Understanding Customer Experience and Its Mediating Roles in Human-Chatbot Interaction

Abstract

The advancement of artificial intelligence and its diverse applications have attracted great interests from several research scholars examining communication between humans and chatbots. Many have explained the motivations of chatbot use, however, less emphasis has been given to myriad customer experiential needs for the interaction with this AI-powered technology. Therefore, in the light of U&G theory, this thesis presents a conceptual framework for customer experience as the needs for chatbot use. SOR model was also adopted to establish the links among customer experience as organisms (utilitarian – perceived informativeness and credibility; hedonic – perceived transparency, enjoyment and engagement; anthropomorphism – mindful and mindless anthropomorphism; and social presence), their primary stimuli (functionality, communication style similarity and aesthetics) and responses (customer satisfaction and reuse intention). 417 convenient samples were collected from the UK where chatbots are widely used. Results from SEM revealed that perceived credibility, informativeness, enjoyment, functionality and communication style similarity hold the keys for customer satisfaction, while effects of anthropomorphism and social presence are not significant in this research setting. This study has enriched U&G theory by addressing customer experience as ones’ motivations to use chatbots. Also, it has presented a fresh understanding of customer experience in chatbot context by considering utilitarian, hedonic, anthropomorphism and social presence as dimensions of customer experience rather than merely measuring how customers think, feel, sense, act and relate. In addition, practical implications and direction for future research are discussed.