Customer Comfort During Service Robot Interactions

Service Business
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11628-022-00499-4
EMPIRICAL ARTICLE
Customer comfort during service robot interactions
Marc Becker1 · Dominik Mahr1 · Gaby Odekerken‑Schröder1
Received: 17 December 2021 / Accepted: 23 June 2022

© The Author(s) 2022
Abstract
Customer comfort during service interactions is essential for creating enjoyable cus-
tomer experiences. However, although service robots are already being used in a
number of service industries, it is currently not clear how customer comfort can be
ensured during these novel types of service interactions. Based on a 2 × 2 online
between-subjects design including 161 respondents using pictorial and text-based
scenario descriptions, we empirically demonstrate that human-like (vs machine-like)
service robots make customers feel more comfortable because they facilitate rapport
building. Social presence does not underlie this relationship. Importantly, we find
that these positive effects diminish in the presence of service failures.
Keywords Service robots · Human-likeness · Customer comfort · Service failures ·

Rapport
1 Introduction
Customer comfort during service interactions is essential for creating enjoyable

customer experiences. In fact, customer comfort, which is understood as “a sense
of ease that facilitates calm and worry-free feelings within an environment” (Ains-
worth and Foster 2017, p. 27), is a driver of positive customer service outcomes,
such as customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth (Gaur et al. 2009; Lloyd and Luk
2011; Paswan and Ganesh 2005; Spake et al. 2003). For traditional human-to-human
service settings, service providers know that they can make customers feel more
comfortable by optimizing the atmosphere of the servicescape or by better train-
ing their employees (Ainsworth and Foster 2017; Lloyd and Luk 2011). However,
increasingly many service encounters are “untact” and involve service robots instead
of human employees (Lee and Lee 2020). As interactions with service robots can be
perceived as eerie and threatening (Mende et al. 2019), it is essential to determine
* Marc Becker
m.becker@maastrichtuniversity.nl
1
Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, School of Business and Economics,
Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
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Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

M. Becker et al.
how customers can be made more comfortable during these novel types of service
encounters. Here, especially service robots’ physical appearance and human-like-
ness could be important drivers. In fact, research has demonstrated that a service
robot’s degree of human-likeness can impact customer service outcomes, such as
customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as the degree to which the service robot is
perceived as eerie and threatening (Belanche et al. 2021b; Mende et al. 2019; Yoga-
nathan et al. 2021).
Yet, while it seems very likely that human-likeness in service robots does impact
customer comfort levels, it is currently completely unclear whether human-likeness
is an enabler or an inhibitor of customer comfort. On the one hand, human-likeness
could facilitate customer-robot rapport (Qiu et al. 2020). Rapport captures a per-
sonal connection and enjoyment during the interaction with the service employee
(Gremler and Gwinner 2000) and higher levels of rapport could make customers feel
more comfortable. On the other hand, human-likeness could also increase a service
robot’s social presence, that is the degree to which the service robot is perceived
as a social being (Heerink et al. 2010). Because social presence gives customers
the impression that the service robot has its own intentions and objectives (Biocca
1997), we argue that higher levels of social presence make customers feel less com-
fortable. Therefore, based on existing literature, it remains unclear whether custom-
ers feel more or less comfortable when interacting with human-like service robots.
Importantly, whether human-likeness is an enabler or and an inhibitor of cus-
tomer comfort might also be greatly influenced by service failures. Wirtz et al.
(2018) point out that customers have exaggerated expectations towards human-like
service robots. If a human-like service robot then makes a mistake, customers are
argued to perceive this mistake as being worse than if the same error had been com-
mitted by a machine-like service robot (Choi et al. 2021; Wirtz et al. 2018). In this
way, service failures might diminish the effect of human-likeness on customer-robot
rapport and social presence. This could then also diminish the effect of human-like-
ness on customer comfort.
With our empirical study, we aim to reconcile these opposing predictions. In par-
ticular, we investigate whether the comfort-enabling effects (i.e., customer-robot rap-
port) or the comfort inhibiting effects (i.e., social presence) of human-likeness dom-
inate. Moreover, we investigate how these effects are impacted by service failures.
In this way, we make three major contributions to the service robot and ser-
vice technology literature. First, we introduce the concept of customer comfort to
the service robot field and identify a service robot’s degree of human-likeness as
one of its major drivers. In addition, we show that more customer comfort trans-
lates into higher customer satisfaction, engagement, word-of-mouth intention, and
willingness-to-pay. Second, we contribute to the service robot literature by showing
that human-likeness has a positive rather than a negative impact on customer com-
fort. Here, it is demonstrated that customers feel more comfortable interacting with
human-like service robots because it is easier to build rapport with them. Increased
levels of social presence do not appear to explain the discomforting effects of
human-likeness observed by previous research (e.g., Mende et al. 2019). Third, we
contribute to the service robot literature by demonstrating that the positive indirect
effect of human-likeness diminishes in the presence of service failures. Lastly, the
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present work contributes to practice by demonstrating that human-like (vs machine-

like) service robots are the superior choice. Importantly, even for contexts in which
service robots commit many errors, we show that human-likeness does not appear to
become a liability.
In the remainder of this study, we first lay out the underlying theories and hypoth-
esized relationships. Afterward, we explain the experimental procedures and analy-
sis techniques. Lastly, based on the reported results, we discuss implications.
2 Theory and conceptual model
2.1 Service robots in hospitality
The hospitality industry is seen as one of the most relevant contexts for service
robots (Garcia-Haro et al. 2021). Service robots, which Wirtz et al. (2018, p. 909)
define as “system-based autonomous and adaptable interfaces that interact, commu-
nicate and deliver a service to an organization’s customers”, could help the indus-
try overcome its pressing labor shortages. Especially in the wake of the Covid pan-
demic, in the US about 50% and in Germany about 16% of service employees left
the industry (Dmitrieva 2021; Sullivan 2021). By taking over tasks such as greeting
guests, serving dishes, or taking customer orders (Decker et al. 2017; Pieskä et al.
2013), service robots could increasingly help alleviate these shortages.
Also service research increasingly investigates service robots in hospitality set-
tings. For example, investigating self-service machines in restaurants, Jeon et al.
(2020) show that customer acceptance is largely driven by performance expectan-
cies. Furthermore, Chiang and Trimi (2020) show that guests prioritize assurance
and reliability in their service quality evaluations of hotel service robots. Using a
restaurant-based vignette study, Belanche et al. (2021a) demonstrate that customer
attributions (i.e., service enhancement and cost reduction) mediate the relationship
between customers’ affinity towards a service robot and intentions to use and rec-
ommend it. Lu et al. (2021) show that human-likeness in voice and language style
affects several consumption outcomes, such as service encounter evaluations. Simi-
larly, Qiu et al. (2020) show that service robots’ human-likeness contributes to the
overall hospitality experience. They also show that this effect is mediated by cus-
tomer-employee rapport. In one of the first field studies on service robots in a restau-
rant setting, Odekerken-Schröder et al. (2022) demonstrate the need for employee-
service 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.
2.2 Customer comfort during service encounters
We take a customer comfort perspective to better understand to what extent ser-

