The service triad: an empirical study of service robots, customers and frontline employees

Abstract

PurposeRecent service studies suggest focusing on the service triad consisting of technology-customer-frontline employee (FLE). This study empirically investigates the role of service robots in this service triad, with the aim to understand the augmentation or substitution role of service robots in driving utilitarian and hedonic value and ultimately customer repatronage.Design/methodology/approachIn study 1, field data are collected from customers (n = 108) who interacted with a service robot and FLE in a fast casual dining restaurant. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test hypotheses about the impact of service robots' anthropomorphism, social presence, value perceptions and augmentation opportunities in the service triad. In study 2, empirical data from a scenario-based experimental design (n = 361) complement the field study by further scrutinizing the interplay between the service robot and FLEs within the service triad.FindingsThe study provides three important contributions. First, the authors provide empirical evidence for the interplay between different actors in the “customer-FLE-technology” service triad resulting in customer repatronage. Second, the empirical findings advance the service management literature by unraveling the relationship between anthropomorphism and social presence and their effect on perceived value in the service triad. And third, the study identifies utilitarian value of service robots as a driver of customer repatronage in fast casual dining restaurants.Practical implicationsThe results help service managers, service robot engineers and designers, and policy makers to better understand the implications of anthropomorphism, and how the utilitarian value of service robots can offer the potential for augmentation or substitution roles in the service triad.Originality/valueBuilding on existing conceptual and laboratory studies on service robots, this is one of the first field studies on the service triad consisting of service robots – customers – frontline employees. The empirical study on service triads provides evidence for the potential of FLEs to augment service robots that exhibit lower levels of functional performance to achieve customer repatronage. FLEs can do this by demonstrating a high willingness to help and having excellent interactions with customers. This finding advocates the joint service delivery by FLE – service robot teams in situations where service robot technology is not fully optimized.

Customer comfort during service robot interactions

“…Also when accounting for service failures in Model 3, human-likeness does not appear to drive social presence perceptions. This is surprising as previous studies found a positive relationship between the two concepts (Odekerken-Schröder et al 2022).…”

“…In addition, Barco et al (2020) find that children perceive an anthropomorphic robot as more socially present than a zoomorphic robot. Lastly, with a field study in a restaurant context, Odekerken-Schröder et al (2022) find a positive relationship between anthropomorphism and social presence. Therefore, the present study expects human-likeness to increase a service robot's social presence.…”

“…They also show that this effect is mediated by customer-employee rapport. In one of the first field studies on service robots in a restaurant setting, Odekerken-Schröder et al (2022) demonstrate the need for employeeservice robot teams as helpful and friendly staff can compensate for service robot errors. Also collecting real-life data from customers who had been served by a robot barista, Kim et al (2021) find that atmosphere, novelty, and consumer return on investment are important drivers of customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions.…”

“…For example, a sculpture can be physically present in a room. However, due to its lack of social interactivity and non-apparent intelligence, it would not be perceived as being socially present (Biocca et al 2003;Odekerken-Schröder et al 2022). In contrast, a robot could provoke perceptions of social presence by interacting with its environment (Biocca et al 2003).…”

Service Innovation and Performance in Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Organizations

“…All analyses were performed using SmartPLS version 3.3.2 (Ringle et al, 2021). The partial least squares (PLS) approach was chosen in favor of covariance-based SEM, as PLS is well suited to causal-predictive analyses (Evermann & Tate, 2016;Chin et al, 2020;Hair and Sarstedt, 2021), is robust when data are nonnormally distributed (Hair et al, 2016), and has been widely applied in several recent services-related studies (Bartsch et al, 2021;Odekerken-Schröder et al, 2021).…”