How can a robot signal its incapability to perform a certain task to humans in an acceptable manner?

In this paper, a robot that is using politeness to overcome its incapability to serve is presented. The mobile robot “Alex” is interacting with human office colleagues in their environment and delivers messages, phone calls, and companionship. The robot´s battery capacity is not sufficient to survive a full working day. Thus, the robot needs to recharge during the day. By doing so it is unavailable for tasks that involve movement. The study presented in this paper supports the idea that an incapability of fullfiling an appointed task can be overcome by politeness and showing appropriate behaviour. The results, reveal that, even the simple adjustment of spoken utterances towards a more polite phrasing can change the human´s perception of the robot companion. This change in the perception can be made visible by analysing the human´s behaviour towards the robot.