Robots or frontline employees? Exploring customers’ attributions of responsibility and stability after service failure or success

Abstract

PurposeService robots are taking over the organizational frontline. Despite a recent surge in studies on this topic, extant works are predominantly conceptual in nature. The purpose of this paper is to provide valuable empirical insights by building on the attribution theory.Design/methodology/approachTwo vignette-based experimental studies were employed. Data were collected from US respondents who were randomly assigned to scenarios focusing on a hotel’s reception service and restaurant’s waiter service.FindingsResults indicate that respondents make stronger attributions of responsibility for the service performance toward humans than toward robots, especially when a service failure occurs. Customers thus attribute responsibility to the firm rather than the frontline robot. Interestingly, the perceived stability of the performance is greater when the service is conducted by a robot than by an employee. This implies that customers expect employees to shape up after a poor service encounter but expect little improvement in robots’ performance over time.Practical implicationsRobots are perceived to be more representative of a firm than employees. To avoid harmful customer attributions, service providers should clearly communicate to customers that frontline robots pack sophisticated analytical, rather than simple mechanical, artificial intelligence technology that explicitly learns from service failures.Originality/valueCustomer responses to frontline robots have remained largely unexplored. This paper is the first to explore the attributions that customers make when they experience robots in the frontline.

Attachment styles moderate customer responses to frontline service robots: Evidence from affective, attitudinal, and behavioral measures

“…Fourth, our research sheds light on the psychological process that underlies AAS differences in customer responses to frontline service robots. We show that the impact of AAS on customer attitude and behavioral responses to frontline service robots is mediated by the robots' perceived empathy (Belanche et al, 2020; Castelo et al, 2019).…”

“…First, we attempt to explain previous mixed findings on customer responses to frontline service robots (Belanche et al, 2020; Mende, Scott, van Doorn et al, 2019; Reich & Eyssel, 2013; Van Doorn et al, 2017). Marketing scholars have suggested that the mixed findings might be partially explained by customer‐related factors including: gender (Ivanov et al, 2018), age (Kuo et al, 2009), culture (Li et al, 2010), and occupation (Reich & Eyssel, 2013).…”

“…Notably, marketing researchers have grown more interested in this topic, but produced mixed results. On one hand, some past research found that customers report positive attitudes and enhanced contact intentions with service robots (Belanche et al, 2020; Qiu et al, 2020; Reich & Eyssel, 2013). On the other hand, previous empirical evidence has demonstrated that some customers experience discomfort and dissatisfaction when interacting with service robots (Choi et al, 2020; Desai et al, 2013; Mende, Scott, van Doorn et al, 2019).…”

“…We do so by comparing customer responses in service interactions where the agent is a human employee to customer responses in service interactions where the agent is a frontline robot. This is especially important in service pseudorelationships in which a customer typically interacts with different frontline agents, such as in airlines, restaurants, or hotels (Belanche et al, 2020; Hess et al, 2007). We report the results of three online experiments that collectively investigate affective responses (i.e., experienced pleasantness) and attitudinal responses (i.e., perceived empathy and satisfaction) to frontline service robots, alongside behavioral responses (e.g., word‐of‐mouth, hereafter WOM).…”

“…We report the results of three online experiments that collectively investigate affective responses (i.e., experienced pleasantness) and attitudinal responses (i.e., perceived empathy and satisfaction) to frontline service robots, alongside behavioral responses (e.g., word‐of‐mouth, hereafter WOM). In doing so, our research makes several contributions to the marketing literature, and particularly to the stream focused on understanding customers' responses to frontline service robots (Belanche et al, 2020; Castelo et al, 2019; Ivanov et al, 2018; Van Doorn et al, 2017; Wirtz et al, 2018).…”