Purpose

As artificial intelligence technology empowers service robots, they increasingly communicate with consumers in a human-like manner. This study aims to investigate the effect of service robots’ different conversational styles (competent conversational style vs. cute conversational style) on consumer service acceptance and demonstrate the moderating role of consumers’ technology anxiety.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on anthropomorphism theory and social presence theory, the authors conducted two scenario-based experiments (restaurant scenario and hotel scenario) to investigate this issue.

Findings

The results indicate that service robots’ conversational styles impact consumers’ willingness to accept the use of service robots through perceived social presence and positive emotion. Moreover, consumers perceived social presence and positive emotion play a serial mechanism. In addition, the effect of competent conversational style on consumers perceived social presence is less effective than that of cute conversational style. Finally, the authors demonstrate the moderating role of consumer technology anxiety in the relationship between conversational styles and perceived social presence.

Practical implications

To provide consumers with a positive human–robot interaction experience at the service front line, managers need to make better use of the conversational styles of service robots by comprehensively considering the characteristics of consumer technology anxiety.

Originality/value

This research extends the literature on service robots by integrating consumer characteristics and robots’ conversational styles. These findings highlight the effectiveness of cute conversational style in alleviating consumer technology anxiety.

中文翻译：

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可爱可以缓解我的焦虑吗？服务机器人的对话风格对消费者服务接受度的影响

 目的

随着人工智能技术为服务机器人提供支持，它们越来越多地以类似人类的方式与消费者交流。本研究旨在调查服务机器人不同的对话风格 （称职的对话风格 vs. 可爱的对话风格） 对消费者服务接受度的影响，并展示消费者技术焦虑的调节作用。

设计/方法/方法

基于拟人化理论和社会存在理论，作者进行了两个基于场景的实验（餐厅场景和酒店场景）来调查这个问题。

 发现

结果表明，服务机器人的对话风格通过感知的社交存在和积极的情绪影响消费者接受服务机器人使用的意愿。此外，消费者感知到的社会存在和积极情绪起着一系列机制的作用。此外，称职的对话风格对消费者感知的社交存在的影响不如可爱的对话风格有效。最后，作者证明了消费者技术焦虑在对话风格和感知社交存在之间关系中的调节作用。

 实际意义

为了在服务一线为消费者提供积极的人机交互体验，管理者需要综合考虑消费者技术焦虑的特点，更好地利用服务机器人的对话方式。

 原创性/价值

本研究通过整合消费者特征和机器人的对话风格，扩展了有关服务机器人的文献。这些发现强调了可爱的对话风格在缓解消费者技术焦虑方面的有效性。