process,
they face different decisions and thus, have different
priorities, trading-off information in a way that is rele-
vant for the respective decision in the decision stage.
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One such trade-off is the consideration of the hedonic
and utilitarian attributes of an object (e.g., good, serv-
ice) (e.g., Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000, Khan et al. 2005).
Hedonic attributes of an object (e.g., an appealing de-
sign of a laptop) signal hedonic value in the form of
affective benefits that reflect customers’ perceptual and
experiential pleasure, focusing on how the object is
rewarding in itself; utilitarian attributes (e.g., reliable
performance of the same laptop) signal utilitarian value
in the form of cognitive benefits that reflect customers’
functional and instrumental (i.e., goal-related) delibera-
tions, assessing the object as a means to an end (e.g.,
Botti and McGill 2011). Although customer decision
making can comprise the consideration and processing
of both hedonic and utilitarian attributes, customers
often base a decision on the importance of either he-
donic or utilitarian attributes in the respective decision
stage and thus, make hedonic-utilitarian attribute
trade-offs in their information processing (e.g., Khan
et al. 2005, Bhargave et al. 2015). Moreover, customers
in a mental state of discovering and exploring an object
of interest do not randomly display hedonic-utilitarian
attribute trade-offs in the decision stages but rather fol-
low systematic trade-off patterns, in that customers usu-
ally first prioritize hedonic attributes to formulate initial
preferences before they subsequently consider utilitarian
attributes to engage in more granular cost-benefit assess-
ments (e.g., Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000, Lambrecht and
Tucker 2013). For example, in e-commerce, customers
tend to look first to signals for hedonic attributes (e.g.,
word of mouth, popularity cues) and associated hedonic
Figure 1. Customer Information Processing in the Email Sales Initiation Stages
value (e.g., joy, excitement) to generate initial interest in
the object before they look to signals for utilitarian attrib-
utes (e.g., shipping costs, price promotions) and related
utilitarian value (e.g., efficiency, task-technology fit) to
inform their cost-benefit analysis of the object (e.g., Liu
and Goodhue 2012, Huang et al. 2019).
In our paper, we presume shifting customer responses
to sales rep types (i.e., ASA, HSA, and HSA-ASA) in
common and salient customer decisions in the email
sales initiation stages because of customers’ hedonic-
utilitarian attribute trade-offs. In these sales settings,
vendor companies typically organize the email sales ini-
tiation using a series of email exchanges, in which cus-
tomers face two main customer decisions (e.g., Peppers
and Rogers 2004, Exceed.ai 2019, Woodpecker 2022).
Customers successively decide (1) whether to indicate
their initial interest in a new sales offer in the first step
(i.e., an initial interest indication) and (2) whether to pro-
vide contact information to schedule a sales appointment
meeting via more personal communication channels
(e.g., phone, live chat) in the second step (i.e., contact
information provision).2 Given these two salient deci-
sions, customers have two different guiding questions
and priorities that influence their hedonic-utilitarian
attribute trade-offs, whereby customers care about both
the sales object itself and the sales rep making the sales
offer. In their decision about whether to indicate their
initial interest, customers most often focus on whether
the email signals hedonic attributes to assess the he-
donic value (e.g., warmth) to be initially interested in
building a trusting sales relationship. Subsequently, in
their decision about whether to provide contact infor-
mation, customers usually care about whether the same
sales offer signals utilitarian attributes to assess the util-
itarian value (e.g., efficiency) that justify the investment
of further time and effort in subsequent interactions
(e.g., Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000, Dimoka et al. 2012).
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
Figure 1 provides an overview of customer information
processing in the email sales initiation stages, highlight-
ing customer decisions, guiding questions, and key
hedonic-utilitarian attribute considerations.
3. Research Model and Hypotheses
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Development
Building on customer information processing and
hedonic-utilitarian trade-offs in email sales initiation
stages, we argue that the sales rep type (ASA versus
HSA versus HSA-ASA) influences customer decision
outcomes.3 The gist of our theorizing is that sales rep
types signal different hedonic and utilitarian attrib-
utes that customers appreciate based on the respective
hedonic-utilitarian attribute trade-off in the given deci-
sion stage, causing shifting customer responses across
stages. More specifically, as depicted in our research
model in Figure 2, we argue that sales rep types have
differential effects on the initial interest indication (Hy-
potheses 1, (a) and (b)) and contact information provi-
sion (Hypotheses 2, (a) and (b)). For each stage, we
hypothesize about the effects of HSAs relative to ASAs
(Hypotheses 1(a) and 2(a)), hence focusing on the com-
parative effects of human versus automated single sales
agents (e.g., Rai et al. 2019, Jain et al. 2021). Addition-
ally, we hypothesize about the effects of HSA-ASAs rel-
ative to ASAs (Hypotheses 1(b) and 2(b)), highlighting
the potential of human-machine combinations in com-
parison with full automation (e.g., Daugherty and
Wilson 2018). Moreover, we develop our mediation
hypotheses that shed light on the role of social pres-
ence as a crucial customer perception of hedonic
attributes driving initial interest indication (Hypotheses
Figure 2. Research Model
1153
1, (c) and (d)) and of performance expectancy as well as
effort expectancy as crucial customer beliefs regarding
utilitarian attributes that are factored into customers’ cost-
benefit calculus driving contact information provi-
sion (Hypotheses 2, (c) and (d)).
3.1. The Effects of Sales Rep Type on Initial
Interest Indication
In the first stage of an email sales initiation, customers
usually receive an email from a sales rep and are asked
to indicate their initial interest in a sales offer by answer-
ing the email. At this very first encounter, customers
usually ask, “Do I want to begin a business relationship
with the sales rep?” To answer this question, customers
in a mental state of discovering an unexpected object
tend to follow a systematic trade-off pattern in their
information processing by first looking for hedonic
attributes that indicate hedonic value (e.g., affective
benefits, experiential pleasure) to formulate initial
preferences before they consider utilitarian attributes
that indicate utilitarian value (e.g., cognitive benefits,
goal achievement) to engage in more granular cost-
benefit analyses (e.g., Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000,
Bleier and Eisenbeiss 2015). For instance, research has
shown that customers must first deem the sales initia-
tion to be trustworthy before they are open to consid-
ering the sales offer and thus, proceeding toward
indicating their initial interest (e.g., De Wulf et al.
2001, Liu and Goodhue 2012).
We argue that customers respond more favorably to
HSAs than to ASAs in the first encounter of a sales ini-
tiation and thus, are more likely to indicate their initial
interest to an HSA (versus an ASA). This is because
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
1154 Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
customers are more likely to perceive more hedonic
attributes (e.g., personal attention, empathy) that signal
the hedonic value in an HSA (versus an ASA), which
customers appreciate in business relationships (e.g., Xu
et al. 2014, Tan et al. 2019). Indeed, the relationship mar-
keting and social psychology literatures (e.g., Snyder
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and Fromkin 1980, De Wulf et al. 2001) indicate that
customers tend to discount standardized and cold serv-
ices and instead, appreciate personalized and warm
interactions in the very early stages of sales processes. In
these decision stages, customers usually tend to watch
out for social cues as hedonic attributes that signal this
desired personalized care—cues that are particularly
rare and thus, sought after, particularly in text-based,
technology-enabled communication (e.g., Gefen and
Straub 2003, Tan et al. 2019). We assert that one of the
few available social cues is the type of sales rep.
Accordingly, we expect that customers interpret ASAs
as capable of operating in a standardized and repetitive
manner that treats every case similarly, with little to no
marginal costs for the vendor company, whereas they
are likely to view HSAs as a hedonic attribute signal of
the vendor company’s investment to meet the unique
needs of individual customers (e.g., Leung et al. 2018,
Castelo et al. 2019). This is in line with previous studies
pointing toward higher acceptance of HSAs (versus
ASAs) in relational and personal settings (e.g., Castelo
et al. 2019, Longoni and Cian 2022). Given the argu-
ments and empirical evidence, we propose that custom-
ers are more likely to indicate their initial interest to
HSAs (versus ASAs).
Hypothesis 1 (a). Customers are more likely to indicate
their initial interest in email sales initiations when encoun-
tering an HSA rather than an ASA.
How do customers respond to an HSA-ASA combina-
tion relative to an ASA alone in terms of initial interest
indication in email sales initiations? For HSA-ASA combi-
nations, one widely used practice in email sales initiations
is to introduce two collaborating sales agents (i.e., an
HSA and an ASA) to the customer in the email who are
collectively in charge of addressing customer needs (e.g.,
Exceed.ai 2019, Paschen et al. 2020), whereby the HSA
is responsible for the customer communication and the
ASA is responsible for the preparation and specification of
the sales offer, which is presented to the customer in later
stages of the sales process (Online Appendix A presents
examples). As such, both sales agents assume complemen-
tary roles and thus, can signal advantages because of their
specializations (i.e., HSA: hedonic value; ASA: utilitarian
value) (e.g., Castelo et al. 2019, Longoni and Cian 2022).
We argue that customers are more likely to indicate
their initial interest to an HSA-ASA (versus an ASA).
The indication of an HSA specializing in the task of
communication evokes the perception that the HSA
can fully focus on providing hedonic value, allowing
for more personal interactions with customers than an
ASA alone, which is not only expected to signal less
hedonic value than an HSA does but also has to cover
both roles. Given that customers face a primarily
hedonic-focused decision when expressing their initial
interest in a sales initiation encounter and therefore pri-
oritize primarily hedonic attributes, the HSA's special-
ization in the role of a personal contact person makes
the HSA-ASA combination particularly appealing.
Previous research supports this argument. For instance,
Longoni et al. (2019) demonstrated that patients accepted
medical advice from a recommendation system less often
when the recommendation system derived the medical
advice alone relative to a human doctor deriving the medi-
cal advice together with a recommendation system. Thus,
we predict that customers will be more likely to indicate
their initial interest when experiencing an HSA-ASA com-
bination (versus an ASA alone).
Hypothesis 1 (b). Customers are more likely to indicate
their initial interest in email sales initiations when encoun-
tering an HSA-ASA combination rather than an ASA.
Why exactly should customers respond differently to
HSAs (and HSA-ASAs) versus ASAs and thus, be more
likely to indicate their interest? As elaborated, custom-
ers who follow systematic trade-off patterns in their
information processing usually base their decision on
hedonic attributes in very early stages of decision mak-
ing to formulate initial preferences. Thus, any signal of
a human and warm touch that allows the customer to
infer some sense of personal commitment, investment,
and relationship should increase customers’ likelihood
of indicating an initial interest. Consequently, we
expect that social presence (Short et al. 1976, Gefen
and Straub 2003)—the perceived sense of personal
and warm interactions with another human being—
will be a crucial customer perception that explains
why customers are more or less likely to indicate their
initial interest. In general, online environments, such
as email communications, are considered to lack social
presence (e.g., Hassanein and Head 2007). Yet, adding
digital social cues through text and pictures can convey
social presence, which in turn, can lead to desirable cus-
tomer responses, such as trust and purchase intentions
(e.g., Cyr et al. 2009, Qiu and Benbasat 2009). We argue
that just such a digital social cue is the type of sales rep.
As such, we hypothesize that customers perceive that
social presence is largely missing in the presence of a
“cold and cost-efficient” ASA but is more salient in the
presence of a “warm and costly” HSA (e.g., Pavlou and
Gefen 2004, Dimoka et al. 2012). Consequently, custom-
ers are likely to feel a more personal connection when
they recognize the presence of an HSA (versus an
ASA), and thus, they will be more willing to invest fur-
ther time and effort in the interaction. This is in line
with previous research indicating that customers are
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
more likely to accept recommendations for chocolate
bars—a product related to hedonic consumption—the
more the recommender (i.e., human, machine, or
machine-human hybrid) is associated with assessing
and providing hedonic value (e.g., Longoni and Cian
2022). Thus, the more a sales rep evokes social presence,
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the more likely a customer is to indicate their initial
interest. As such, customers should be more responsive
(i.e., indicate higher interest) to HSAs and HSA-ASA
combinations than to ASAs alone because of their
higher levels of social presence.
Hypothesis 1 (c). Social presence mediates the effect of sales
rep type on initial interest indications, such that a customer is
more likely to indicate their initial interest to an HSA rather
than an ASA because of higher levels of social presence.
Hypothesis 1 (d). Social presence mediates the effect of
sales rep type on initial interest indications, such that a cus-
tomer is more likely to indicate their initial interest to an
HSA-ASA combination rather than an ASA because of
higher levels of social presence.
3.2. The Effects of Sales Rep Type on Contact
Information Provision
After their initial interest has been indicated, in the
follow-up email communication, customers usually
need to decide whether they are willing to agree to
schedule a sales appointment, resulting in the provision
of their contact information to switch the communica-
tion channel from emails to cue-richer communication
(e.g., live chat or phone) with the same sales rep (e.g.,
Peppers and Rogers 2004, Woodpecker 2022). Such an
appointment for an initial sales meeting and related
contact information provision are non-binding and
allow the customer both to get to know the sales rep
better and to more easily scout possible sales offer spec-
