ABSTRACT
Smart firms know the value of frontline service. The frontline is where customers interact with frontline employees, who then deliver on the firm's brand promise. It is where customers have their first and last impressions of the firm, and it is where problems are resolved and opportunities are uncovered. Restaurant customers are ordering meals with tablets, artificial intelligence is evolving to include personalized and emotionally appropriate responses to frontline customers, and robots are now sophisticated enough to replace frontline employees. A group of frontline service scholars is working with industry executives to launch an Organizational Frontlines Research (OFR) group. Early returns from the OFR community include a redefinition of the frontline concept at the intersection of interactions and interfaces. Interactions refer to the events and communications that occur during the firm's contact with a customer whereas interfaces refer to the modes and mediums that define where and how the contact occurs.
