Anthropomorphism

Perceived intelligence

Perceived security

Respondents have positive attitudes toward the introduction of robots in hotels, but lower than toward service robots in general

Respondents' attitude toward the use of robots in hotel services is influenced by: gender (male +), general attitude toward robots and perceptions of the experience provided by robots, advantages of robots and social skills of robots

Performance efficacy, intrinsic motivation, facilitating conditions and emotions positively influence consumers' acceptance of service robots

Human appearance may backfire for intelligent products due to the deterrence of perceived threats to human identity. Anthropomorphism negatively affects consumers' willingness to use robots in restaurants and retail stores

Consumers respond more favorably to human service agents who use literal (vs figurative) language and due to the notion of anthropomorphism such an effect extends to service robots

This language style effect is not observed among service kiosks as they lack humanlike features

Information provision

Housekeeping activities

Processing bookings, payments and documents

The best indicator of willingness to use a robot in a hospitality setting is a person's general attitude toward robots

Robots being perceived as humanlike or intelligent positively affects customer-robot rapport building and the hospitality experience

Customer-employee rapport building was found to mediate the relationship between robot attributes and the hospitality experience, but customer-robot rapport building was not

Visitors' intentions to use social robots stem from the effects of technology acceptance variables and service quality dimensions (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, service assurance, personal engagement and tangibles) leading to perceived value, and two further dimensions from human-robot interaction (HRI): empathy and information sharing

Service recovery from the human staff and from the service robot resulted in similar service evaluations

Customers evaluate their service experience less favorably when receiving service recovery from fellow customers in comparison to human staff and service robots

Attributions mediate the relationships between affinity toward the robot and customer behavioral intentions to use and recommend service robots

Customer's affinity toward the service robot positively affects service improvement attribution, which in turn has a positive influence on customer behavioral intentions

Affinity negatively affects cost reduction attribution, which in turn has a negative effect on behavioral intentions

human likeness has a positive influence on affinity

Service robots either support or substitute employees in service encounters

Service robots offer hospitality businesses a novel point of differentiation, but only if properly integrated as part of wider marketing efforts

Automation of tasks, processes and, ultimately, jobs has serious socioeconomic implications at both the micro level and macro level

Technology anthropomorphism generally alleviates consumer dissatisfaction. 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

Consumers low in technology self-efficacy and low in interdependent self-construal tend to blame themselves more when facing a service failure

Interaction quality

Outcome quality

Physical service environment

Understanding the influence of human-robot interaction from the viewpoint of hoteliers and guests

Human staff services are perceived higher than the services of service robots in terms of interaction quality and physical service environment. However, no significant difference in outcome quality

Attitude

Purchase intention

Purchase behavior

Purchase intention and attitude of the experimental group (robot hotel service) was higher than the control group (traditional hotel service)

No effect found for purchase behavior

Intention to use artificially intelligent devices is influenced by social influence, hedonic motivation, anthropomorphism, performance and effort expectancy, and emotions toward the artificially intelligent devices

Anthropomorphism positively influences the effort expectancy of respondents

Results are contingent on the type of hotel (limited-service hotel vs. full-service hotel)

User satisfaction with service robots in a hotel had a positive impact on user satisfaction, attitude toward the hotel and room purchase intention

Users were most likely to accept medium-human likeness robots and least likely to accept high–human likeness robots

Service encounter evaluation

Revisit intentions

Positive WOM intentions

Robotic service staff's humanlike attributes are key determinants of consumption outcomes

Humanlike voice increases service encounter evaluation and behavioral intentions (revisit intentions and WOM intentions)

Humanlike language positively affects service encounter evaluation

Positive emotion accounts for the positive effect of humanlike voice

Perceived credibility and positive emotion explain the language effect

Benefits for employees include that (a) robots facilitates team collaboration, (b) free up time for the employees to engage in specialized and customer-centered work, (c) increase employees' institutional legitimacy (i.e. employees reinforcing their role and status in the organization) and (d) employees can upgrade their technical skills as authorized caretakers of the robots

Potential negative employee consequence include (a) a loss of autonomy and frustration due to lack of interaction with customers and (b) employees feel a disruption to their normal routine when robots bring changes to their jobs

Anthropomorphism negatively influences customer's switching intentions; e.g. a humanlike voice encourages customers to continue using the machines (rather than switching to a human)

Powerful customers exhibit higher switching intentions when a machine has an anthropomorphic (vs robotic) voice in the absence of other customers, yet they show an opposite tendency in the presence of other customers. Therefore, the presence of other customers moderates the voice type effects on powerful customers' switching intentions

Powerless customers demonstrate lower switching intentions when they experience a service failure with a humanlike (vs robotic) SST, regardless of the absence or (presence of other customers)

Interaction with humanoid service robots elicits compensatory responses compared to interactions with human employees

Higher compensatory consumption poses opportunity to use service robots for upselling

Higher compensatory consumption is due to greater consumer discomfort, i.e. eeriness and a threat to human identity

Consumers respond more favorably to humanoid service robots that are less (vs more) humanlike

Compensatory responses are (1) mitigated when consumer-perceived social belongingness is high, (2) attenuated when food is perceived as more healthful and (3) buffered when the robot is mechanized (rather than anthropomorphized)

Anthropomorphism drives trust, intention to use and enjoyment

If customers are comfortable with robotic interactions, humanlike appearance of robots is more effective than social functioning features

If they are uncomfortable this effect is reversed