Ambient Temperature in Online Service Environments
研究在线服务环境中环境温度（ATOS）如何通过视觉线索影响消费者对服务提供者温暖感的判断，进而影响购买意愿等关键服务结果，对服务营销人员有实用价值。
Ambient Temperature in Online Service environments (ATOS) is a sensory cue not directly accessible in current online servicescape technology, but inferred from secondary cues, particularly visual ones. This study integrates research on cross-modal inferences with a situated cognitions framework and the stereotype content model to show that ATOS enhances judgment of service provider warmth, in turn influencing important service outcomes. A pilot study explores the linkages between consumer online and offline experiences, providing evidence for online service environments’ capacity (especially ATOS) to shape customer judgment and behavior. Study 1 examines a tropical island holiday resort to show that online representations of the environment evoke situated cognitions and preferences consistent with high ambient temperature. Study 2 uses virtual tours of cafés to demonstrate that ATOS, through judgment of service provider warmth, positively influences purchase intention and other managerially important service outcomes. Study 3 employs 12 service contexts to replicate ATOS effects, mediated through warmth, and to show that effects are stronger in contexts where service provision is directed more at objects (vs. people). Given that ambient temperature is ubiquitous in all types of service settings and easily adjusted by practitioners, managerial implications outline how service marketers can more effectively employ ATOS.