vice robots should be human-like. Predominantly, (customer) comfort has been
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M. Becker et al.
considered in healthcare and nursing contexts. For these contexts, Kolcaba et al.
(2006) formulated the so-called Comfort Theory, conceptualizing four kinds of
comfort: physical, psychospiritual, social, and environmental. In their conceptual
framework, antecedents (e.g., comfort interventions) and consequences of comfort
(e.g., health-seeking behaviors) are specified (Krinsky et al. 2014).
Also in retailing and hospitality contexts, service scholars have investigated ante-
cedents and consequences of customer comfort. Here, service scholars traditionally
distinguish between two kinds of comfort: physical comfort and psychological com-
fort. Physical comfort depends on the physical aspects of the environment, such as
temperature, humidity, or lighting (Chua et al. 2016; Kinnane et al. 2013). In con-
trast, psychological comfort “represents a sense of ease that facilitates calm and
worry-free feelings within an environment” (Ainsworth and Foster 2017, p. 27). In
a service context, psychological comfort can further be described “as a feeling of
anxiety or relaxation arising from the social interaction with the service employee.”
(LLoyd and Luk 2011, p. 178). We solely focus on psychological comfort and gen-
erally refer to this kind of comfort as customer comfort.
Research has identified multiple drivers of customer comfort. For example, Ains-
worth and Foster (2017) show that customer comfort is impacted by a shop’s layout
and a consumer’s familiarity with the retailer. Furthermore, Lloyd and Luk (2011)
find that employees’ service manner and need identification behaviors are important
drivers. Lastly, Rosenbaum et al. (2018) demonstrate that social incompatibilities
stemming from war, nationalism, or religious differences greatly influence customer
comfort.
Also downstream consequences of customer comfort have been investigated in
retail and hospitality settings. For brick and mortar shops, Ainsworth and Foster
(2017) relate customer comfort to utilitarian and hedonic value. In a beauty salon
and physician context, Spake et al. (2003) find that customer comfort is associated
with customer satisfaction and commitment. Also Paswan and Ganesh (2005) make
similar observations in a university context. In a bank context, Gaur et al. (2009)
establish a positive association between comfort, satisfaction, and loyalty. Lastly, for
retailing and casual dining, Lloyd and Luk (2011) find that comfort increases cus-
tomer satisfaction and ultimately word-of-mouth intention.
Throughout our study, we build on these findings. In particular, we argue that also
during robot-enabled service encounters, customer comfort is not an end in itself
but that it translates into managerially relevant customer service outcomes. There-
fore, we investigate customer comfort’s downstream effect on customer satisfaction,
word-of-mouth, engagement, and willingness-to-pay. We understand engagement as
a customer’s level of interaction and connection with a brand or its offerings that
goes beyond purchase (Vivek et al. 2014).
2.3 The relationship between human‑likeness and customer comfort
The service robot literature indicates that a service robot’s degree of human-
likeness impacts customer comfort. Human-likeness captures a service robot’s
physical similarity with humans (Belanche et al. 2020a). It is distinct from
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anthropomorphism, which is not related to a robot’s design but to a user’s attri-

bution of human characteristics and traits to it (Blut et al. 2021; Epley et al.
2007). As we seek to understand to what extent the design of human-like ser-
vice robot appearances impacts customer comfort, we investigate the concept of
human-likeness.
Although the literature strongly indicates that human-likeness impacts cus-
tomer comfort, it is not clear whether this impact is positive or negative. Based on
existing literature, both could be hypothesized. On the one hand, human-likeness
has been found to make customers feel threatened and eerie (Mende et al. 2019).
Exploring explanations for the observed effects, Mende et al. (2019) suggest that
people feel threatened by human-like service robots due to evolutionary mecha-
nisms (Gray and Wegner 2012), that human-like service robots elicit mortality
salience (MacDorman 2005), and that people are afraid of losing control, losing
their jobs, or the world being taken over by robots (Ray et al. 2008). Also Akdim
et al. (2021) show that attitudes towards service robots become increasingly nega-
tive as service robots’ human-likeness increases. It stands to reason that such neg-
ative perceptions and attitudes make customers feel less comfortable.
On the other hand, human-likeness has been theoretically and empirically
associated with more positive customer service outcomes which are highly corre-
lated with customer comfort (e.g., Lloyd and Luk 2011). Zhang et al. (2008) pro-
pose that anthropomorphism leads to higher service quality and satisfaction. This
view is shared by van Doorn et al. (2017) who suggest that human-likeness can
have positive effects on customer service outcomes. Murphy et al. (2019) propose
three marketing outcomes that are dependent on a service robot’s human-likeness
(i.e., affective reaction, acceptance, and anthropomorphic loyalty). Besides these
conceptual studies, Qiu et al. (2020) empirically demonstrate that the hospital-
ity experience is positively affected by a service robot’s human-likeness. With
multiple experiments, Yoganathan et al. (2021) show that human-likeness posi-
tively impacts customers’ willingness-to-pay as well as their visit intention. Also,
Belanche et al. (2021b) find a positive relationship between the human-likeness
in service robots and customer loyalty intentions. Therefore, human-likeness
appears to generally have a positive impact on customer service outcomes. Given
the high correlation between customer comfort and customer service outcomes
(e.g., Lloyd and Luk 2011), it stands to reason that customers feel more comfort-
able when interacting with a human-like service robot than when interacting with
a machine-like service robot.
Therefore, human-likeness could be an inhibitor of customer comfort as it can
provoke eerie customer reactions (Mende et al. 2019), but at the same time, it could
also be an enabler of customer comfort as it can drive more positive customer ser-
vice outcomes (Belanche et al. 2021b). Even though these findings point into oppo-
site directions, they nevertheless hint at a general association between human-like-
ness and customer comfort. We formalize this expectation in our first hypothesis,
H1. In the following subsections, we further build on this relatively broad hypoth-
esis to investigate the direction of the relationship.
H1 A service robot’s degree of human-likeness impacts customer comfort.
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M. Becker et al.
2.3.1 The mediating roles of rapport and social presence
The present work seeks to resolve current tension in the service robot literature and
determine whether human-likeness makes customers feel more or less comfortable.
To do so, it is examined how human-likeness impacts customer comfort. Two under-
lying mechanisms are investigated. Because customer comfort is driven mainly by
the social interaction with the service employee (Lloyd and Luk 2011), these mecha-
nisms are of a social and relational nature. The first investigated mechanism, rap-
port, is argued to be a driver of increased customer comfort. The second investi-
gated mechanism, social presence, is argued to be a driver of decreased customer
comfort. The two mechanisms are discussed in the following subsections.
2.3.2 Rapport
The first mechanism argued to underlie the relationship between human-likeness and
customer comfort is customer-robot rapport. According to Gremler and Gwinner
(2000), rapport is “a customer’s perception of having an enjoyable interaction with
a service provider employee, characterized by a personal connection between the
two interactants” (p. 92). Multiple studies demonstrate rapport’s high explanatory
power for understanding customer satisfaction, word-of-mouth, and loyalty (Grem-
ler and Gwinner 2000; Macintosh 2009; Delcourt et al. 2013). Consequently, next
to functional and outcome-related elements, customer-employee rapport appears to
play a central role during service encounters (Gremler and Gwinner 2000). As a
result, also service robot research has increasingly shown interest in customer-robot
rapport. For example, Wirtz et al. (2018) see rapport as one of two major relational
drivers of customer acceptance of service robots. Also Qiu et al. (2020) investigate
rapport to better understand hospitality experiences involving service robots.
The literature provides many indications that rapport can be built between a ser-
vice robot and the customer. Wirtz et al. (2018) propose human–robot rapport as
a key driver of service robot acceptance. This link finds empirical support by Fer-
nandes and Oliveira (2021). Furthermore, Nomura and Kanda (2016), Seo et al.
(2018), and Lubold et al. (2019) all show that users can build rapport with robots.
Seo et al. (2018) also find that human–robot rapport-building behavior is similar to
what is predicted by the human–human rapport literature. Lastly, Qiu et al. (2020)
show that human-likeness positively impacts human–robot rapport. Therefore, fol-
lowing the results by Qiu et al. (2020), the present work argues that customers more
easily build rapport with a human-like than with a machine-like service robot.
Based on the understanding of rapport as defined by Gremler and Gwinner
(2000) as well as of customer comfort as defined by Lloyd and Luk (2011), there
is reason to believe that customer-robot rapport makes customers feel more com-
fortable. Gremler and Gwinner (2000) define rapport as a “personal connection”
(p. 92) between the customer and the service employee that is accompanied by
an “enjoyable interaction” (p. 92). Customer comfort is defined as being largely
driven by such enjoyable interactions (LLoyd and Luk 2011). Therefore, because
human-like service robots can build more rapport (i.e., create more enjoyable
13
interactions), customers are hypothesized to feel more comfortable when interact-