ifications (e.g., Xiao and Benbasat 2007), all before the
customer engages in more serious negotiations and
faces the binding decision on whether to complete the
purchase. In this non-binding situation, customers may
implicitly ask themselves, “Do I want to provide con-
tact information to this sales rep?” The decision to
engage in the scheduling of a sales appointment builds
on the mental processing of utilitarian attributes that
goes beyond the hedonic attributes perceived when
deciding to indicate their initial interest. Accordingly,
at this subsequent decision stage, customers typically
look for signals that justify the time and effort that must
be invested in making a sales appointment with a sales
rep (e.g., Bettman et al. 1998, Lambrecht et al. 2011).
We argue that customers have a lower likelihood of
providing their contact information to schedule a sales
appointment when they encounter an HSA (versus an
ASA). Our rationale is that customers faced with the organ-
izational and operational tasks of contact information
1155
delivery tend to focus on utilitarian rather than he-
donic value, such as effort minimization, efficiency,
and performance, which ASAs (as opposed to HSAs) in
particular provide (e.g., Huang and Rust 2018, Castelo
et al. 2019). Accordingly, customers in this stage tend to
process information following a trade-off pattern in
favor of utilitarian rather than hedonic attributes. Liter-
ature on the phenomenon of automation (e.g., Daugh-
erty and Wilson 2018, Rai et al. 2019, Jain et al. 2021)
particularly indicates the operational benefits of ASAs
over HSAs, which allow for vast efficiency gains for
customers and thus, for minimizing customer effort
and maximizing customer convenience and performance.
Moreover, ASAs are less likely to make careless mistakes
or have bad days in operational tasks than HSAs (e.g.,
Huang and Rust 2018, Schanke et al. 2021). Therefore, we
suggest that customers associate less utilitarian value
with an HSA than an ASA when scheduling a sales
appointment meeting, thus being less likely to provide
contact information to an HSA (versus an ASA).
This argument is in line with previous research (e.g.,
Castelo et al. 2019, Logg et al. 2019) indicating that algo-
rithms (versus humans) performing analytical, objec-
tive, and automatable tasks are not only superior in
efficiency and accuracy but are also often preferred in
these areas by users. In the same vein, users typically
turn to automated agents for their operations-oriented
capabilities to increase efficiency and performance,
such as setting an alarm with Siri, turning on the lights
with Alexa, or getting directions from Google. In sum,
we propose that customers are less likely to provide
contact information to an HSA (versus an ASA).
Hypothesis 2 (a). Customers are less likely to provide
contact information in email sales initiations when encoun-
tering an HSA rather than an ASA.
How do customers respond to an HSA-ASA combi-
nation relative to an ASA alone in terms of contact
information provision? When comparing HSA-ASA
combinations with ASAs, we argue that a customer is
less likely to provide contact information when the
sales rep is an HSA-ASA combination (versus an ASA
alone). This is because customers at this decision stage
tend to prioritize utilitarian over hedonic attributes and
thus, believe that HSA-ASAs (versus ASAs) are less
adept in providing utilitarian value that is, for example,
associated with scheduling a sales appointment. Even if
the HSA in the HSA-ASA combination is completely
devoted to the task of customer communication and
thus, to scheduling sales appointments, the HSA (ver-
sus an ASA only) is still subject to various human flaws
in performance, such as natural response delays, lim-
ited time resources, and proneness to mistakes (e.g., Huang
and Rust 2018, Schanke et al. 2021). Thus, having the HSA
specializing in the role of the communicator does not make
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
1156 Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
the HSA-ASA combination more appealing than an ASA
alone when scheduling a sales appointment. Based on the
logic, we propose that a customer has a lower likelihood of
providing contact information when encountering an
HSA-ASA combination (relative to an ASA alone).
Hypothesis 2 (b). Customers are less likely to provide
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contact information in email sales initiations when encoun-
tering an HSA-ASA combination rather than an ASA.
Why exactly should customers be less likely to pro-
vide contact information when encountering an HSA
(and also, an HSA-ASA combination) rather than an
ASA alone? As mentioned earlier, customers at this
later stage of the email sales initiation face a utilitarian-
focused decision and typically follow an information
trade-off that prioritizes utilitarian over hedonic attr-
ibutes to engage in more granular cost-benefit ass-
essments. Accordingly, any signal of efficiency and
seamless goal achievement allows the customer to infer
some sense of performance maximization and effort
minimization, which increases customers’ likelihood of
engaging in the cumbersome task of scheduling a sales
appointment. Consequently, we expect that perform-
ance expectancy, a customer’s belief that the interaction
with the sales rep will help to attain gains in perform-
ance (Venkatesh et al. 2003), and effort expectancy, a
customer’s belief that the interaction with a sales rep is
free of effort (Venkatesh et al. 2003), are two crucial
beliefs that explain why customers are more or less
likely to provide contact information when scheduling
a sales appointment. ASAs—particularly contemporary
ones (e.g., Luo et al. 2019b, Schanke et al. 2021)—are
known for their operational benefits over HSAs, which
allow for vast efficiency gains for customers and thus,
for maximizing performance (e.g., Daugherty and Wil-
son 2018, Rai et al. 2019, Jain et al. 2021). Accordingly,
ASAs executing operational tasks are not limited by
well-known human idiosyncrasies, such as making
careless mistakes, having bad or sick days, and becom-
ing frustrated or tired (e.g., Huang and Rust 2018).
Moreover, ASAs are much more flexible and easier to
use for operational routines, can better focus on the cus-
tomers’ organizational demands, and require less commu-
nication with the customer to move on in the sales process.
For instance, whereas an ASA can make the sales appoint-
ment meeting at any time proposed by the customer and
may even talk to several customers at the same time, HSAs
in charge of and even specialized in communication (i.e.,
in the HSA-ASA combination) are restricted to their
schedule and thus, have limits (e.g., time and length of
calls). Furthermore, interacting with ASAs does not
require several exchanges and confirmations regarding
the scheduling of the sales appointment meeting. Addi-
tionally, the emergence of missed phone calls by the
sales rep and the potential necessity to reschedule a call
are less likely with an ASA (versus an HSA). Given
these differences in performance expectancy and effort
expectancy, customers are less likely to provide their
contact information and thus, engage in the task of
scheduling a sales appointment meeting in the presence
of an HSA (versus an ASA).
This is in line with previous information systems
research demonstrating that performance expectancy
and effort expectancy are two of the strongest predic-
tors of users accepting technologies, particularly in util-
itarian contexts (e.g., Venkatesh et al. 2003, Cenfetelli
et al. 2008). Relatedly, customers were found to be more
likely to accept product recommendations in utilitarian-
focused decisions the more the recommender (i.e., human,
machine, or machine-human hybrid) was considered to be
able to assess and provide utilitarian value (Longoni and
Cian 2022). Thus, the more a sales rep evokes performance
expectancy and effort expectancy, the more likely a cus-
tomer is to provide contact information. Therefore, custom-
ers should be less responsive (i.e., at providing contact
information) to HSAs and HSA-ASA combinations than to
ASAs because of their lower levels of performance expect-
ancy and effort expectancy.
Hypothesis 2 (c). Performance expectancy and effort
expectancy mediate the effect of sales rep type on contact
information provision such that a customer is less likely to
provide contact information to an HSA rather than an ASA
because of lower levels of performance expectancy and lower
levels of effort expectancy.
Hypothesis 2 (d). Performance expectancy and effort
expectancy mediate the effect of sales rep type on contact
information provision such that a customer is less likely to
provide contact information to an HSA-ASA combination
rather than an ASA because of lower levels of performance
expectancy and lower levels of effort expectancy.
4. Research Methodology
We employed a multi-method approach (Mingers 2003,
Venkatesh et al. 2013) and used the complementary
properties of a randomized field experiment and a
follow-up randomized online experiment to test our
hypotheses. The first study addressed the direct effect
hypotheses (i.e., Hypotheses 1, (a) and (b) and 2, (a) and
(b)) and was a randomized field experiment (Study 1)
based on a sales initiation via email communication
of a real company to examine the main effects of our
research model in a setting with high ecological validity
and generalizability. Subsequently, we conducted a
randomized online experiment (Study 2) to investigate
the direct effect hypotheses in a setting with high inter-
nal validity. In addition, we aimed to explore the medi-
ating mechanisms underlying the effects of the sales
rep type on the initial interest indication (Hypotheses 1,
(c) and (d)) and contact information provision (Hypoth-
eses 2, (c) and (d)), respectively.
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows.
In Section 5, we describe the research context and
experimental design of the field experiment (Study 1),
followed by the experimental procedures and results.
In Section 6, we present the refined experimental design
and measured variables for the follow-up online experi-
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ment (Study 2), concluding with the results. Finally, we
discuss the implications of the findings and draw con-
clusions in Section 7.
5. Study 1: Randomized Field Experiment
5.1. Company Background and Context
We partnered with a leading European pharmaceutical
company, Pharma,4 to conduct a randomized field ex-
periment. Pharma makes more than e10 billion in sales
every year, mainly through sales to other businesses; it
sells purification and monitoring technologies (among
other products) as well as related supplies and services
for laboratory applications to its customers. These cus-
tomers are from different geographic regions as well as
from the pharmaceutical and related technological sec-
tors. Thus, the optimal purification and monitoring
technology and related supplies and services for each
customer highly depend on customer-specific require-
ments (e.g., the chemicals used, daily purification
volume needs, monitoring requirements, necessary certi-
fications), so that sales reps usually help customers in
specifying and selecting the best sales offers to optimally
fulfill the customers’ specific needs.
As a result of our cooperation with Pharma, we
gained access to existing customers of the organization
that had acquired purification and monitoring technol-
ogy at some point between 2006 and 2018. At least one
year after the sale, these customers usually require
further and/or different supplies (e.g., chemicals) as
well as services (e.g., repair and maintenance) for their
purification and monitoring technologies, presenting
additional sales opportunities for Pharma. These sales
usually range between e5,000 and e20,000 without con-
sidering other potential sales, including cross-selling and
after sales. However, the required supplies and services
rely on open standards and thus, can easily be specified
and provided by competitors, hence not representing
safe sales for Pharma. Moreover, presenting such sales
offers to customers usually resembles first-time vendor-
customer encounters (and not encounters in long-lasting
vendor-customer relationships) because (1) a long time
period (i.e., at least a year) has elapsed since the sale
of the purification and monitoring technology, usually
without any vendor-customer interaction in between,
and (2) there are high fluctuations on both the sales agent
and customer sides (e.g., job rotation, promotion, turn-
over). For more information on the legal and ethical
situation of sales initiations via email communication
particularly in Europe, see Online Appendix I.
1157
Recently, Pharma tested deploying ASAs at various
stages in their sales processes. The customer sales and
service centers were at the forefront of these business
transformations, so Pharma could assign any type of
sales rep (i.e., ASA, HSA, or HSA-ASA) to its email
sales initiation stages. In collaboration with Pharma, we
designed and executed a randomized field experiment,
unbeknownst to the participants under study (i.e., cus-
tomers). The customers in our sample were observed
while making real-life decisions with serious conse-
quences for both them and Pharma. Thus, the findings
of this study are subject neither to the reporting biases
and demand effects inherent in survey and laboratory
research nor to issues of self-selection, as we were able
to observe subjects even when they did not respond to
the emails at all.
5.2. Experimental Design
To investigate our hypotheses, we randomly assigned
customers to one of three experimental conditions in a
between-subjects design, where each customer received
emails from one of three different sales reps (i.e., ASA
Only, HSA Only, and HSA-ASA). In the baseline condi-
tion, ASA Only, the sales rep was a single sales agent
that represented an automated identity, whereas in the
HSA Only condition, the sales rep was a single sales
agent who represented a human identity. In the HSA-
ASA condition, the sales rep consisted of a team of two
sales agents, where the HSA was presented as being in
charge of the customer communication and the ASA
was presented as being responsible for the sales offer
specifications.
In the emails to the customers, the sales reps pre-
sented identical sales offers (e.g., content, presentation)
and saliently indicated their identity several times (i.e.,
in the introduction, farewell message, and signature).
Online Appendix A presents examples of the sent emails.
To rule out any confounding effects because of previous
interactions between the sales reps and the customers, we
ascertained that no type of sales agent had previous direct
(e.g., email, call, meeting) or indirect touch points (e.g.,
Twitter, LinkedIn) with the contacted customers and
that Pharma had no commercial contact with the cus-
tomers since its sales of the purification and monitor-
ing technology.
To ascertain the validity of the conditions, we conducted
two workshops and one pilot study with Pharma. Thus,
we ensured that the procedure and sent emails in-
cluded content that was representative of the usual
Pharma sales emails. Moreover, each email contained
the same content, except for the features related to the
type of sales rep. Consistent with previous research
(Senecal and Nantel 2004), we ran a pretest to ascertain
that customers could identify the respective sales rep
type as intended and differentiate it from any other rele-
vant sales rep type (see Online Appendix B). Consistent
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
1158 Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)

