Understanding smart service failure: The case of smart restaurants

Is smart dining a smart choice? This research steers away from the positive connotation of smart service to embark on the smart service failure phenomenon. It draws on expectancy disconfirmation theory with data collection from two studies. Findings reveal a triadic model of service failure in smart eateries with respect to core smartness failure, smartness servicescape failure, and smartness interactivity failure. These primary failure categories are attributed to patrons' overexpectations from smart services, as well as their personal needs and smart performance-induced cognitive evaluations. Importantly, social media hype seems to play a major role in customers' overexpectation. This research on one hand enriches the discourse on smart dining and restaurants, while on the other hand, it bridges the gap between smart service and service failure by providing a field inquiry to answer questions such as why smart services fail and how usage of technology could backfire when services are dominated by smart devices with little employee intervention. In essence, this work contributes to the smart service literature by understanding the drawbacks of technology.