ing with a human-like service robot.
H2 Customer-robot rapport mediates the positive relationship between a service

robot’s human-likeness and customer comfort.
2.3.3 Social presence
The second investigated mechanism is social presence. Social presence cap-

tures the extent to which a machine or robot is perceived as another social entity
(Heerink et al. 2010). In this way, social presence goes beyond physical presence
which merely captures the extent to which something is in the same physical or
virtual space (Biocca et al. 2003). For example, a sculpture can be physically pre-
sent 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 per-
ceptions of social presence by interacting with its environment (Biocca et al.
2003). As a result, people would have the impression to not be interacting with
a machine, but with another (real) person that has own feelings, thoughts, and
intentions (Biocca et al. 2003; Heerink et al. 2010).
It has been argued that a service robot’s level of human-likeness is a key driver
of perceived social presence in service robots (e.g., Yoganathan et al. 2021). This
view also finds empirical support in the literature. Kontogiorgos et al. (2020) find
that a human-like embodiment of an AI assistant is perceived as having a higher
social presence than a smart speaker embodiment of the same AI assistant. 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.
Contrasting the above discussion about customer-robot rapport, the present
work argues that social presence makes customers feel less comfortable. Mende
et al. (2019) show that customers feel eerie and threatened when interacting with
human-like service robots. In this way, they provide empirical support for mul-
tiple studies suggesting such a threatening effect of human-likeness (Gray and
Wegner 2012; MacDorman 2005; Ray et al. 2008). Here, we argue that these
threatening and eerie effects do not directly stem from human-likeness itself but
rather from the social presence of the service robot. In particular, Biocca (1997)
argues that social presence provokes the attribution of intentions. Similar to Gray
and Wegner (2012) who show that people find it unnerving when a robot appears
to have its own thoughts, the present work argues that people feel threatened and
uncomfortable if a service robot appears to have its own goals and objectives.
Therefore, it is hypothesized that social presence mediates the negative effects of
human-likeness on customer comfort observed by Mende et al. (2019).
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M. Becker et al.
H3 A service robot’s social presence mediates the negative relationship between the
service robot’s human-likeness and customer comfort.
2.3.4 The moderating role of service failures
Whether human-likeness is an enabler or an inhibitor of customer comfort might

also be greatly influenced by the presence or absence of service failures. Service
failures occur “when customers’ expectations are not met, or service performance
falls below a customer’s expectation” (Geum et al. 2011, p. 3127). As Belanche
et al. (2020b) point out, customers might perceive service failures by human-like and
machine-like service robots very differently. Also Wirtz et al. (2018) expect service
failures to weigh more heavily for human-like than for machine-like service robots.
In particular, they argue that customers have relatively low expectations towards
a machine-like service robot, while they have exaggerated expectations towards a
human-like service robot. Consequently, they argue that compared to a machine-like
service robot, customers would be considerably more disappointed when a human-
like service robot makes a mistake. Based on this argumentation, Wirtz et al. (2018)
suggest that human-likeness in service robots should be limited. Finding empirical
evidence for this interplay between human-likeness and service failures, Choi et al.
(2021) show that service failures do indeed have a more negative impact for human-
like service robots than for machine-like service robots. Consequently, the present
work hypothesizes that service failures diminish the effects of human-likeness on
customer-robot rapport and social presence.
2.3.5 Rapport
Following the argumentation by Wirtz et al. (2018), we argue that customers have
exaggerated expectations toward human-like service robots while they have rela-
tively low expectations towards machine-like service robots. This means that cus-
tomers would be greatly disappointed if a human-like service robot makes a mistake,
while they would be much less disappointed if the same mistake was committed by
a machine-like service robot (Wirtz et al. 2018). We argue that this increased disap-
pointment offsets the positive effects of human-likeness on customer-robot rapport.
This expectation is also in line with Choi et al. (2021) who find that service fail-
ures weigh more heavily for human-like service robots than for machine-like service
robots.
Therefore, while human-like service robots would generally establish more rap-
port with a customer than machine-like service robots, a service failure would
diminish the additional rapport that human-likeness helped to build. As a conse-
quence, following a service failure, we no longer expect a human-like service robot
to have more rapport with a customer than a machine-like service robot. In this way,
service failures are also expected to diminish the positive indirect effect of human-
likeness on customer comfort.
H4a Service failures diminish the indirect effect of human-likeness on customer

comfort mediated by customer-robot rapport.
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Fig. 1 Conceptual model
2.3.6 Social presence
Consistent with Wirtz et al. (2018), we argue that also the effect of a service robot’s
human-likeness on its social presence diminishes in case the service robot makes
a mistake. When people perceive a service robot as socially present, they feel as
if they are with another social and intelligent entity (Biocca et al. 2003; Heerink
et al. 2010). If a service robot makes a mistake, this could disillusion customers
by reminding them that the service robot is merely a machine but no intelligent or
social being. Hence, it is expected that service failures diminish the social presence
that the service robot’s human-likeness helped to build (Odekerken-Schröder et al.
2022). Consequently, following a service failure, human-like service robots would
no longer be perceived as more socially present than machine-like service robots.
We had previously argued that customers would feel less comfortable when inter-
acting with a human-like service robot because they perceive it as having its own
thoughts and intentions (Biocca 1997). However, as customers would no longer
perceive a human-like service robot as being socially present following a service
failure, this realization would also take their fears. As a result, we hypothesize that
service failures diminish the negative indirect effect of human-likeness on cus-
tomer comfort. The complete conceptual model including all hypotheses is shown
in Fig. 1.
H4b Service failures diminish the indirect effect of human-likeness on customer

comfort mediated by social presence.
3 Methodology
To validate our hypotheses, we conducted an online experiment. This experiment

was set in a restaurant context, which is seen as one of the most relevant contexts for
service robots (Garcia-Haro et al. 2021). Our experiment and especially our human-
likeness manipulation are greatly inspired by one of Europe’s first robot-restaurant
chains. This restaurant chain employs two different kinds of service robots, of which
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M. Becker et al.
one is very machine-like and the other is much more human-like (see Fig. 2). This
difference in appearance did not only inspire our study, but we also used images of
the restaurant’s service robots as stimuli for our experiment.
3.1 Procedure
We employed a 2 (human-like service robot vs machine-like service robot) × 2 (no

