Service robot failure: The interplay of monetary compensation and voice anthropomorphism

• We analyze voice as a non-physical robot feature in service failure and recovery. • Monetary compensation and voice jointly influence customer outcomes. • Anthropomorphic voices help when no monetary compensation is given. • Social support mediates the effect of voice and monetary compensation. • Firms should use anthropomorphic voices or compensation to reduce negative effects. Service robots are on the rise, but still prone to failures. Consequently, practitioners and researchers are interested in how service recovery and robots should be designed to optimize service failure and recovery situations. Key issues are the choice of recovery strategies and the design of service robots, particularly with regard to service robot anthropomorphism. Our results show that an anthropomorphic voice plays no role when monetary compensation is offered, as monetary compensation dominates customer evaluations. However, when firms choose not to provide monetary compensation, using an anthropomorphic voice improves evaluations. Building on social support theory, we show that customer perceived social support mediates this interaction. We show respective effects in five studies with different types of service robots, a male and female service robot voice, and different levels of monetary compensation. Two of these studies underpin the importance of voice relative to appearance.