When does technology anthropomorphism help alleviate customer dissatisfaction after a service failure? – The moderating role of consumer technology self-efficacy and interdependent self-construal

TLDR

The study examines how interdependent self‑construal and technology self‑efficacy jointly shape consumer reactions to anthropomorphic service machines during a service failure. Consumers’ dissatisfaction with anthropomorphic service machines after a failure varies by interdependent self‑construal and technology self‑efficacy, with self‑blame as the underlying mechanism, and the study offers theoretical insights and practical guidelines for deploying service robots.

Abstract

Given the increasing presence of humanoid service robots at airports, hotels and restaurants, the current study investigates how consumers' interdependent self-construal and technology self-efficacy jointly influence their reactions to service machines with humanlike features in a service failure context. The results demonstrate that consumers show varying levels of dissatisfaction with a service failure caused by an anthropomorphic (vs. non-anthropomorphic) self-service machine depending on their levels of interdependent self-construal (high vs. low) and technology self-efficacy (high vs. low). The underlying mechanism is self-blame. The theoretical contributions to the existing service technology research and the emerging anthropomorphism literature are discussed. This research also provides practical guidelines to industry practitioners for more efficient usage of service robots in delivering customer service.