service failure vs service failure) between-subjects design. 438 participants were
recruited through the online platform MTurk in May 2021. To minimize cultural dif-
ferences between respondents and make sure that they would understand our English
questionnaire, respondents had to be residents of the USA. After informing partici-
pants about the purpose of the study, they saw an image of either a human-like or
a machine-like service robot (see Fig. 2). Respondents were then asked to read a
short scenario in which the shown service robot served them (see Online Appendix
A). This narrative was heavily based on Smith et al. (1999) and either described a
situation in which the customer received a correct dish or an incorrect dish (i.e.,
failure vs no failure condition). Afterward, respondents were asked to complete a
questionnaire.
3.2 Measurement
Table 1 shows all measures used in our study, their original authors, and the origi-
nal studies’ Cronbach’s alphas. We coded human-likeness and customer comfort on
7-point bipolar scales. All other constructs were coded on 7-point Likert scales. To
match the service robot context, we slightly adapted the wording of some scales. In
Fig. 2 Machine-like and human-like service robot stimuli
13
addition, we omitted items that could not be answered by respondents based on a

text-based scenario.
3.3 Data cleaning
Before the analysis, we removed all invalid responses. This included responses con-
taining incorrect values (e.g., NAs). In addition, the survey contained six attention
checks to make sure respondents paid attention from beginning to end. The first
three attention checks made sure respondents read the scenario carefully. The last
three attention checks asked respondents to set the answer to a specific question to
either “strongly agree” or to “strongly disagree”. In this way, respondents who sped
through the questions without reading them were identified.
To ensure high data quality, respondents who did not answer all six atten-
tion checks correctly were excluded. This resulted in 161 valid responses. While
the number of excluded respondents seems initially high, it matches very well the
expectations by Aguinis et al. (2020) who review and advise on the use of MTurk.
In particular, they find that on average every attention check is missed by 15% of
MTurk respondents. As we included six attention checks, our exclusion rate is
almost exactly as predicted by Aguinis et al. (2020).
3.4 Analysis
We analyzed the data using the PROCESS macro (Hayes 2017). To create bias-
corrected estimates for the indirect effects, 5000 bootstrap samples were run. As
discussed in Online Appendix D, we calculated heteroskedasticity-robust standard
errors. We included respondents’ age, gender, and previous interactions with service
robots as controls for all tested models. Previous robot interaction was measured
on an ordinal scale (0 = no interactions, 1 = 1–3 interactions, 2 = 4–10 interactions,
3 = More than 10 interactions).
4 Results
4.1 Descriptive statistics
The final analysis includes 161 responses. With regards to gender, the sample is
balanced with 82 female and 79 male participants. As discussed in more depth in
Online Appendix D, the sample is relatively young (M = 41.48, σ = 11.92, Min = 19,
Max = 75). 105 respondents reported no previous interactions with service robots,
46 reported 1–3 interactions and ten respondents reported 4–10 interactions. 80 par-
ticipants were randomly assigned to the human-like service robot condition and 81
participants to the machine-like service robot condition. In addition, 89 participants
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M. Becker et al.
Table 1 Scales for construct measurement
Human-likeness, adapted from Powers and Kieslers (2006); α = 0.85

Natural
Humanlike
Like a human
Lifelike
Moves like a human
Has a mind
Rapport, adapted from Gremler and Gwinner (2000); α = 0.95
I think about my relationship with this service robot
I enjoy interacting with this service robot
This service robot relates well to me
I am comfortable interacting with this service robot
I feel like there is a “bond” between this service robot and myself
I look forward to seeing this service robot when I visit the restaurant again
I strongly care about this service robot
This service robot has taken a personal interest in me
Social presence, adapted from Heerink et al. (2008); α = 0.84
When interacting with the robot I felt like talking to a real person
I can imagine the robot to be a living creature
I think the robot is not a real person
The robot seems to have real feelings
Customer comfort, adapted from Spake et al. (2003); α = 0.99
Uncomfortable-comfortable
Very uneasy–very much at ease
Very tense–very relaxed
Insecure-secure
Worried–worry free
Distressed-calm
Turbulent-serene
Troublesome–peace of mind
Customer satisfaction, adapted from Ryu and Han (2011); α = 0.89
Overall, I am satisfied with this restaurant
The overall feeling I got from this restaurant put me in a good mood
I really enjoyed myself at this restaurant
Word-of-mouth, adapted from Babin et al. (2005); α = 0.90
I will say positive things about this restaurant to other people
I will recommend it to someone who seeks my advice
I will encourage friends and relatives to visit the restaurant
Customer engagement, adapted from Vivek et al. (2014); α = 0.91
Anything related to this restaurant would grab my attention
I would like to learn more about this restaurant
I would pay a lot of attention to anything about this restaurant
I would be heavily into this restaurant
I would be passionate about this restaurant
I would love eating at this restaurant with my friends
I would enjoy eating at this restaurant more when I am with others
Willingness-to-pay, adapted from Asatryan and Ho (2008); α = 0.86
I will continue to dine in even if there may be some price increases
I am willing to pay more
I rather pay a higher price
13
were randomly exposed to a service failure, 72 were not. Thus, the four resulting
subgroups consist of 31 to 50 respondents. All measures show high internal con-
sistency as measured by Cronbach’s alpha: αhuman-likeness = 0.94, αrapport = 0.93,
αsocial presence = 0.78, αcustomer comfort = 0.97, αsatisfaction = 0.94, αword-of-mouth = 0.96,
αengagement = 0.96, αwillingness-to-pay = 0.92.
4.2 Pretest and manipulation check
To verify the human-likeness manipulation, a pretest with 105 respondents was con-
ducted via MTurk. The results show that the human-like service robot was perceived
as significantly more human-like (M = 3.60) than the machine-like service robot
(M = 2.02, p = 0.00). Also in the actual experiment, a manipulation check confirms
that the human-like service robot is perceived as significantly more human-like
(M = 3.54) than the machine-like service robot (M = 2.74, p = 0.00).
4.3 Analyses
4.3.1 Model 0: association between human‑likeness and customer service outcomes
It is still debated whether human-likeness in service robots is advantageous or dis-

advantageous (Akdim et al. 2021; Mende et al. 2019; Wirtz et al. 2018; Yogana-
than et al. 2021). To offer additional insights regarding the general effect of human-
likeness, Model 0 investigates the association between human-likeness and customer
service outcomes. Except for customer satisfaction (b = 0.35; HC3 SE = 0.25;
p = 0.16), the human-like service robot is associated with significantly higher cus-
tomer engagement (b = 0.61; HC3 SE = 0.24; p = 0.01), word-of-mouth (b = 0.60;
HC3 SE = 0.27; p = 0.03), and willingness-to-pay (b = 0.67; HC3 SE = 0.25;
p = 0.01). Figure 3 visually presents the results of all tested models.
4.3.2 Model 1: mediation through customer comfort
Model 1 investigates how a service robot’s human-likeness impacts customer

comfort and assesses to what extent customer comfort mediates the relationship
between human-likeness and customer service outcomes. In support of hypothesis
H1, human-likeness is positively associated with customer comfort (b = 0.46; HC3
SE = 0.24; p = 0.06). In turn, customer comfort is positively associated with cus-
tomer satisfaction (b = 0.73; HC3 SE = 0.07; p < 0.001), word-of-mouth (b = 0.70;
HC3 SE = 0.08; p < 0.001), engagement (b = 0.60; HC3 SE = 0.08; p < 0.001), and
willingness-to-pay (b = 0.61; HC3 SE = 0.07; p < 0.001).
To investigate whether customer comfort mediates the impact of human-likeness
on customer service outcomes, a mediation analysis is conducted using Model 4 of
the PROCESS macro (Hayes 2017). The 90% confidence intervals around the indi-
rect effects exclude 0 for customer satisfaction (LLCI = 0.05; ULCI = 0.64), engage-
ment (LLCI = 0.04; ULCI = 0.54), word-of-mouth (LLCI = 0.05; ULCI = 0.62), and
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M. Becker et al.
Fig. 3 Overview of models with results
13
willingness-to-pay (LLCI = 0.04; ULCI = 0.54). While we fail to observe a media-

