Impacts of service robots on service quality
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Impacts of service robots on service quality Ai‑Hsuan Chiang1 · Silvana Trimi2 Received: 18 July 2020 / Accepted: 31 July 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract With rapid advances in technologies, especially in artificial intelligence, smart sensors, big data analytics, and robotics, the service industry began introducing robots to perform a variety of functions. While the main purpose of deploying robots has been productivity improvement, the current COVID-19 pandemic has brought more urgent purpose, providing contactless service for social distancing. This study explores the service quality provided by robots based on real data in a hotel setting. A sample of 201 guests provided their expected service quality by robots and the actual performance experience after the service. We analyzed this relationship using importance performance analysis (IPA) and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The results revealed that customers’ top priorities for robots’ service quality are assurance and reliability, while tangible and empathy were not as important. Customers were not satisfied with robots’ responsiveness, but this construct was found to be a low priority. Keywords Service quality · Service robot · Artificial intelligence · TOPSIS · Importance-performance analysis
1 Introduction Traditionally, service providers have been humans. In the advent of advanced digital technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT), and the current pandemic situation, smart robots are increasingly replacing employees to provide contactless services (Hrynowski 2020; Huang and Rust 2018; Wirtz et al. * Silvana Trimi [email protected] Ai‑Hsuan Chiang [email protected] 1
Department of International Business, Ming Chuan University, 250 Zhong Shan N. Rd., Sec. 5, Taipei, Taiwan
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Department of Supply Chain Management and Analytics, College of Business, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588‑0405, USA
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2018). For example, smart robots have been deployed in some hotels (Palvia and Vemuri 2016), retail stores (Grewal et al. 2018), airports, meal delivery, etc.(Frick 2015; Lee et al. 2009) The current COVID-19 pandemic crisis is proving the usefulness and expanding roles of robots in a wide range of services and industries. Service robots can alleviate the workload of first responders in hospitals while keeping them safe from virus infection, perform tasks so that humans can practice social distancing, execute delicate procedures that not many medical staff have the skills or stamina to perform (Matthews 2020). Robots can be classified into industrial robots and service robots. Industrial robots are used primarily for manufacturing applications in factories and warehouses. Service robots are mechanical devices that can mimic human behaviors to provide, autonomously or semi-autonomously, services to humans (Haidegger et al. 2013; International Federation of Robot
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