{"title":"How Chatbot Language Shapes Consumer Perceptions: The Role of Concreteness and Shared Competence","authors":"Jano Jiménez-Barreto, Natalia Rubio, S. Molinillo","doi":"10.1177/10949968231177618","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In service settings, chatbots frequently are associated with substandard care, depersonalization, and linguistic misunderstandings. Drawing on assemblage theory (i.e., the examination of how heterogeneous parts, through their ongoing interaction, create an emergent whole with new capacities that the parts themselves do not have), the authors investigate how chatbots’ language concreteness—the specificity of words used during interactions with consumers—can help improve satisfaction, willingness to use the chatbot, and perceived shopping efficiency. Across three experiments, the findings reveal a psychological mechanism driven by concrete chatbot language that makes chatbots seem competent and reinforces consumer self-competence, in turn boosting satisfaction, willingness to use the chatbot, and perceived shopping efficiency. This pattern of results contributes to consumer behavior by providing evidence of the chatbot language concreteness effect on consumer–chatbot interactions. For practitioners, the authors outline conversational designs that could help optimize implementation of chatbots in customer service.","PeriodicalId":48260,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Interactive Marketing","volume":"58 1","pages":"380 - 399"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Interactive Marketing","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10949968231177618","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
In service settings, chatbots frequently are associated with substandard care, depersonalization, and linguistic misunderstandings. Drawing on assemblage theory (i.e., the examination of how heterogeneous parts, through their ongoing interaction, create an emergent whole with new capacities that the parts themselves do not have), the authors investigate how chatbots’ language concreteness—the specificity of words used during interactions with consumers—can help improve satisfaction, willingness to use the chatbot, and perceived shopping efficiency. Across three experiments, the findings reveal a psychological mechanism driven by concrete chatbot language that makes chatbots seem competent and reinforces consumer self-competence, in turn boosting satisfaction, willingness to use the chatbot, and perceived shopping efficiency. This pattern of results contributes to consumer behavior by providing evidence of the chatbot language concreteness effect on consumer–chatbot interactions. For practitioners, the authors outline conversational designs that could help optimize implementation of chatbots in customer service.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Interactive Marketing aims to explore and discuss issues in the dynamic field of interactive marketing, encompassing both online and offline topics related to analyzing, targeting, and serving individual customers. The journal seeks to publish innovative, high-quality research that presents original results, methodologies, theories, and applications in interactive marketing. Manuscripts should address current or emerging managerial challenges and have the potential to influence both practice and theory in the field. The journal welcomes conceptually rigorous approaches of any type and does not favor or exclude specific methodologies.