tion at the 95% confidence level, these results nevertheless indicate that customer
comfort mediates the impact of human-likeness on customer service outcomes.
4.3.3 Model 2: mediation through rapport and social presence
Model 2 investigates whether rapport and social presence mediate the impact of
human-likeness on customer comfort. Human-likeness significantly impacts rap-
port (b = 0.58; HC3 SE = 0.23; p = 0.01), however, it does not significantly impact
social presence (b = 0.21; HC3 SE = 0.22; p = 0.35). In turn, rapport (b = 0.74;
HC3 SE = 0.12; p < 0.001) and social presence (b = -0.21; HC3 SE = 0.11;
p = 0.06) both significantly influence customer comfort.
Interestingly, while human-likeness is not a significant driver of a service
robot’s social presence, previous robot interactions drive these perceptions
(b = 1.00; HC3 SE = 0.20; p < 0.001). Therefore, customers who had previously
interacted with service robots perceive both service robots as significantly more
socially present.
A mediation analysis is conducted using Model 4 of the PROCESS macro
(Hayes 2017). The 95% confidence interval around the indirect effect through rap-
port excludes 0 (see Table 2). Therefore, in support of hypothesis H2, a mediation
through rapport can be observed.
In contrast, the 95% confidence interval around the indirect effect through
social presence does not exclude 0 (see Table 2). Therefore, social presence does
not mediate the effect of human-likeness on customer comfort. Hence, hypothesis
H3 does not find support.
4.3.4 Model 3: moderating effect of service failures
Model 3 extends Model 2 by introducing service failures as a moderator for the

effect of human-likeness on rapport and social presence. For rapport, the over-
all effect of human-likeness remains highly significant (b = 1.04; HC3 SE = 0.35;
p < 0.01) and also the interaction effect between human-likeness and the service
failure dummy is significant (b = − 0.94; HC3 SE = 0.46; p = 0.04). For social
presence, neither the main effect of human-likeness (b = 0.55; HC3 SE = 0.35;
p = 0.11) nor the interaction effect between human-likeness and the service fail-
ure dummy are significant (b = -0.70; HC3 SE = 0.46; p = 0.13). The effects of
rapport (b = 0.74; HC3 SE = 0.12; p < 0.001) and social presence (b = −0.21; HC3
SE = 0.11; p = 0.06) on customer comfort remain statistically significant.
To test for a moderated mediation, Model 7 of the PROCESS macro is used
(Hayes 2017). As the indices of moderated mediation in Table 3 show, service
failures moderate the indirect effect that goes through rapport. More specifically,
in the absence of service failures, human-likeness positively affects customer
comfort through rapport. In the presence of service failures, this indirect effect
disappears. These findings provide support for hypothesis H4a.
13

Table 2 PROCESS results for indirect effects of Models 2, 3 & 4

Relationship Failure type β Boot SE 95% CI
Model 2
13
H2: Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort – 0.43 0.17 0.10, 0.78
H3: Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort – − 0.04 0.06 − 0.17, 0.06
Model 3
H4a: Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort No failure 0.77 0.27 0.25, 1.32
Service failure 0.07 0.23 − 0.39, 0.50
H4b: Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort No failure − 0.12 0.11 − 0.38, 0.03
Service failure 0.03 0.07 − 0.09, 0.21
Model 4: Indirect effects through rapport
Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort → Satisfaction No failure 0.33 0.14 0.09, 0.62
Service failure 0.03 0.10 − 0.17, 0.22
Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort → Word-of-mouth No failure 0.25 0.11 0.07, 0.51
Service failure 0.02 0.08 − 0.13, 0.18
Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort → Engagement No failure 0.17 0.10 0.03, 0.40
Service failure 0.02 0.06 -0.11, 0.13
Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort → Willingness-to-pay No failure 0.16 0.08 0.04, 0.34
Service failure 0.02 0.05 − 0.09, 0.12
Model 4: Indirect effects through social presence
Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort → Satisfaction No failure − 0.05 0.05 − 0.17, 0.01
Service failure 0.01 0.03 − 0.04, 0.09
Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort → Word-of-mouth No failure − 0.04 0.04 − 0.13, 0.01
Service failure 0.01 0.03 − 0.03, 0.07
Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort → Engagement No failure − 0.03 0.03 − 0.10, 0.01
Service failure 0.01 0.02 − 0.02, 0.06
Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort → Willingness-to-pay No failure − 0.03 0.02 − 0.09, 0.01
Service failure 0.01 0.02 − 0.02, 0.05
M. Becker et al.
Boot SE Bootstrap Standard Error, CI Confidence Interval. Respondents’ age, gender, and previous robot interaction were included as covariates

With regards to social presence, service failures do not moderate the hypothe-
sized mediation through social presence (see Table 3). Therefore, social presence
does not mediate the effect of human-likeness in the absence nor in the presence
of service failures. Hence, hypothesis H4b does not find support.
4.3.5 Model 4: complete model
Model 4 investigates whether the effect of human-likeness through rapport/social

presence and customer comfort is sufficiently strong to impact downstream cus-
tomer service outcomes. In addition, Model 4 examines whether service failures
moderate these indirect effects. For this analysis, Model 80 of the PROCESS
macro is used with a customized w-matrix (Hayes 2017).
Model 4 extends Model 3 by showing that customer comfort significantly
impacts customer satisfaction (b = 0.42; HC3 SE = 0.08; p < 0.001), engagement
(b = 0.23; HC3 SE = 0.08; p = 0.01), word-of-mouth (b = 0.33; HC3 SE = 0.07;
p < 0.001), and willingness-to-pay (b = 0.21; HC3 SE = 0.06; p < 0.001).
As the indices of moderated mediation in Table 3 show, service failures mod-
erate the indirect effect that goes through rapport and customer comfort for all
tested customer service outcomes. Therefore, only in the absence of service fail-
ures, human-likeness positively affects customer service outcomes through rap-
port and customer comfort.
With regards to social presence, service failures do not moderate the hypoth-
esized indirect effect that goes through social presence and customer comfort (see
Table 3). Therefore, social presence and customer comfort do not mediate the
effect of human-likeness on customer service outcomes in the absence nor in the
presence of service failures. An overview of the tested hypotheses is provided in
Table 4.
5 Discussion
Customer comfort is a major driver of customer satisfaction, commitment, loy-

alty, and word-of-mouth (Gaur et al. 2009; Lloyd and Luk 2011; Paswan and
Ganesh 2005; Spake et al. 2003). Thus, it is of great importance to make cus-
tomers feel comfortable during the service delivery. This raises the question of
how customer comfort can be ensured during novel types of service encounters
that involve interactions with service robots. In the present study, we investigate
human-likeness as a key driver of customer comfort during robot-enabled ser-
vice encounters. Our goal is to assess whether human-likeness is an enabler or an
inhibitor of customer comfort and whether the answer to this question depends on
the presence of service failures.
First, it is still a matter of debate whether human-likeness in service robots is
generally desirable (Akdim et al. 2021; Belanche et al. 2021b; Wirtz et al. 2018;
Yoganathan et al. 2021). Model 0 shows that increased levels of human-likeness
are associated with higher customer engagement, word-of-mouth, and willing-
ness-to-pay. Also Model 1 shows that human-like service robots make customers
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M. Becker et al.
Table 3 Indices of moderated mediation for Models 3 & 4

