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This research explored the effects of service delivery types (conventional face-to-face service vs. self-service technologies; SSTs) and brand personality (underdog brand vs. top-dog brand) on consumers' brand attitudes. Study 1 revealed that consumers perceived more anthropomorphic features in underdog brands than in top-dog brands (Hypothesis 1). The anthropomorphic brand personality of an underdog affected consumers' preferences for service type. The results of Study 2 indicated that consumers preferred face-to-face service to SSTs for underdog brands (Hypothesis 2). The underlying mechanism to explain this phenomenon was revealed by the perceived increased discomfort when using SSTs (Hypothesis 3). These findings offer practical implications for marketing managers in deciding when brand personality should be considered when adopting a new service type.
Keywords
brand personality;
underdog brand; top-dog
brand;
anthropomorphism;
discomfort; self-service
technologies; face-to-face
service
Article Highlights
* Consumers considered underdog brands to have more anthropomorphic features than topdog brands did.
* Consumers preferred face-to-face service to self-service technologies for underdog brands.
* The underlying mechanism to account for the effects was perceived discomfort.
* Marketers should carefully consider the means of delivering services according to brand personality.
Service Delivery Types
The critical difference between face-to-face service and self-service technologies (SSTs) is the presence in face-to-face service of human interactions of customers with employees during the service delivery process (S.-Y. Kim & Yi, 2017). As the role of technology increases in service encounters (Huang, 2018), SSTs have attracted more attention in service-related research (Nijssen et al., 2016; Pujari, 2004). Previous research has demonstrated that SSTs benefit both enterprises and consumers with their efficiency (e.g., Orel & Kara, 2014). However, researchers have suggested that SSTs have drawbacks apropos of the relationship quality between customers and employees and can block customers from having enjoyable interactions with service providers (Lee, 2017). Further, extant studies on SSTs have mainly investigated the effects on consumer responses of consumer characteristics (i.e., psychological reactance; Feng et al., 2019) or contextual variables (i.e., perceived waiting time, task complexity; Wang et al., 2012). Few studies have been conducted to explore how brand personality positively or negatively affects consumer attitudes toward SSTs (Fan et al., 2016). Therefore, we incorporated brand personality (underdog vs. top-dog brands) and investigated its moderating effects on the link between service delivery types (SSTs...