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1 – 8 of 8Valentina Pitardi, Jochen Wirtz, Stefanie Paluch and Werner H. Kunz
Extant 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…
Abstract
Purpose
Extant 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/approach
This study employs a mixed-method approach, whereby an in-depth qualitative study (study 1) is followed by two lab experiments (studies 2 and 3).
Findings
Results 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 implications
Service 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/value
This study is one of the first to examine a context where service robots are the preferred service delivery mechanism over human employees.
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Jochen Wirtz, Paul G. Patterson, Werner H. Kunz, Thorsten Gruber, Vinh Nhat Lu, Stefanie Paluch and Antje Martins
The service sector is at an inflection point with regard to productivity gains and service industrialization similar to the industrial revolution in manufacturing that started in…
Abstract
Purpose
The service sector is at an inflection point with regard to productivity gains and service industrialization similar to the industrial revolution in manufacturing that started in the eighteenth century. Robotics in combination with rapidly improving technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), mobile, cloud, big data and biometrics will bring opportunities for a wide range of innovations that have the potential to dramatically change service industries. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential role service robots will play in the future and to advance a research agenda for service researchers.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a conceptual approach that is rooted in the service, robotics and AI literature.
Findings
The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it provides a definition of service robots, describes their key attributes, contrasts their features and capabilities with those of frontline employees, and provides an understanding for which types of service tasks robots will dominate and where humans will dominate. Second, this paper examines consumer perceptions, beliefs and behaviors as related to service robots, and advances the service robot acceptance model. Third, it provides an overview of the ethical questions surrounding robot-delivered services at the individual, market and societal level.
Practical implications
This paper helps service organizations and their management, service robot innovators, programmers and developers, and policymakers better understand the implications of a ubiquitous deployment of service robots.
Originality/value
This is the first conceptual paper that systematically examines key dimensions of robot-delivered frontline service and explores how these will differ in the future.
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Gaby Odekerken-Schröder, Kars Mennens, Mark Steins and Dominik Mahr
Recent service studies suggest focusing on the service triad consisting of technology-customer-frontline employee (FLE). This study empirically investigates the role of service…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent 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/approach
In 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.
Findings
The 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 implications
The 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/value
Building 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.
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Christian Kowalkowski, Jochen Wirtz and Michael Ehret
Technology-enabled business-to-business (B2B) services contribute the largest share to GDP growth and are fundamental for an economy’s value creation. This article aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
Technology-enabled business-to-business (B2B) services contribute the largest share to GDP growth and are fundamental for an economy’s value creation. This article aims to identify key service- and digital technology-driven B2B innovation modes and proposes a research agenda for further exploration.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper adopts a techno-demarcation view on service innovation, encompassing three core dimensions: service offering (the service product, or the “what”), service process (the “how”) and service ecosystem (the “who/for whom”). It delineates the implications of three digital technologies – the internet-of-things (IoT), intelligent automation (IA) and digital platforms – for service innovation across these core dimensions in B2B markets.
Findings
Digital technology has immense potential ramifications for value creation by reshaping all three core dimensions of service innovation. Specifically, IoT can transform physical resources into reconfigurable service products, IA can augment and automate a rapidly expanding array of service processes, while digital platforms provide the technical and organizational infrastructure for the integration of resources and stakeholders within service ecosystems.
Originality/value
This study suggests an agenda with six themes for further research, each linked to one or more of the three service innovation dimensions. They are (1) new recurring revenue models, (2) service innovation in the metaverse, (3) scaling up service innovations, (4) ecosystem innovations, (5) power dependency and lock-in effects and (6) security and responsibility in digital domains.
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