Relationship Index Boot SE 95% CI
Model 3
Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort − 0.69 0.36 − 1.44, − 0.02
Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort 0.15 0.14 − 0.04, 0.49
Model 4: Indirect effects through rapport
Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort → Satisfaction − 0.29 0.17 − 0.67, − 0.01
Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort → Word-of-mouth − 0.23 0.13 − 0.53, − 0.01
Human-likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort → Engagement − 0.16 0.11 − 0.42, − 0.00
Human likeness → Rapport → Customer comfort → Willingness-to- − 0.15 0.09 − 0.36, − 0.00
pay
Model 4: Indirect effects through social presence
Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort → Satisfac- 0.06 0.06 − 0.02, 0.22
tion
Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort → Word-of- 0.05 0.05 − 0.01, 0.18
mouth
Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort → Engage- 0.03 0.04 − 0.01, 0.14
ment
Human-likeness → Social presence → Customer comfort → Willing- 0.03 0.03 − 0.01, 0.11
ness-to-pay
Boot SE Bootstrap Standard Errors, CI Confidence Interval
feel more comfortable. Therefore, the present study adds to the debate by dem-
onstrating positive rather than negative (Akdim et al. 2021; Mende et al. 2019)
effects of human-likeness. In addition, Model 1 shows that customer comfort
mediates the positive effect of human-likeness on customer satisfaction, engage-
ment, word-of-mouth, and willingness-to-pay. These results highlight customer
comfort’s central role during robot-enabled service encounters.
To better understand the relationship between human-likeness and customer
comfort, we investigate two potential mediators. In this way, we seek to better
understand why some studies suggest a negative (Mende et al. 2019) and oth-
ers a positive (Yoganathan et al. 2021) relationship between human-likeness and
customer comfort. The first investigated mediator is customer-robot rapport. As
Model 2 shows, rapport does indeed mediate the relationship between human-
likeness and customer comfort. Therefore, customers appear to feel more com-
fortable when interacting with a human-like robot because they build more rap-
port with it. Importantly, in line with our reasoning that service failures weigh
more heavily for human-like service robots (Wirtz et al. 2018), Model 3 shows
that the positive effect of human-likeness disappears if a service failure occurs.
The second investigated mediator is social presence. As Model 2 shows, social
presence is not significantly impacted by a service robot’s human-likeness. 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).
13
Table 4 Hypothesis overview
# Description Supported?
H1 A service robot’s degree of human-likeness impacts customer comfort Supported

H2 Customer-robot rapport mediates the positive relationship between a service robot’s human-likeness and customer comfort Supported
H3 A service robot’s social presence mediates the negative relationship between the service robot’s human-likeness and customer Not supported
comfort
H4a Service failures diminish the indirect effect of human-likeness on customer comfort mediated by customer-robot rapport Supported
H4b Service failures diminish the indirect effect of human-likeness on customer comfort mediated by social presence Not supported
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M. Becker et al.
One possible explanation for the lack of significant results could be that the
human-likeness manipulation was not salient enough. Yoganathan et al. (2021)
point out that human-likeness is a relative concept that depends on customers’
reference points. Therefore, participants might have still perceived the human-
like service robot as relatively machine-like. If they did, social presence evalua-
tions might have been equally low. As the manipulation checks show, the human-
like service robot was rated significantly higher on human-likeness, but still only
received a rating of 3.5 out of 7. Therefore, more extreme or salient differences
in human-likeness might lead to detecting a relationship between human-likeness
and social presence as we would expect based on previous studies (e.g., Ode-
kerken-Schröder et al. 2022). Nevertheless, the human-likeness manipulation was
sufficient to provoke differences in multiple customer service outcomes (Model
0), customer comfort (Model 1), and rapport (Models 2, 3, & 4). Hence, human-
likeness does simply not appear to be a main driver of social presence.
Even more interestingly, the present study only manipulated the service robot’s
human-likeness and the exhibited service failure (i.e., failure vs no failure). How-
ever, considerable variance in social presence perceptions appears to be explained
by participants’ number of previous robot interactions. One reason for this relation-
ship might be that respondents who previously interacted with robots were able to
better imagine how it feels to be in the presence of a service robot. Another expla-
nation could be that social presence perceptions become stronger through repeated
interactions with service robots. As these are merely speculations, this relationship
should be further investigated by future research.
Models 2 and 3 both show that increased levels of social presence make custom-
ers feel less comfortable. The observed negative relationship is in line with our theo-
rizing that customers find it unsettling when a service robot appears to have its own
thoughts and intentions (Biocca, 1997). As social presence had previously been per-
ceived as a desirable feature in service robots (van Doorn et al. 2017), the present
study provides a new perspective on the phenomenon.
The purpose of Model 4 is to investigate whether the impact of human-likeness
through rapport/social presence is sufficiently strong to impact downstream cus-
tomer service outcomes. Model 4 shows that in the absence of service failures,
human-likeness does indeed positively impact customer service outcomes by facili-
tating customer-robot rapport and customer comfort. If a service failure occurs, this
positive indirect effect disappears. For social presence, we do not observe a signifi-
cant indirect effect of human-likeness on customer service outcomes, independent of
whether a service failure occurs or not.
5.1 Theoretical contributions
The present study makes several theoretical contributions. First, it contributes to the
service robot literature by demonstrating that human-likeness is an enabler rather
than an inhibitor of customer comfort. It was previously unclear whether human-
likeness in service robots makes customers feel more or less comfortable. On the
one hand, Mende et al. (2019) found that human-like service robots can provoke
13
feelings of eeriness, indicating that customers would feel uncomfortable interacting