with previous research (Senecal and Nantel 2004), we also
ran a pretest with participants from Amazon Mechanical
Turk to ascertain that customers could identify the re-
spective sales rep as intended and that they could differ-
entiate it from any other relevant sales rep (see Online
Appendix B for details). Finally, we made sure that no
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representatives not in charge anymore), 367 (46.7%) did
not respond, and 325 (41.3%) responded. Of the 325
who responded, 87 (26.8%) indicated an initial interest
in the sales offer, and 238 (73.2%) indicated that they
had no initial interest in the sales offer. Of the 87 who
indicated their initial interest, 54 (62.1%) provided

effects were subject to time-related confounds by verify-
ing that all emails were sent between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.
during usual working hours, when most customers
would be at their workplace.
5.3. Experimental Procedure and Sample
Description
The experimental procedure comprised four steps,
allowing us to directly examine how different sales
rep types influenced customer decisions in early sales
initiations via email communication.
1. Pharma sent each customer an email with a general
sales offer from one of our three sales reps. In this email,
the sales rep requested that the customer respond by
stating whether he or she was interested in a personal
sales offer.
2. Each customer could indicate initial interest by
answering the email directly or by clicking one of two
implemented buttons (i.e., “request a sales offer” or
“not interested”) within the email.
3. Customers who expressed an initial interest re-
ceived another email from the same sales rep type. This
time, they were required to provide both their phone
number and time slots when they would be available
for a sales appointment meeting via phone with the
respective sales rep to specify the sales offer to meet the
customers’ needs.
4. Each customer could provide the requested con-
tact information by answering the email directly.
At this point, our data-gathering process stopped.
We applied stratified random sampling to a pool of
Pharma’s customers, where we ensured that each con-
dition had the same number of customers and similar
characteristics regarding gender and education. We
recorded all variables via email responses. A total of
786 customers from different geographic regions and
sectors in Germany were contacted. Of these, 94 (12.0%)
were dead ends (i.e., mail delivery failures or customer
their contact information. More information on the
descriptive statistics and further analyses are pro-
vided in Online Appendix C.
5.4. Analysis and Results
5.4.1. Model-Free Results. We first report the model-
free results based on the mean comparisons between
the three sales reps. Consistent with previous research
on multiple decisions in sales processes (e.g., Huang
et al. 2019), we calculated two (customer) conversion
rates as our dependent variables for (1) initial interest
indication (i.e., Conversion Rate 1) and (2) contact infor-
mation provision (i.e., Conversion Rate 2) (see Table 1 for
the definitions of our dependent variables).
Figure 3 shows the two conversion rates across the
three sales rep types. HSA Only had a significantly
higher Conversion Rate 1 than ASA Only, in that Conver-
sion Rate 1 was 63.6% higher when comparing HSA Only
with ASA Only (MHSA Only
0.36 versus MASA Only

