Service robot’s responses in service recovery and service evaluation: the moderating role of robots’ social perception

ABSTRACT

Service robots are used in all aspects of the service industry and improve business efficiency dramatically. However, service robot failures are also prevalent. This paper explores the interaction effect between symbolic service recovery and service robot social perception on service evaluations, the underlying mechanism, and the boundary conditions. Through three experiments with multiple service scenarios, such as hotel, restaurant, and tourist attraction, we find that service robots with warm perceptions using humor responses for a service recovery result in better service evaluations, whereas service robots with competent perceptions using rational responses for a service recovery result in better service evaluations. In addition, our research verifies the mediating role of perceived relief and perceived sincerity and identifies the moderating role of the locus of responsibility. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for marketers in the services and hospitality industries.服务机器人已经应用在服务行业的各个方面并显著提高企业的效率，但服务机器人服务失败也很普遍。本文探讨了象征性服务补救与服务机器人社会感知对消费者服务评价的交互作用，影响机制及边界条件。通过3个不同服务场景的实验，如酒店、餐馆和旅游景点，我们发现温暖感知的服务机器人使用幽默的回复方式来进行服务补救会使消费者有更好的服务评价; 而能力感知的服务机器人使用理性的回复方式来进行服务补救则更佳。此外，我们的研究验证了感知宽慰和感知真诚的中介作用，并确定了责任点的调节作用。最后，我们讨论了这些发现对服务和酒店业营销人员的影响。

KEYWORDS:

• Robot social perception
• service robots
• service failure and recovery
• service evaluation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The warm service robot image was from https://www.veer.com/photo/334513466?utm_source=baidu&utm_medium=imagesearch&chid=902. The competent service robot image was from https://www.sohu.com/a/648768636_625367.

2. The warm service robot image was from https://www.niusnews.com/=P1z96c79. The competent service robot image was from https://new.qq.com/rain/a/20230108A05T6L00.

3. The warm service robot image was from http://mt.sohu.com/20171221/n525862640.shtml. The competent service robot image was from https://nb.zol.com.cn/640/6406287.html.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province [ZR2021MG036].