Enhancing customer satisfaction with chatbots: the influence of anthropomorphic communication styles and anthropomorphised roles

Abstract

Purpose Chatbots are increasingly used in online retail settings and are becoming a powerful tool for brands to engage customers. However, consumers’ satisfaction with these chatbots is mixed. Thus, this paper aims to investigate how using a social- versus task-oriented anthropomorphic communication style can improve customer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach The authors explore the link between the anthropomorphic communication style use and customer perceptions/customer satisfaction in online customer service interactions. Two experiment scenarios were developed to test these links. Findings Overall, using a social-oriented communication style boosts customer satisfaction. Warmth perception of the chatbot mediates this effect, while chatbot’s anthropomorphised role (servant versus partner) moderates this effect. Originality/value This paper enriches the bilateral communication literature by extending the investigation on communication style effects to chatbot service interactions and revealing the psychological process driving the impacts. It also adds to the existing literature on chatbots as a customer service and contributes to the prominent topic examining how consumers react to artificial intelligence that is used to establish and maintain a relationship with them. Additionally, the authors also make contribution to the warmth and competence literature by demonstrating that customers can interpret social cues in chatbot service interactions mainly based on the warmth dimension. Thus, the authors further add to the growing chatbot humanness perception literature and respond to the calls for investigating more anthropomorphic design cues to enhance chatbot humanness. Finally, the authors also provide a way to help reconcile seemingly conflicting prior findings.

How do friendship artificial intelligence chatbots (FAIC) benefit the continuance using intention and customer engagement?

“…Second, we divide the mind perception to FAIC into two dimensions, warmth and competence, based on the stereotype content model. Referring to the existing literature, some other divisions, such as cuteness/cool (Li et al, 2021) and servant/partner (Xu et al, 2022), could be applied to FAIC. We encourage researchers to explore these possibilities.…”

How e-commerce platforms build channel power: the role of AI resources and market-based assets

“…Furthermore, chatbots have the ability to transform seller operations by streamlining business processes, automating complex tasks and enhancing customer service experience (Koehler, 2018), thereby providing considerable value to sellers (Kumar, 2016). For consumers, the anthropomorphic approach of chatbots can stimulate engagement, intellectual perception, collaboration and social interaction, fostering personal and emotional connections with customers (Keeling et al , 2010; Xu et al , 2022). Chatbots can also facilitate the move toward a “digital customer-company relationship” for e-commerce platforms (Steinhoff and Palmatier, 2020), and research has indicated that consumers appreciate extensive interactions with chatbots (Hill et al , 2015).…”

Uncovering the effectiveness of anthropomorphic communication on the country-of-origin stereotypes from the perspective of psychological elements

“…Recently, studies have found that brand image also has an impact on the country's image 9 , and the interaction of the brand image and the country's image may lead to the formation of deeper stereotypes, so how to reduce COO stereotypes becomes more and more important for developing countries in international competition. Previous studies and real-world examples have shown the advantages of anthropomorphism, when a brand adopts human-like language in communication, it may excite individuals' positive attitudes toward the producrt 10 , the latest research findings reveal the effects of anthropomorphism on customers' satisfaction 11 and product recommendations 12 . Psychological factors such as individuals' mindset could also influence their preference for products.…”