0.22; F
4.66, p < 0.05). However, there was no sig-
nificant difference between HSA-ASA and ASA Only
regarding Conversion Rate 1 (MHSA-ASA
0.22 versus
MASA Only
0.22; F
0.02, p > 0.1). Thus, we find initial
support for Hypothesis 1(a) but not for Hypothesis 1(b).
Regarding Conversion Rate 2, HSA Only had a sig-
nificantly lower Conversion Rate 2 than ASA Only.
Specifically, Conversion Rate 2 was 37.7% lower when
comparing HSA Only with ASA Only (MHSA Only
0.48
versus MASA Only
0.77; F
5.45, p < 0.05). Yet, there was
no significant difference between ASA Only and HSA-
ASA regarding Conversion Rate 2 (MHSA-ASA
0.72 versus
MASA Only
0.77; F
0.16, p > 0.1). Thus, we find initial
support for Hypothesis 2(a) but not for Hypothesis 2(b).
Online Appendix D provides more descriptive and stat-
istical details of the model-free comparisons.
5.4.2. Main Effects. We proceed by applying econo-
metric models to control for the identified effects of

Table 1. Dependent Variable Conversion Rate Definitions

n
xk
We measured the conversion rate in the form of a point estimator, P: P(Conversion Rate)
k
1
n

Conversion rate Definition

Conversion Rate 1
Conversion Rate 2
n denotes the total number of customers in the respective condition who responded to our first email
(excluding “dead ends” and “no responses”), and xk is a binary variable that equals 1 when the
customer indicated initial interest (i.e., “interest”) and 0 when not (i.e., “no interest”)
n denotes the total number of customers in the respective condition who indicated initial interest,
and xk is a binary variable that equals 1 when the customer provided the contact information
(i.e., “information”) and 0 when not responding or declining the request (i.e., “no information”)
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
Figure 3. (Color online) Conversion Rates (Study 1)
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sales rep types on the two conversions not being driven
by other covariates (i.e., gender, education, type of
organization, and public equity). Because we have ran-
domized field experimental data to identify direct
effects, our modeling analyses of conversion likelihood
are straightforward. We develop three models (i.e., a
linear probability model (LPM), a probit model, and a
logit model) that are commonly employed when inves-
tigating the effects on binary outcome variables (e.g.,
Huang et al. 2019, Luo et al. 2019b). We use R’s general-
ized linear model function to implement and estimate
the logistic regression models (R Core Team 2022). For
our main model (the logit model), we also provide the
odds ratios for a better interpretation of the results. In
the logit model, the unobserved conversion likelihood
is a logit function of the randomized conditions:
Exp(Ui )
Conversion Likelihoodi

