Service robots and memorable customer experience: The influence of perceived anthropomorphism

Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of perceived anthropomorphism of service robots on the memorable customer experience (MCE) and the mediating role of HRI satisfaction. Two research questions and five hypotheses are proposed. An experiment has been designed in a natural environment with two service robots with different anthropomorphic features. Findings showed that MCE increases when a service robot is placed in a service scenario augmenting front-line employees, compared to a situation without a service robot. The results also showed that the main antecedent of MCE was perceived anthropomorphism, while HRI satisfaction did not mediate the anthropomorphism–MCE relationship.