Abstract
PurposeExtant research mainly focused on potentially negative customer responses to service robots. In contrast, this study is one of the first to explore a service context where service robots are likely to be the preferred service delivery mechanism over human frontline employees. Specifically, the authors examine how customers respond to service robots in the context of embarrassing service encounters.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs a mixed-method approach, whereby an in-depth qualitative study (study 1) is followed by two lab experiments (studies 2 and 3).FindingsResults show that interactions with service robots attenuated customers' anticipated embarrassment. Study 1 identifies a number of factors that can reduce embarrassment. These include the perception that service robots have reduced agency (e.g. are not able to make moral or social judgements) and emotions (e.g. are not able to have feelings). Study 2 tests the base model and shows that people feel less embarrassed during a potentially embarrassing encounter when interacting with service robots compared to frontline employees. Finally, Study 3 confirms that perceived agency, but not emotion, fully mediates frontline counterparty (employee vs robot) effects on anticipated embarrassment.Practical implicationsService robots can add value by reducing potential customer embarrassment because they are perceived to have less agency than service employees. This makes service robots the preferred service delivery mechanism for at least some customers in potentially embarrassing service encounters (e.g. in certain medical contexts).Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to examine a context where service robots are the preferred service delivery mechanism over human employees.
Highlights
Service robots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly common and are expected to replace or complement human service providers in numerous industries (McLeay et al, 2021; Wirtz et al, 2018; Xiao and Kumar, 2021; Yoganathan et al, 2021)
Service robots are expected to become increasingly common in our daily service encounters (Puntoni et al, 2021)
The present study examines a context in which service robots are likely to be the preferred delivery mechanism over people-provided service
Summary
Service robots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly common and are expected to replace or complement human service providers in numerous industries (McLeay et al, 2021; Wirtz et al, 2018; Xiao and Kumar, 2021; Yoganathan et al, 2021). While managers are excited about the potential upsides of service robots in terms of their scalability and end-to-end customer service process automation (Bornet et al, 2021; Mustak et al, 2021), it is interesting to note that consumer research has focused mostly on negative customer responses to service robots. These include robots triggering negative attitudes (Kim et al, 2019), compensatory responses (e.g. increasing food intake to compensate feelings of discomfort; Mende et al, 2019) and purchase abandonment (Luo et al, 2019). Little is known about the beneficial characteristics of service robots that might make them the preferred service delivery mode over the traditional human-to-human encounter
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