Exp(Ui ) + 1
Ui
α + β1 × (HSA Onlyi ) + β2
× (HSA–ASAi ) + ΓControlsi + εi ,
where Ui denotes the latent utility of participant i to
proceed to the next stage, and the dependent variable
of the conversion is whether customer i decided to pro-
ceed to the next stage. The key variables are the three
conditions in the experiment, which are the two dummy
variables (i.e., HSA Only and HSA-ASA), with ASA
Only as the comparison baseline. Thus, the three regres-
sion analyses (LPM, probit, and logit) presented in
Table 2 present the effects of HSA Only and HSA-ASA
to ASA Only, where Conversion Likelihood 1 refers to the
initial interest indication and Conversion Likelihood 2
refers to contact information provision.
For the initial interest indication decision, the three
regression analyses consistently corroborated the model-
1159
free results. Customers had a significantly higher Conver-
sion Likelihood 1 relative to ASA Only when encountering
HSA Only but not when the sales rep was an HSA-ASA,
ceteris paribus. As such, relative to encountering ASA
Only, customers were 94.6% more likely to indicate an
initial interest when encountering HSA Only (βHSA Only

0.67, Exp(βHSA Only)
1.95, p < 0.05). Yet, customers
were not significantly more or less likely to indicate
their initial interest when encountering an HSA-ASA
(βHSA-ASA
−0.05, Exp(βHSA-ASA)
0.95, p > 0.1). Accord-
ingly, the results further support Hypothesis 1(a) but not
Hypothesis 1(b).
Similar to the results presented above, for the contact
information provision decision, the regression analyses
support the model-free results. The analyses reveal that
customers had a significantly lower Conversion Likeli-
hood 2 when encountering HSA Only relative to ASA
Only but not when encountering HSA-ASA, ceteris par-
ibus. As such, relative to encountering ASA Only, the
customers were 80.9% less likely to provide contact
information when encountering HSA Only (βHSA Only

−1.65, Exp(βHSA Only)
0.19, p < 0.05). Yet, customers
were not significantly more or less likely to provide
contact information when encountering HSA-ASA
(βHSA-ASA
−0.44, Exp(βHSA-ASA)
0.65, p > 0.1). Thus,
the results further support Hypothesis 2(a) but not
Hypothesis 2(b).
In Online Appendices D and E, we report supple-
mentary analyses regarding Study 1 that provide addi-
tional findings as well as further support the robustness
of our main findings. More specifically, (1) we provide
analyses and interpretations for supplementary sales
rep types (i.e., ASA-HSA and HSA-HSA) that were
tested during the field experiment in addition to the
main sales rep types; (2) we accounted for nonrespond-
ing customers by treating nonresponding customers as
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
1160 Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)

Table 2. Customer Conversion Likelihoods (Study 1)

Conversion Likelihood 1 Conversion Likelihood 2

(initial interest indication) ASA Only as baseline (contact information provision) ASA Only as baseline

LPM Probit Logit LPM Probit Logit

Sales Rep Type

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HSA Only 0.14** 0.40** 0.67** −0.32** −1.02*** −1.65**

(0.06) (0.19) (0.31) (0.12) (0.38) (0.67)
HSA-ASA −0.01 −0.03 −0.05 −0.07 −0.30 −0.44
(0.06) (0.19) (0.33) (0.14) (0.43) (0.74)
Control variables Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Intercept 0.22*** −0.76*** −1.24*** 0.89*** 1.22** 2.00**
(0.04) (0.14) (0.24) (0.16) (0.50) (0.85)
N 325 325 325 87 87 87
Log likelihood — −185.20 −185.20 — −48.90 −48.93
Adjusted/ 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.13 0.25 0.25
Nagelkerke R2
Omnibus model 3.76** 370.39** 370.39** 3.06*** 97.79*** 97.85***
χ2/F test
Note. Standard errors are in parentheses.
**p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01.

not interested customers for Conversion Likelihood 1, 6.2. Experimental Procedures

revealing similar effect patterns; and (3) we used nested
models, finding similar effects and further demonstrat-
ing the robustness of our results.
6. Study 2: Randomized
Online Experiment
6.1. Purpose and Methods
The randomized field experiment in Study 1 was
characterized by high ecological validity thanks to the
real-life context in which contemporary ASAs are prac-
tically applied. Yet, the Study was constrained in terms
of internal validity, and we were unable to assess the
underlying mechanisms that explain the direct effects
of sales rep types on customers’ initial interest indica-
tion and contact information provision. We intended to
address these limitations in Study 2 by corroborating
the high external validity of the first Study within a con-
trolled, randomized online experiment with high inter-
nal validity. Additionally, we aimed to explore the key
explanatory mechanisms underlying the direct effects
of sales rep types in each of the two stages.
Against this backdrop, we designed Study 2 analo-
gously to Study 1 regarding the experimental proce-
dures, the design and timing of the outgoing emails, the
manipulations of the sales rep types, and the dependent
variables. We created vignettes and related emails
according to the characteristics and context of Study 1.
Study 2 mainly differs from Study 1 regarding some
aspects of the experimental procedures, the sample,
and the measured variables (i.e., the mediators, con-
trols, and attention checks). The following sections will
detail these differences. Online Appendix F provides
more details as well as supplementary analyses and
robustness checks for the findings in Study 2.
Following established guidelines for experimental de-
signs (e.g., Aguinis and Bradley 2014), we used a
scenario-based vignette for our randomized online ex-
periment to simulate realistic decision making. In this
vein, we instructed participants to imagine that they
were going to receive a sales offer via email from a
well-known company that provides products and serv-
ices for purification and monitoring technologies. Thus,
we created a scenario in which participants had no pre-
vious contact and hence, no purchase history with not
only the sales rep but also the vendor company. We
randomly assigned participants to one of three condi-
tions that differed in terms of the sales rep type; these
were identical to the three conditions in Study 1 (i.e.,
ASA, HSA, and HSA-ASA).
To collect sample data comparable with Study 1, we
reached out to a European market research firm and
recruited participants who worked in sales settings (i.e.,
relationship management, negotiation, buying products
and services). We incentivized participation in two sub-
sequent randomized online experiments about email
sales initiations with e5 remuneration. Similar to the
timing in Study 1, we ensured that all links for the
experiment were sent out at about 10 a.m. for the first
part of the experiment (i.e., first decision stage) and
again at 10 a.m. the day after (i.e., second decision stage).
In the experiment, participants went through an experi-
mental procedure similar to the one in Study 1, in that
participants made a decision about (1) whether they
would indicate their interest after the first email and (2)
whether they would provide contact information for
scheduling a sales appointment meeting after the sec-
ond email. In contrast to the experimental procedure in
Study 1, however, after the participants provided their
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
answers, their participation did not end. Instead, we
instructed the participants to fill out a questionnaire,
including the measures for our mediators, controls, and
attention checks. Moreover, for the second decision
stage, we also invited all participants who decided not
to indicate their interest in the offer in the first stage to
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pretend that they had indicated their interest (e.g., Luo
et al. 2019a). The reason for including interest-indicating
and noninterest-indicating participants in the second
stage was to analyze the hypothesized effects of sales
rep type on contact information provision independ-
ently from customers’ information processing, priori-
ties, and thus, decisions in the first stage, thereby
offering a more robust explanation for contact informa-
tion provision and allowing for a more formal quantifi-
cation of the hypothesized effects of sales rep types in
the second stage (e.g., Morgan and Winship 2015).
6.3. Dependent Variables, Mediators, Controls,
and Sample Description
For our dependent variables, Conversion Rate 1 (i.e., ini-
tial interest indication) and Conversion Rate 2 (i.e., con-
tact information provision), we used the same binary
variables as in Study 1, except that we asked partici-
pants to answer a binary question (yes or no) for each
decision instead of tracking real email interactions. We
also accounted for and measured sample characteristics
and controls (i.e., Age, Gender, Education, Company Type,
Technology Sector, Technology Use at Work, Computer
Programming Experience, and Prior Knowledge about
Automated Agents) to check for the robustness of our
findings. Additionally, we used and adapted estab-
lished scales to measure Social Presence (Gefen and
Straub 2003) and Performance Expectancy as well as Effort
Expectancy (Venkatesh et al. 2003) to conduct the
Figure 4. (Color online) Conversion Rates (Study 2)
1161
mediation analyses as well as Curiosity (Real et al. 2000,
Lee and Chen 2011) and Moral Awareness (Reynolds
2006) to rule out alternative explanations (e.g., see Online
Appendix I for ethical issues on deploying ASAs in
Europe). We mainly used seven-point Likert-type scales
ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7).
Finally, we included two attention checks.
From a total of 514 participants who were assigned to
one of the three sales reps in the first decision stage, 455
(88.5%) participants also participated in the second deci-
sion stage. Of those 455, we removed 47 participants
(10.3%) who failed at least one of our attention checks.
Thus, the final sample comprised 408 participants for
the subsequent analyses. Online Appendix F provides
details on the descriptive statistics, the measurement
items, the constructs’ psychometric properties, and the
results of a confirmatory factor analysis that demon-
strates the convergent and discriminant validity of our
constructs. Online Appendix G demonstrates that com-
mon method bias did not confound our results.
6.4. Results
6.4.1. Model-Free Results. We first report the model-
free results based on mean comparisons between the
three sales rep types (see Figure 4). The results for Con-
version Rate 1 indicate that HSA Only and HSA-ASA
had a significantly higher Conversion Rate 1 than ASA
Only, respectively. Specifically, Conversion Rate 1 was
108.1% higher when comparing HSA Only with ASA
Only (MHSA Only
0.38 versus MASA Only
0.18; F

