Impact of irritation and negative emotions on the performance of voice assistants: Netting dissatisfied customers’ perspectives

With the rising popularity of voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, etc., understanding the service gaps experienced by customers has become imperative. In unison, limited studies are focusing on the perspectives of dissatisfied customers. This research aims to address this gap by suggesting the antecedents of technology irritation and its impact on the overall performance of voice assistants. The study uses a mixed-methods approach by analyzing the data gathered from user interviews, online reviews from users, and also empirical surveys. The qualitative study, capturing both etic and emic perspectives, found problems related to responsiveness, usability, platform, connectivity, and compatibility of VAs. While the empirical study revealed that utility gratification and service quality have a significant impact on technology irritation. The findings also show that customers from negative high and low arousal emotion groups have varying perceptions about utility gratifications. •Prior literature has barely explored technology irritation with voice assistants (VAs).•Study examines how technology irritation and its antecedents affect VA performance.•Qualitative study found challenges of VAs like, responsiveness, usability, connectivity.•Utility gratification and system quality impact technology irritation.•Negative high and low arousal emotion groups differ in utility gratification views.