The Effects Of Anthropomorphism On Intention Of Adopting Self-service Technology

Nowadays,more and more companies adopt anthropomorphic marketing methods,such as "Uncle McDonald's",emerging brands "Xiao Xiaotong","Jiang Xiaobai" and so on.These companies use anthropomorphic image to convey product features,and brand personality,hoping that customers treat the product and brand as a friend.However,not all of the anthropomorphic images were well accepted by target customers.For example,dating app "TanTan" uses a foximage to represent the brand image,makingtarget customers feel unsafe.Thus,it is crucial to understand when and why consumers would adopt anthropomorphic images while reject others.With the continuous increase of labor cost and minimum wage level,more and more service companies embrace self-service technology to control cost.Studying how to improve the self-serive adoption has become animportant topic in academic research and industry practices.Many scholars have studied the relationship between self-service adoption willingness and service efficiency.However,few scholars have focused on the effects of anthropomorphism on intention of adopting self-service.The author believes that adding an anthropomorphic element to the self-service interface can increase the consumer's favorability and increase the willingness to adopt self-service.Given the abundant forms of anthropomorphic implementation,it is challenging to pick the right anthropomorphic elements.This research focuses on two different anthropomortphic expressions:verbal and pictural expression,and investigates the effectiveness of these different expressions on customer adoption.Furthermore,this research also examines the relative effectiveness of high and low dynamic of pictural anthropomorphic expression on influence customers self-service adoption.This paper finds out verbal expression,as a high interpretive expression,is more suitable in scenes with long phycological distance when expressing personification.Man and brand are more distant physiologically in transactional service than in relational service.Therefore word pattern is more suitable to transactional service.Likewise,pictural expression,as a low interpretive personification expression,is more suitable to relational service than to transactional service.At the same time,for the anthropomorphism of high dynamic characteristics,because it displays a lively personality characteristics,it is more suitable for the relational services,and for the anthropomorphism of low dynamic characteristics,because it is goal-oriented and certain.There is no significant difference in the willingness to adopt self-service techlogic in relational services and transaction services.