14.99, p < 0.01). Likewise, HSA-ASA had an 83.3%
higher Conversion Rate 1 than ASA Only (MHSA-ASA

0.33 versus MASA Only
0.18; F
8.67, p < 0.01). Thus, in
contrast to Study 1, we find initial support for Hypothe-
sis 1(a) and for Hypothesis 1(b).
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
1162 Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)

Regarding Conversion Rate 2, HSA Only and HSA-ASA
had a significantly lower Conversion Rate 2 than ASA
Only, respectively. Specifically, Conversion Rate 2 was
21.5% lower when comparing HSA Only with ASA Only
(MHSA Only
0.62 versus MASA Only
0.79; F
9.78, p <
0.01). Likewise, HSA-ASA had a 15.2% lower Conversion
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likely to provide contact information when encounter-
ing HSA Only (βHSA Only
−0.93, Exp(βHSA Only)
0.40,
p < 0.01) and 45.8% less likely when encountering HSA-
ASA (βHSA-ASA
−0.61, Exp(βHSA-ASA)
0.54, p < 0.05).
As such, we find support for Hypotheses 2(a) and (b).

Rate 2 than ASA Only (MHSA-ASA
0.67 versus MASA Only

0.79; F
5.28, p < 0.05). Thus and in contrast to Study
1, we find support for Hypothesis 2(a) and for Hypothe-
sis 2(b). See Online Appendix H for more descriptive
and statistical details of the model-free comparisons.
6.4.2. Main Effects. We proceed to conduct a set of
regression analyses (LPM, probit, and logit) similar to
those in Study 1 to ensure that the model-free findings
of the effects of sales rep types are not driven by covari-
ates. Table 3 presents the details of the results.
For the decision on the initial interest indication, the
regression analyses consistently corroborate the model-
free results and reveal that customers had a signifi-
cantly higher Conversion Likelihood 1 relative to ASA
Only when encountering HSA Only or HSA-ASA, cete-
ris paribus. Specifically, in contrast to encountering
ASA Only, customers were 194.8% more likely to indi-
cate an initial interest when encountering HSA Only
(βHSA Only
1.08, Exp(βHSA Only)
2.95, p < 0.01) and
143.3% more likely when encountering HSA-ASA
(βHSA-ASA
0.89, Exp(βHSA-ASA)
2.43, p < 0.01). Thus,
the results further support Hypotheses 1(a) and (b).
For the decision on contact information provis-
ion, the regression analyses consistently support the
model-free results. Customers had a significantly lower
Conversion Likelihood 2 when encountering HSA Only or
HSA-ASA, ceteris paribus. In particular, in contrast to
encountering ASA Only, the customers were 60.5% less
6.4.3. Mediation Analyses. As elaborated in our theo-
retical background and hypotheses development, cus-
tomers face different decisions in the email sales initiation
stages and thus, make different hedonic-utilitarian trade-
offs that drive the respective decision outcome. Whereas
customers tend to focus on hedonic attributes to assess
the hedonic value for the decision on their initial interest
indication, customers care rather more about utilitarian
attributes to assess the utilitarian value for the decision
on contact information provision. Specifically, we hy-
pothesized that social presence (SP) would mediate the
effects of sales rep types on initial interest indication (Hy-
potheses 1(c) and (d)) and that performance expectancy
(PE) and effort expectancy (EE) would mediate the effects
of sales rep types on contact information provision (Hy-
potheses 2(c) and (d)).
To test our mediation hypotheses, we performed
mediation analyses using the bootstrapping mediation
technique with 10,000 samples and 95% confidence
intervals (95% CIs) based on PROCESS (Hayes 2022,
model 4). We hereby used ASA Only as the baseline.
We first entered HSA Only and HSA-ASA as the inde-
pendent variables and Conversion Likelihood 1 (Conver-
sion Likelihood 2) as the dependent variable along with
the control variables; this is similar to our logit models
in Table 3. We then added Social Presence, Performance
Expectancy, and Effort Expectancy as mediators as well as
Curiosity and Moral Awareness as covariates. The results
in Table 4 reveal that the direct effect of both HSA Only

Table 3. Customer Conversion Likelihoods (Study 2)

Conversion Likelihood 1 Conversion Likelihood 2

(initial interest indication) ASA Only as baseline (contact information provision) ASA Only as baseline

LPM Probit Logit LPM Probit Logit

Sales Rep Type

HSA Only 0.21*** 0.64*** 1.08*** −0.19*** −0.55*** −0.93***
(0.05) (0.17) (0.29) (0.06) (0.17) (0.28)
HSA-ASA 0.16*** 0.52*** 0.89*** −0.12** −0.36** −0.61**
(0.05) (0.16) (0.28) (0.05) (0.16) (0.28)
Control variables Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Intercept 0.16 −0.98*** −1.65*** 0.78*** 0.78** 1.30**
(0.12) (0.38) (0.64) (0.13) (0.37) (0.63)
N 408 408 408 408 408 408
Log likelihood — −231.05 −231.09 — −236.83 −236.73
Adjusted/ 0.03 0.09 0.09 0.02 0.07 0.07
Nagelkerke R2
Omnibus model 1.95** 471.57** 471.65** 2.29** 465.26** 465.40**
χ2/F test
Note. Standard errors are in parentheses.
*p < 0.1; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01.
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s) 1163

and HSA-ASA on Conversion Likelihood 1 is significantly
mediated via Social Presence (HSA Only: indirect effect
SP
0.27; 95% CI
[0.10, 0.58]; HSA-ASA: indirect eff-
ect SP
0.27; 95% CI
[0.11, 0.54]), whereas Performance
Expectancy and Effort Expectancy do not significantly
mediate the direct effects (HSA Only: indirect effect
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The results are supported even when accounting for
Curiosity and Moral Awareness in the mediation models,
helping to extend the generalizability of our findings
and provide additional support for Social Presence, Per-
formance Expectancy, and Effort Expectancy as crucial
effect mechanisms in the respective decision stages.

