*5.2. Practical Implications*

This study has important implications for how to utilize service robots to cope with a public health emergency. First, we provide some advice as to whether a company should introduce service robots into frontline service. For managers in the hospitality industry, it is one of the important decisions to employ service robots. The reason why many companies chose not to employ service robots without social contact is that previous research and reports have shown that customers have negative attitudes to service robots

and other automation technologies [19–23]. The outbreak of COVID-19 had a large impact on hospitality industries whose business mainly depend on social contact. Our work found that customers tend to engage with service robots during the COVID-19 pandemic, which supports the decision for managers to introduce service robots into their hotels and restaurants. Indeed, employing service robots may help companies improve performance, reduce the risk of infection for human staff, and maintain customer relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Second, this work explored the motivation of customer–robot engagement in the pandemic. When people are exposed to health threat information, their protection motivation will be enhanced [26,50], and they will increase customer–robot engagement. Thus, we suggest that hotels and restaurants should employ service robots effectively based on the protection motivation of customers. For instance, companies can emphasize the security of a service robot to cater to the customers' need for protection during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, this paper showed that social distancing is a mediator in the relationship between perceived risk and customer–robot engagement. Accordingly, hotels and restaurants may encourage, via promotional campaigns, customers to accept service from robot staff to maintain social distancing better.

Third, some references have been provided by this research for companies that aim to improve customer engagement with advanced technologies. Customer engagement can develop and strengthen customer relationships, and it can enhance customer loyalty and company performance. We demonstrated the forms of customer–robot engagement, including attention, enthusiasm, and interaction [39,41,43]. The conclusion of this paper offers guidance for designing a customer engagement approach in the hospitality industry. For example, hotels and restaurants may develop campaigns that focus on customer experience with service robots to improve attention, enthusiasm, and interaction of customers. If customers are attracted to participate in campaigns to engage with service robots, customer loyalty and company performance will be improved.
