Despite the growing application of interactive technologies like service robots in customer service, there is limited understanding about how customers respond to interactions with frontline service robots compared to those with frontline human employees. Moreover, it is unclear whether all customers respond to the interaction with frontline service robots in the same way. Our research looks at how individual differences in social behaviors, specifically in customers' attachment styles, influence three types of customer responses: affective responses (experienced pleasantness), attitudinal responses (perceived empathy, satisfaction), and behavioral responses (word‐of‐mouth). Three experimental studies reveal that customers with low (vs. high) scores on anxious attachment style (AAS) measures respond more negatively to frontline service robot (compared to a frontline human agent). We investigate alternative explanations for these findings, such as robots' level of anthropomorphism and we show that human‐likeness features such as voice type and level of human‐like physical appearance, cannot explain our findings. Our results indicate that for low‐AAS customers replacing frontline human service agent with frontline robot undermines customer attitude and behavioral responses to service robots, leading to possible implications on customer segmentation, targeting, and marketing communication.

中文翻译：

---

依恋风格使客户对一线服务机器人的反应温和：来自情感，态度和行为措施的证据

尽管诸如客户服务机器人之类的交互式技术在客户服务中的应用不断增长，但与客户与一线员工相比，对客户如何响应与一线服务机器人的交互的了解仍然有限。此外，还不清楚是否所有客户都以相同的方式响应与一线服务机器人的交互。我们的研究着眼于社会行为的个体差异（尤其是客户的依恋风格）如何影响三种类型的客户响应：情感响应（体验到的愉悦感），态度响应（感知到的同理心，满意度）和行为响应（口碑） ）。三项实验研究表明，低（vs. 高）的焦虑依恋风格（AAS）措施得分对一线服务机器人（与一线人员相比）的负面影响更大。我们调查了这些发现的替代解释，例如机器人的拟人水平，并且我们发现像语音类型和类似人的外观水平的人像特征无法解释我们的发现。我们的结果表明，对于低AAS客户而言，用一线机器人代替一线人工服务代理会破坏客户对服务机器人的态度和行为响应，从而可能对客户细分，目标定位和营销沟通产生影响。拟人化水平，我们证明了像语音类型和类似人的外表水平之类的人性特征无法解释我们的发现。我们的结果表明，对于低AAS客户而言，用一线机器人代替一线人工服务代理会破坏客户对服务机器人的态度和行为响应，从而可能对客户细分，目标定位和营销沟通产生影响。拟人化水平，我们证明了像语音类型和类似人的外表水平之类的人性特征无法解释我们的发现。我们的结果表明，对于低AAS客户而言，用一线机器人代替一线人工服务代理会破坏客户对服务机器人的态度和行为响应，从而可能对客户细分，目标定位和营销沟通产生影响。