PE
−0.06; 95% CI
[−0.23, 0.02]; indirect effect EE

0.07; 95% CI
[−0.02, 0.24]; HSA-ASA: indirect effect
PE
−0.07; 95% CI
[−0.24, 0.03]; indirect effect EE

−0.05; 95% CI
[−0.05, 0.19]). Moreover, we find that
the direct effect of HSA Only and HSA-ASA on Con-
version Likelihood 2 is significantly mediated via Per-
formance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy (HSA Only:
indirect effect PE
−0.47; 95% CI
[−1.07, −0.16]; indi-
rect effect EE
−0.43; 95% CI
[−1.01, −0.07]; HSA-
ASA: indirect effect PE
−0.26; 95% CI
[−0.67, −0.02];
indirect effect EE
−0.35; 95% CI
[−0.83, −0.03]) but
not via Social Presence (HSA Only: indirect effect SP

−0.21; 95% CI
[−0.59, 0.03]; HSA-ASA: indirect effect
SP
−0.27; 95% CI
[−0.73, 0.03]). Overall, these
results support our mediation hypotheses (Hypotheses
1(c) and (d), and 2(c) and (d)), in that they demonstrate
both positive indirect effects of HSA Only and HSA-
ASA (versus ASA Only) on Conversion Likelihood 1 via
Social Presence and negative indirect effects of HSA Only
and HSA-ASA (versus ASA Only) on Conversion Likeli-
hood 2 via Performance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy.
Moreover, the significant direct effects of sales rep types
in the base models become insignificant in the media-
tion models, indicating that no crucial mediator has
been omitted in the analyses (e.g., Zhao et al. 2010).
In Online Appendices H and I, we report a variety of
supplementary analyses regarding Study 2 that pro-
vide additional insights and corroborate our main find-
ings. In particular, (1) we provide analyses and results
of the effects of supplementary sales rep types (i.e.,
ASA-HSA and HSA-HSA), (2) we used nested models
to further demonstrate the robustness of our results,
and (3) we present analyses and a discussion of ethical
and legal applications of sales rep types that do not dis-
close their identity.
7. Discussion
How and why do customers respond to different sales
rep types (i.e., ASAs, HSAs, and HSA-ASAs) across
sales stages? Our paper offers notable findings that sup-
port our assertion that sales rep types have differential
effects on customer decisions across consecutive sales

Table 4. Mediation Analyses (Study 2)

