Customer Care Meets Technology: Investigating the Role of AI in Managerial Responses to Online Reviews

As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies become increasingly widespread across different industries, it is vital to understand their effects on managerial practices. This study investigates how the release of ChatGPT has influenced hotel managers' behavior in responding to online reviews. Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach combined with propensity score matching (PSM), the research explores changes in managers' response patterns before and after the introduction of ChatGPT. The findings provide new insights into the application of signaling theory in digital contexts, highlighting key considerations for customer relationship management (CRM) within the hotel sector. Our analysis reveals a significant decrease in managers' response rates following the release of ChatGPT, especially for reviews with more detailed content. This result suggests that while AI tools can improve operational efficiency, hotel managers must balance the use of technology with maintaining meaningful human interactions to meet customer expectations.