Hey Robot, Tell It to Me Straight: How Different Service Strategies Affect Human and Robot Service Outcomes

With robots already entering simple service tasks in shops, it is important to understand how robots should perform customer service to increase customer satisfaction. We investigate two methods of customer service we theorize are better suited for robots than human shopkeepers: straight communication and data-driven communication. Along with an additional, more traditional customer service style, we compare these methods of customer service performed by a robot, to a human performing the same service styles in 3 online studies with over 1300 people. We find that while traditional customer service styles are best suited for human shopkeepers, robot shopkeepers using straight or data driven customer service styles increase customer satisfaction, make customers feel more informed, and feel more natural than when a human uses them. Our work highlights the need for investigating robot-specific best practices for customer service, but also for social interaction at large, as simply duplicating typical human-human interaction may not produce the best results for a robot.