Notes. N
408. Effects of Curiosity and Moral Awareness. Decision 1: Curiosity: 0.54 (0.15)***; 95% CI
[0.25, 0.83]; Moral Awareness: 0.20 (0.14) n.s.;
95% CI
[−0.08, 0.47]. Decision 2: Curiosity: 0.55 (0.18)**; 95% CI
[0.21, 0.90]; Moral Awareness: −0.42 (0.15)**; 95% CI
[−0.72, −0.12]. The
analyses are based on bootstrapping with 10,000 samples and 95% CIs (Hayes 2022, model 4), taking ASA Only as baseline. ΔR2 denotes the
increase in explanatory power of each of the respective models when including the added terms. All coefficients are displayed on a log-odds
metric to account for the binary dependent variables.
n.s., not significant; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
1164 Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
stages. Specifically, in two studies about email sales ini-
tiations, we consistently find support that (1) customers
are about 95% (Study 1) and 195% (Study 2) more likely
to indicate their initial interest to HSAs (versus ASAs),
whereas (2) they are about 81% (Study 1) and 60%
(Study 2) less likely to provide contact information to
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HSAs (versus ASAs). We reveal that customers are
more likely to indicate their initial interest to HSAs
(versus ASAs) because of HSAs’ higher levels of social
presence, yet they are less likely to subsequently provide
contact information because of lower levels of perform-
ance expectancy and effort expectancy associated with
HSAs (versus ASAs). Although we find that the shifting
effect patterns for HSA-ASAs (versus ASAs) across
the email sales initiation stages resemble those of HSAs
(versus ASAs) in the online experiment, the results in
the field experiment diverged. More precisely, HSA-
ASAs and ASAs exhibited no different effects on initial
interest indications and contact information provision.
Overall, these findings significantly advance the field of
study on customer responses to human as opposed to
computerized sales agents.
7.1. Contributions to Research and Practice
Our article extends the research in three important
ways. First, we advance prior work by suggesting that
customer responses to HSAs versus ASAs can shift
across sales stages. Previous research on customer accep-
tance of HSAs versus ASAs embraced a fairly mono-
lithic view of sales processes, implicitly assuming that
the effects of sales rep types on decision outcomes are
uniform and stable for the entire sales process (e.g., Cas-
telo et al. 2019, Longoni and Cian 2022). Yet, our find-
ings show that customer responses to sales rep types
cannot simply be extrapolated from one stage to an-
other. In particular, we demonstrate whether and how
customer responses to HSAs versus ASAs can shift and
even reverse across subsequent stages. Our study thus
paints a more nuanced picture of customer responses to
sales rep types across sales stages.
Second and relatedly, we advance our understanding
of the effect mechanisms that explain customers’ shift-
ing responses to HSAs and ASAs across sales stages.
Whereas previous studies have extensively investiga-
ted the direct effects of different sales agent types (e.g.,
Castelo et al. 2019, Longoni and Cian 2022), the ques-
tion of why these agents affect decision outcomes
across sales stages has remained largely unanswered.
By proposing shifting customer priorities in the consid-
eration of sales reps’ hedonic and utilitarian attributes
across sales stages, we provide a window into the
mechanisms that explain why the effects of sales rep
types can differ across stages. More specifically, we
reveal that customers are more likely to indicate their
initial interest to HSAs versus ASAs because of HSAs’
higher levels of social presence, whereas they are less
likely to provide contact information because of HSAs’
lower levels of performance expectancy and effort ex-
pectancy. Explicitly revealing these hitherto missing
explanatory mechanisms is important for understand-
ing why sales rep types may operate in a more or less
effective manner across sales stages.
Third, we go beyond the study of customer accept-
ance of ASAs in comparison with HSAs (e.g., Luo et al.
2019b) and in isolation from other sales rep types (e.g.,
Li and Karahanna 2015). To date, there has been little
research on the “missing middle,” where HSAs and
ASAs are deployed together rather than alone (e.g.,
Daugherty and Wilson 2018). Against this backdrop,
we shed light on the effects of HSA-ASAs, where both
agents specialize in complementary activities that each
one is considered to do best. The findings of our two
studies reveal that we cannot unequivocally conclude
whether customers respond differently to HSA-ASAs
versus ASAs. We surmise that these diverging results
can be explained by contextual features in the field set-
ting (e.g., Hong et al. 2014). Specifically, in conversa-
tions with customers in the field, we learned that they
paid only limited attention to the profound recognition
and assessment of the HSA-ASA because of the con-
straints of their daily work environments (e.g., lack of
time and cognitive resources to process the subtleties of
their emails). As such, customers tended to focus on the
more outstanding and salient sales agent in the HSA-
ASA (i.e., the ASA), which probably overshadowed the
nuances of the combination. This observation is in line
with previous research on hedonic-utilitarian decision
making in that the saliency of attributes can influence
the trade-off between hedonic and utilitarian attributes
(e.g., Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000). The dependence on
such salient attributes demonstrates that although pro-
mising HSA-ASA combinations (such as those in which
HSAs and ASAs assume distinct yet complementary
roles) can be viable options for single ASAs, customer
responses to HSA-ASA combinations (versus ASAs) are
not simple and context-agnostic. Instead, contextual fea-
tures of the sales setting can crucially affect the customer
responses to HSA-ASA combinations in each sales stage,
and eventually, the response shifts across stages. Expos-
ing such diverging customer responses and thus, vary-
ing response shifts across studies represent a useful
contribution because it serves to identify potential boun-
dary conditions (the when) of our theorizing.
Our insights also provide valuable practical lessons
for vendor companies that consider presenting ASAs in
several sales stages to improve customer responses and
ultimately, increase sales. Specifically, the findings on
how and why the effects of sales rep types persist or
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
change across sales stages are important because with-
out proper forethought, vendor companies may assume
that customers will consistently appreciate ASAs in sit-
uations where the exact opposite is true. The findings of
our high-stakes field experiment are particularly useful
for vendor companies because they build on real cus-
Downloaded from informs.org by [2a09:8044:418b::6] on 27 March 2024, at 12:39 . For personal use only, all rights reserved.
tomer responses. Our insights may also extend to other
sales stages and contexts where ASAs and HSA-ASA
combinations are increasingly emerging and consecu-
tive customer decisions are most common, such as in
credit approval or online investment processes (e.g.,
robo-advisory services).
Our research demonstrates that employing ASAs—
either separately or jointly with HSAs—can be more or
less beneficial in sales processes depending on the spe-
cific stage of customer decision making in which they are
deployed. In this vein, vendor companies need to con-
sider not only that different sales rep types bring distinct
attributes to the table but also that customers’ apprecia-
tion of these attributes shifts across the stages of the sales
process. Specifically, customers are more likely to indi-
cate their initial interest when encountering an HSA,
which emphasizes customers’ preference for rather per-
sonal human-human relationships and thus, for hedonic
value during the initial sales contact. Yet, once customers
are asked to provide their contact information to sched-
ule a business appointment, they seem to prioritize utili-
tarian value regarding performance and effort when
communicating with ASAs. Overall, our findings inform
vendor companies about customer responses to ASAs, as
one and the same ASA can either help or hurt customer
responses depending on what stage customers have
reached in the sales process and what their hedonic-
utilitarian attribute trade-offs are. Given these differ-
ential customer responses, vendor companies are well
advised to consider whether they need to emphasize
hedonic value (i.e., social presence) or utilitarian value
(i.e., performance and effort) when deploying different
types of sales reps in their sales processes.
7.2. Strengths, Limitations, and Directions for
Future Research
The present manuscript has various strengths, including
the complementary features of a high-stakes randomized
field experiment and a controlled online experiment, in-
sights from objective customer behaviors, and the investi-
gation of two highly consequential but under-researched
consecutive customer decisions and their underlying me-
chanisms. Yet, like any paper, our research has limitations
that provide fertile ground for future research.
First, we conducted our research in a sales setting
with high transaction volumes and quite complex
products. Although we believe that the core patterns
of findings—shifting customer responses to ASAs
1165
versus HSAs across early decision stages—can gener-
alize to lower-stakes sales settings with less complex
processes and products, future research should exam-
ine the boundary conditions of our findings across dif-
ferent processes and product settings. More research is
also required to test the generalizability of our findings
to different domains (e.g., finance, e-government, and
healthcare) and cultural and geographic contexts (e.g.,
the United States and China). Similarly, although our
research focused on sales initiation via emails, a chan-
nel with growing relevance and broad applicability, we
encourage future researchers to examine the effects of
sales rep types on customer responses via alternative
sales channels (e.g., chat or social media). Future re-
search is also warranted to explore other sales-setting
specificities, such as sales initiator (e.g., vendor-initiated
versus customer-initiated), artifact design (e.g., text- ver-
sus voice-based ASAs), and conversation content (e.g.,
sentiment, topic, communication style).
Second, although we found that customers responded
differently to HSA-ASAs than to ASAs in the online
experiment, we did not find these differential effects in
the field experiment. As conjectured, the results in the
field suggest that customers are primarily affected by the
contextual features in the field and the mere presence of
an ASA in the HSA-ASA combination, while the nuances
of the combination were largely ignored. We encourage
future research to investigate whether and how boundary
conditions influence customer responses in each stage as
well as the resulting emergence and direction of response
shifts across sales stages. Moreover, it will be interesting
to investigate whether and how customer responses
to ASAs and HSA-ASA combinations will change once
ASAs have further developed their capabilities and/or cus-
tomers have tested, experienced, and acquainted them-
selves more with ASAs. In the same vein, ethical concerns
will increase in relevance, such as the truthful disclosure
of the sales rep identity (see Online Appendix I for an
extended discussion). Taken together, we highlight the
importance of conducting additional field studies, such
as those based on longitudinal and qualitative research
designs, to enhance our understanding of the reasons for
customer responses to ASAs and HSA-ASA combinations.
Third, we mainly focused on two salient consecutive
decisions in the early stages of email sales processes,
namely the initial interest indication and contact informa-
tion provision, which are highly consequential for later
stages of the sales process. Future studies could explore
customer decisions after the email sales initiation (e.g.,
evaluation and purchase decisions) and beyond the sales
closure (e.g., customer complaints and product returns).
Accordingly, researchers could investigate other depen-
dent variables (e.g., brand perceptions, revisits, and
repurchases), mediators (i.e., customer engagement
 Adam, Roethke, and Benlian: Customer Responses to Human vs. Automated Sales Agents
1166 Information Systems Research, 2023, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 1148–1168, © 2022 The Author(s)
and behavioral uncertainty), and moderators (e.g., cus-
tomer traits, such as social anxiety or need for control)
that may be more pertinent in other decision stages and
product settings. In this vein, future research may also
investigate how to shape the hedonic and utilitarian
attributes of the sales rep type to improve customer
Downloaded from informs.org by [2a09:8044:418b::6] on 27 March 2024, at 12:39 . For personal use only, all rights reserved.
responses, such as emphasizing social cues (e.g., an-
thropomorphic features or avatar representations) to
increase customers’ perceptions of social presence in
hedonic-focused decisions or utilitarian cues (e.g., fast
delivery speed or high service quality) to evoke per-
formance and effort expectancies in utilitarian-focused
decisions. Moreover, it would be interesting to see
whether it is beneficial or detrimental for vendor com-
panies to keep the sales rep type consistent throughout
the email sales initiation stages (which was the focus of
our paper) or to dynamically alternate between sales
rep types across stages. In this way, vendor companies
may explore what factors customers value most when
making their respective decisions and thus, determine
the best sales rep types for each stage, adhering to the
principle of “deploying the right sales rep at the right time”
to best meet customer needs. In this regard, more in-depth
research is also warranted to investigate differences in
customer responses to varying combinations of HSAs
and ASAs (e.g., in complementary or substitutive peer
roles and in subordinate or superordinate roles). Finally,
researchers may go beyond the sales context, as it is likely
that responses shift across stages in entirely different
decision contexts, such as responses of employees to
human versus automated managers in organizational
settings (e.g., Benlian et al. 2022) or patients responding
to human versus automated physicians/assistants in
medical care (e.g., Longoni et al. 2019).
In conclusion, we believe that there is much to learn
about the applicability of human and/or automated
agents in sales processes and beyond, a topic that is
being increasingly discussed across industries and
geographies. We have only scratched the surface of
the myriad challenges and opportunities faced by cus-
tomers and vendors. More collaborative work between
academics and practitioners is needed to help decision
makers leverage and extend our insights. We offer this
work as an important step toward building the foundation
for future research and practice in this arena.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the senior editor, the associate editor, and
three anonymous reviewers for a most constructive and devel-
opmental review process. Moreover, the authors gratefully
acknowledge the funding support by the German Research
Foundation (DFG) as part of the project “Accountable Artifi-
cial Intelligence-based Systems: A Multi-Perspective Analysis”
(project number 471168026) and the Center for Responsible
Digitality (ZEVEDI). Open Access funding enabled by the
Athene Young Investigator program at Technical University
of Darmstadt.
Endnotes
1
Consistent with previous information systems research on recom-
mendation agents (e.g., Xiao and Benbasat 2007, Qiu and Benbasat
2009, Li and Karahanna 2015), we use the term sales agent to refer to a
human-like (either a human or technology-based) entity that aims to ini-
tiate and close sales in addition to providing product recommendations.
2
Although vendor companies usually demarcate the interaction
with customers across two email exchanges to not overwhelm cus-
tomers with too much information in a single email and lose cus-
tomer interest by writing too many emails before moving to a more
personal communication channel (e.g., Peppers and Rogers 2004, Simon
2015, Woodpecker 2022), the actual number of email exchanges and
related salient customer decision stages and decisions can vary depend-
ing on, for example, the content of the sales offer, the number of follow-
ups by the sales agent, and specific customer attributes (e.g., Bhargave
et al. 2015, Zhang et al. 2017).
3
Please note that in addition to the three main sales rep types (i.e.,
ASA, HSA, and HSA-ASA), we explored three supplementary sales
rep types (i.e., ASA-HSA, HSA-HSA, and no identity). With these
additional sales rep types, we account for specificities that result from
the differences in the order and assumed tasks of each sales agent in
possible HSA-ASA combinations, for the number of sales agents oper-
ating as sales reps (i.e., one versus two sales agents), and for the dis-
play of the identity overall (i.e., disclosure of sales rep identity versus
nondisclosure of sales rep identity). To keep the presentation of our
research succinct and to ascertain adequate theoretical depth and dis-
cussion of our findings, we focus on customer responses to the three
main sales rep types in the main manuscript and provide our insights
into customer responses to the other sales rep types in Online Appen-
dices A–I.
4
We used pseudonyms for the names of the vendor company and
its sales agents because they wished to remain anonymous.
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