with human-like service robots. Also Akdim et al. (2021) found that customer atti-
tudes towards service robots decrease as the service robots become more human-
like. On the other hand, Belanche et al. (2021b) and Yoganathan et al. (2021) both
found human-likeness to drive more positive customer service outcomes which are
highly correlated with customer comfort (LLoyd and Luk 2011). Investigating this
tension in the literature, our results consistently show that customers are signifi-
cantly more comfortable interacting with the human-like than with the machine-like
service robot.
Second, the study further contributes to the service robot literature by showing
that the positive impact of human-likeness on customer comfort can be explained
by increased levels of customer-robot rapport. Customer-employee rapport takes
on a central role during human-to-human service encounters (Gremler and Gwin-
ner 2000). Also for service robots, studies have indicated that people do build rap-
port with robots (Lubold et al. 2019; Nomura and Kanda 2016; Seo et al. 2018).
However, while Qiu et al. (2020) investigate downstream consequences of customer-
robot rapport, they did not yet identify any such consequences. Therefore, the pre-
sent study contributes to the service robot literature by empirically demonstrating
that increased levels of customer-robot rapport result in increased levels of customer
comfort, satisfaction, engagement, word-of-mouth, and willingness-to-pay. In addi-
tion, providing support for the findings by Qiu et al. (2020), the present study con-
tributes to the service robot literature by showing that human-likeness facilitates
human–robot rapport building.
Third, to explain the previously observed eerie and threatening perceptions of
human-likeness (Mende et al. 2019), we investigate social presence as a second
potential mediator. While our analyses do not support this explanation, we never-
theless make important contributions to the service robot literature. In particular,
we contribute to the service robot literature by providing a starting point for future
research to investigate why some scholars do (Kontogiorgos et al. 2020; Odekerken-
Schröder et al. 2022; Yoganathan et al. 2021) and we do not find a relationship
between the two concepts. Moreover, social presence had previously been assumed
to be desirable in service robots (van Doorn et al. 2017). Here, we contribute to the
service robot literature by providing a theoretical argumentation and empirical sup-
port that questions this previously held belief.
The fourth major contribution lies in the introduction of customer comfort as a
central element during robot-enabled service encounters. Previous studies found that
human-likeness positively impacts customer service outcomes (e.g., Belanche et al.
2021b; Yoganathan et al., 2021). Yoganathan et al. (2021) explained the observed
positive relationship with higher service quality expectations and Belanche et al.
(2021b) with higher functional, emotional, and monetary value. Our study contrib-
utes to the service robot literature by offering another explanation. In particular,
our findings suggest that increased levels of customer comfort largely explain the
positive impact of human-likeness on customer satisfaction, engagement, word-of-
mouth, and willingness-to-pay.
By demonstrating such a central role of customer comfort, the present study con-
tributes toward better understanding robot-enabled service encounters in restaurant
13
M. Becker et al.
settings. For example, increasingly many studies focusing on service robots in res-
taurant settings seek to understand drivers of service encounter evaluations (Lu et al.
2021), the general service experience (Qiu et al. 2020), customer loyalty (Belanche
et al. 2021b), or repatronage intention (Odekerken-Schröder et al. 2022). For these
outcomes, customer comfort might be an important puzzle piece to understand bet-
ter what drives them and how they can be optimized.
Fifth, the present study contributes to the service robot literature by demonstrat-
ing that service failures are an important boundary condition for the effect of human-
likeness. Wirtz et al. (2018) advocate that human-likeness in service robots should
be limited as it might provoke exaggerated expectations, which could amplify the
negative effect of service failures. As a result, Wirtz et al. (2018) perceive human-
likeness as a liability that should be limited. Similarly, Belanche et al. (2020b) sug-
gest that service failures by human-like and machine-like service robots might be
perceived differently. With an empirical investigation, Choi et al. (2021) show that
service failures do indeed weigh more heavily for human-like than for machine-like
service robots. Our results confirm these findings. However, going beyond the find-
ings of Choi et al. (2021), we show that if a service failure occurs, human-likeness
merely loses its positive effects and does not turn into a liability. Therefore, in case
of a service failure, customers do not appear to be additionally dissatisfied just
because the service robot looked human-like. With these findings, the present study
contributes to the service robot literature by showing that human-like service robots
remain preferred even in contexts where service failures are common. This offers a
novel perspective on the suggestion by Wirtz et al. (2018) to avoid human-likeness
in service robots.
These findings also contribute to the increasing body of literature that investi-
gates service failures by service robots in restaurant contexts. For example, tak-
ing an attribution perspective, Belanche et al. (2020b) show that restaurant guests
attribute service failures by human staff to the employee, while they attribute a
service failure by a service robot to the restaurant. Choi et al. (2021) demonstrate
that human-like service robots can recover service failures if they apologize. Lastly,
Odekerken-Schröder et al. (2022) find that friendly interactions by a restaurant’s
staff can compensate for low functional value of a service robot. The present study
contributes to this emergent literature by highlighting service failures as an impor-
tant boundary condition for the positive effect of human-likeness.
Surprisingly, we do not observe a moderating role of service failures for social
presence perceptions. In particular, service failures do not have a larger effect for
human-like than for machine-like service robots. This is an important insight as it
had been theorized that customers would be disillusioned by service failures, dimin-
ishing the human-like service robot’s social presence (Biocca et al. 2003; Heerink
et al. 2010). The present study contributes to the service robot literature by indicat-
ing that this is not the case.
13
5.2 Practical contributions
With these findings, the present study greatly contributes to practice. First, we show
that human-like (vs machine-like) service robots are the superior choice for service
providers and service robot producers. In particular, by choosing human-like service
robots, it is not only possible to make customers feel more comfortable throughout
their robot-enabled service encounters, but to also increase customer satisfaction,
word-of-mouth intention, engagement, and willingness-to-pay. In this way, the pre-
sent study provides additional support for Belanche et al. (2021b) and Yoganathan
et al. (2021) who made similar suggestions.
In addition, as customer comfort appears to take on a central role during cus-
tomer-robot interactions, practitioners are advised to include comfort-enabling ele-
ments in their service robots. Besides human-likeness, one comfort-enabling ele-
ment appears to be customer-robot rapport. Therefore, practitioners are advised to
include rapport facilitating characteristics and features in their service robots, such
as emotion mimicking (Lakin and Chartrand 2003), body language (Le May 2004),
nonverbal communication (Le May 2004), or eye contact (Kim and Baker 2017).
Here, future research is needed to validate the effectiveness of these mechanisms.
Based on our results, social presence appears to be an inhibitor of customer com-
fort. Therefore, practitioners are advised to avoid social presence in service robots.
This makes it important to determine either service robot features that provoke
social presence or identify customer characteristics that amplify social presence per-
ceptions. Importantly, human-likeness does not appear to be such a driver. Hence,
practitioners do not need to forgo the benefits of human-likeness in the attempt of
reducing a service robot’s social presence.
Lastly, Wirtz et al. (2018) had advocated against human-likeness in service robots
as it could turn into a liability in case a service failure occurs. Our results show that
if a service failure occurs, the service robot’s human-likeness loses its positive effect
but does not additionally harm customer comfort, satisfaction, engagement, word-
of-mouth, or willingness-to-pay. Hence, even in unstructured environments where
unforeseeable situations can occur that provoke a service failure, human-like ser-
vice robots remain the superior choice. Nevertheless, for highly error-prone environ-
ments, human-likeness can receive lower priority as it is no longer a benefit if the
service robot frequently makes mistakes.
5.3 Limitations and future research
Like most studies, also the present study faces some limitations. In the following,
we highlight how these can be explored by future research. We also outline more
general avenues for future research surrounding the two core constructs of our study
(i.e., customer comfort and service failures). Potential research questions are sum-
marized in Table 5.
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M. Becker et al.
5.3.1 Methodology and data collection
Future research should seek to verify our findings using lab experiments with physi-
cal service robots or through field studies. In addition, future research could inves-
tigate how robot-related perceptions or customer-robot relationships develop over
repeated interactions (Gutek et al. 1999). Lastly, the present study’s sample size can
be considered rather small. As a result, our analyses are most reliable in detecting
effect sizes of at least a moderate magnitude (Green 1991). Therefore, we encourage
future research to collect larger but also more diverse (e.g., older) data samples to
further generalize the present study’s findings.
5.3.2 Measurements and manipulations
Future studies could include more than two human-likeness stimuli to allow for
the detection of a possibly U-shaped relationship between human-likeness and
customer comfort (Akdim et al. 2021; Mori 1970). In addition, as human-likeness
is a relative concept (Yoganathan et al. 2021), future studies could include refer-
ence points. Similarly, investigating different failure types could help to deter-
mine the most adequate tasks for service robots. Lastly, future research could
investigate spill-over effects from service failures happening to other customers.
5.3.3 Drivers and mediators
Future studies could examine ways to increase customer comfort, such as the
mimicking of emotions (Lakin and Chartrand 2003), body language (Le May
2004), and eye contact (Kim and Baker 2017). In addition, as rapport comprises
the two dimensions of personal connection and enjoyable interaction (Gremler
and Gwinner 2000), it would be of value to understand which of these dimensions
is more important in a service robot context. Future research could also investi-
gate why service failures moderate the effect of human-likeness. Here, our argu-
mentation could be a good starting point (i.e., disillusionment).
5.3.4 Outcomes and consequences
Besides investigating additional customer service outcomes, it might be even more

interesting for future studies to investigate customer comfort’s impact on repeat
use of the technology or customers’ willingness to teach or help the service robot.
5.3.5 Context factors and moderators
Future research could investigate a potential moderating role of past experience

