Digital marketing innovation and industrial marketing: evidence from restaurants' service robots

1. Introduction

Service robots are system-based machines that apply artificial intelligence (AI) and are capable of interacting, communicating and providing customer service (Ladeira et al., 2023; Shan et al., 2024; Yang et al., 2024); they significantly enhance the efficiency of restaurant operations. Digital marketing innovation is vital in improving restaurant operations and customer awareness of restaurant service robots; restaurant service robot providers can showcase their catering products, operational advantages and service applications to customers.

Service robots can contribute to enhancing the overall dining experience for customers. The purpose of this study is to analyze how perceived anthropomorphism (PA), perceived warmth (PW) and customer–AI assisted exchange (CAIX) of service robots affect customers’ satisfaction via digital marketing innovation based on the perspective of parasocial relationships and hybrid intelligence. The gaps between the study and prior research include research on enterprises using service robots in service recovery (Shan et al., 2024). Furthermore, the anthropomorphic innovation of service robots in restaurant service plays an essential intermediary role in business innovation (Han et al., 2023); the critical factor in enhancing the competitive advantage of restaurants is the adoption of service robots. However, there needs to be more analysis of digital transformation in restaurants.

Research in robotics and automation focuses on developing service robots that can intelligently perform different tasks (Hwang et al., 2023b); studies in this field can highlight the potential of service robots to streamline restaurant operations and improve efficiency (Cui and Zhong, 2023); the study will discuss customer satisfaction and the intention of restaurants to continue service robot usage. Specifically, this study aims to examine these questions as follows:

RQ1. What factors will lead to customer satisfaction and the intention to continue service robot usage in restaurants?

RQ2. Does TI between customers and service robots play a moderate role in raising the digital innovation of restaurants?

Restaurants use intelligent service robots to achieve significant business or process improvements (Hwang et al., 2022); previous studies stated that service robots play an important role in digital transformation and enhance business performance (Yu et al., 2022); Qin et al. (2023) argued anthropomorphic service robots would affect customers’ perceived interpersonal attraction; Belanche et al. (2021) pointed out that customers view frontline robots...