Experiential Value, Satisfaction, Brand Love, and Brand Loyalty toward Robot Barista Coffee Shop: The Moderating Effect of Generation

This study applies experiential value, satisfaction, brand love, brand loyalty, and generation to identify consumer behavior toward robot baristas providing new non-face-to-face services during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the analysis, a set of hypotheses was developed and tested based on the data collected from 404 customers who had visited a robot barista coffee shop (RBCS) in South Korea. The results show that playfulness had the most positive effect on satisfaction, followed by service excellence and consumer return on investment (CROI). Satisfaction had a positive effect on brand love and loyalty. This result indicates that playfulness, service excellence, and CROI are important for inducing brand love and brand loyalty of customers toward RBCS. Moreover, generation plays a moderating role between satisfaction and brand love, and between brand and brand loyalty. This research design and the results differ from those of previous studies on experiential value that have focused on human services in the hospitality industry. Consequently, this study contributes to the hospitality literature by applying the experience value theory, which has been mainly applied to research on human services, to non-face-to-face service research, and to identifying its role. Additionally, it makes an important contribution by presenting practical implications for the sustainable management of the food service industry in the COVID-19 era.