The negative effect of service robots’ affective human-likeness on consumer satisfaction in frontline service encounters

Although companies have widely deployed service robots with affective human-likeness, scant attention has been paid to their negative effects on consumer satisfaction. We adopt a consumer–robot relationship perspective to investigate the mechanism and boundary conditions of the negative influence of affective human-likeness on consumer satisfaction. We suggest that service robots with affective human-likeness may violate consumer–robot relationship norms, making consumers feel social discomfort, thereby negatively affecting their satisfaction. Study 1 shows that a high degree of affective human-likeness negatively affects consumer satisfaction by causing social discomfort. Study 2 finds that consumer power which affects the perception of social distance, can be the boundary condition for previous negative effects. This research makes contributes to the literature on service robot anthropomorphism, consumer–robot relationships, and consumer power in artificial intelligence marketing and can guide service robots’ anthropomorphic use.