Warmhearted cues: A study of the impact of social mindfulness on trust repair by intelligent customer service in service recovery

Abstract

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, intelligent customer service system based on intelligent recognition and natural language interaction has become a key factor to improve service quality in many service industries. However, the phenomenon of "high capability and low enthusiasm" in service recovery has become one of the major challenges in the development, design and deployment of intelligent customer service. This study explores the impact of customers' perception of intelligent customer service's social mindfulness cues on the trust restoration mechanism in human-computer interaction service recovery from the perspective of customers' perceptions, which expands new clues that can help restore trust. In addition, this study examines how customer perceptions of social mindfulness changes affect the trust repair process under different levels of time urgency (high vs low) and in different task-oriented scenarios (practical vs hedonic). Results from the experiments suggest that providing high social mindfulness level of service can be more effective in recovering trust, particularly for high time urgency and practical task scenarios. The findings of this study provide important strategic references for service organisations in building design frameworks for intelligent customer service and developing recovery strategies.