How chatbot e-services motivate communication credibility and lead to customer satisfaction: The perspective of Thai consumers in the apparel retailing context

Abstract

Many apparel retailing brands use e-service marketing tools such as a chatbot (a system that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) to increase their competitive advantage in today’s world of digitalization. During the COVID-19 pandemic, chatbots gained more power to serve as a communication tool that provides information and maintains customer experience. Therefore, this study is conducted to investigate the influence of chatbot e-service agents’ marketing efforts (involving interaction, entertainment, trendiness, and problem-solving) on Thai customers’ perceived communication credibility and satisfaction in apparel retailing, as research in this area is limited. In order to test the hypotheses, the paper employed structural equation modeling using Amos. In addition, an online survey of 400 Thai consumers who had previously used chatbots in the apparel retailing industry was conducted. The results showed that chatbot e-service marketing efforts, including interaction, trendiness, and problem-solving, affected customer satisfaction without entertainment elements. Beyond this, a chatbot, viewing interaction and entertainment, was found to have an insignificant effect on communication credibility. Thus, the coefficient value proved that information regarding communication credibility is more dominant in customer satisfaction. Therefore, the chatbot e-service marketing effort is essential in motivating communication credibility in customer satisfaction. These findings delivered managerial implications for understanding consumers in the field of digitalization.

Purchase intentions in a chatbot environment: An examination of the effects of customer experience

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State support for the digitalization of SMEs in European countries

“…Digitalization not only helps to overcome the information asymmetry between businesses and investors (Pedchenko et al, 2018) but also stimulates the development of SMEs in other business aspects. For example, the digitalization of banking services (Pham et al, 2022;Kuznyetsova et al, 2022), the insurance market (Polinkevych et al, 2021), and the chatbots (Jansom et al, 2022) became significantly more developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”