Claim success, but blame the bot? User reactions to service failure and recovery in interactions with humanoid service robots

Abstract

Service robots are changing the nature of service delivery in the digital economy. However, frequently occurring service failures represent a great challenge to achieve service robot acceptance. To understand how different service outcomes in interactions with service robots affect usage intentions, this research investigates (1) how users attribute failures committed by humanoid service robots and (2) whether responsibility attribution varies depending on service robot design. In a 3 (success vs. failure vs. failure with recovery) ✕ 2 (warm vs. competent service robot design) between-subject online experiment, this research finds evidence for the self-serving bias in a service robot context, that is, attributing successes to oneself, but blaming others for failures. This effect emerges independently from service robot design. Furthermore, recovery through human intervention can mitigate consequences of failure only for robots with warm design. The authors discuss consequences for applications of humanoid service robots and implications for further research.