(e.g., knowing about the flaws of a service robot from previous encounters). Other
13
Table 5 Research agenda for core concepts

Customer comfort Service failures
Measurements and manipulations

Does the effect of human-likeness on customer How does the moderating effect differ for different
comfort follow a U-shaped curve as predicted by failure types (i.e., outcome vs process failure,
the uncanny valley theory? (see Mori 1970) service failure vs technical failure)?
Would repeated measures at different points in Do more severe failures reverse the positive effect of
time show a trend in customer comfort? human-likeness (rather than only diminish it)?
Does a more salient (human-like or machine- like) Do failures have a similar effect when they (visibly)
reference point lead to more pronounced effects? occur at a nearby table?
Do the findings persist in experiments with physi- Do the observed effects extend to contexts outside
cal service robots? of the restaurant industry?
How can managers and researchers assess cus-
tomer comfort in the field?
Drivers and mediators
Which other service robot attributes impact cus- Is disillusionment the reason why service failures
tomer comfort? diminish the effect of human-likeness?
Through what other mechanisms does human- Which other underlying mechanisms explain the
likeness impact customer comfort? moderating role of service failures?
Do other kinds of human-likeness (e.g., behavior)
have similar effects?
What other measures can practitioners take
to make customers more comfortable while
interacting with service robots (e.g., providing
instructions)?
How does the presence of human employees
impact customer comfort?
Outcomes and consequences
What other managerially relevant outcomes does
customer comfort have?
Does customer comfort make customers more
willing to teach/help the service robot?
Does customer comfort make customers more
likely to use the technology in the future?
Context factors and moderators
Which role do past experiences with service robots Which role do attributions play (e.g., whether a
play with regards to customer comfort (e.g., mistake can be attributed to the service robot)?
with the same robot/model, at the same/different Does the presence of human staff amplify / attenu-
service provider, in general)? ate the negative impact of service failures?
How does the perception of comfort depend on Does the mere presence of a service robot impact
user characteristics? the perception of a service failure?
Does the presence of human employees impact Which reference points do customers have (e.g.,
how human-likeness impacts customer comfort? movies, factory robots, human employees)?
(see Yoganathan et al. 2021) Which types of failure recovery are best suited?
Should a service robot or a human initiate the
failure recovery to restore rapport and social pres-
ence? (see Choi et al. 2021)
13
M. Becker et al.
moderating factors could include customer characteristics (Epley et al. 2007) or the
presence of human staff (Yoganathan et al. 2021). A possible limitation of the pre-
sent study is that it did not consider customer perceptions about the service provider.
For example, customers’ attributions of cost cutting and service enhancement could
influence how customers perceive the service encounter and in this way determine
how different robot-related aspects influence customer comfort or customer service
outcomes (Belanche et al. 2021a). Lastly, future research could investigate different
service failure recovery strategies for restoring customer comfort (Choi et al. 2021).
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.
org/10.1007/s11628-022-00499-4.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as
you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Com-
mons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article
are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the
material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is
not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission
directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licen
ses/by/4.0/.
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Service Business

Customer comfort during service robot interactions

Marc Becker1 · Dominik Mahr1 · Gaby Odekerken‑Schröder1

Received: 17 December 2021 / Accepted: 23 June 2022

Keywords Service robots · Human-likeness · Customer comfort · Service failures ·

Customer comfort during service interactions is essential for creating enjoyable

Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

present work contributes to practice by demonstrating that human-like (vs machine-

2 Theory and conceptual model

2.1 Service robots in hospitality

2.2 Customer comfort during service encounters

We take a customer comfort perspective to better understand to what extent ser-

2.3 The relationship between human‑likeness and customer comfort

anthropomorphism, which is not related to a robot’s design but to a user’s attri-

H1 A service robot’s degree of human-likeness impacts customer comfort.

2.3.1 The mediating roles of rapport and social presence

interactions), customers are hypothesized to feel more comfortable when interact-

H2 Customer-robot rapport mediates the positive relationship between a service

The second investigated mechanism is social presence. Social presence cap-

2.3.4 The moderating role of service failures

Whether human-likeness is an enabler or an inhibitor of customer comfort might

H4a Service failures diminish the indirect effect of human-likeness on customer

H4b Service failures diminish the indirect effect of human-likeness on customer

To validate our hypotheses, we conducted an online experiment. This experiment

We employed a 2 (human-like service robot vs machine-like service robot) × 2 (no

Fig. 2 Machine-like and human-like service robot stimuli

addition, we omitted items that could not be answered by respondents based on a

Table 1 Scales for construct measurement

Human-likeness, adapted from Powers and Kieslers (2006); α = 0.85

4.2 Pretest and manipulation check

4.3.1 Model 0: association between human‑likeness and customer service outcomes

It is still debated whether human-likeness in service robots is advantageous or dis-

4.3.2 Model 1: mediation through customer comfort

Model 1 investigates how a service robot’s human-likeness impacts customer

Fig. 3 Overview of models with results

willingness-to-pay (LLCI = 0.04; ULCI = 0.54). While we fail to observe a media-

4.3.3 Model 2: mediation through rapport and social presence

4.3.4 Model 3: moderating effect of service failures

Model 3 extends Model 2 by introducing service failures as a moderator for the

Table 2 PROCESS results for indirect effects of Models 2, 3 & 4

Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

4.3.5 Model 4: complete model

Model 4 investigates whether the effect of human-likeness through rapport/social

Customer comfort is a major driver of customer satisfaction, commitment, loy-

Table 3 Indices of moderated mediation for Models 3 & 4

Boot SE Bootstrap Standard Errors, CI Confidence Interval

H1 A service robot’s degree of human-likeness impacts customer comfort Supported

feelings of eeriness, indicating that customers would feel uncomfortable interacting

5.3 Limitations and future research

5.3.1 Methodology and data collection

Besides investigating additional customer service outcomes, it might be even more

5.3.5 Context factors and moderators

Future research could investigate a potential moderating role of past experience

Table 5 Research agenda for core concepts

Measurements and manipulations

You might also like

2 Theory and conceptual model

2.1 Service robots in hospitality

2.2 Customer comfort during service encounters

2.3 The relationship between human‑likeness and customer comfort

2.3.1 The mediating roles of rapport and social presence

2.3.4 The moderating role of service failures

Fig. 2 Machine-like and human-like service robot stimuli

Table 1 Scales for construct measurement

4.2 Pretest and manipulation check

4.3.1 Model 0: association between human‑likeness and customer service outcomes

4.3.2 Model 1: mediation through customer comfort

Fig. 3 Overview of models with results

4.3.3 Model 2: mediation through rapport and social presence

4.3.4 Model 3: moderating effect of service failures

Table 2 PROCESS results for indirect effects of Models 2, 3 & 4

4.3.5 Model 4: complete model

Table 3 Indices of moderated mediation for Models 3 & 4

5.3 Limitations and future research

5.3.1 Methodology and data collection

5.3.5 Context factors and moderators

Table 5 Research agenda for core concepts