Use of both verbal and nonverbal cues in computer-mediated communication can influence customers’ perceptions and their behavioral intentions. Drawing on the compensation effect theory, this study investigates how verbal and nonverbal cues used by customer service agents during online service recovery processes affect customers’ perceptions of service chat agents’ warmth and competence and their willingness to cooperate with a service agent to complete the service recovery process. A 2 (message interactivity cues: high vs. low) × 2 (visual cues: high vs. low) between-subjects experimental design is utilized to identify the main and interaction effects of verbal and visual nonverbal cues used in online communications on customers attitudes and behaviors. Results show that use of verbal cues leads to higher perception of a chat agent’s competence, but lower perception of a chat agent’s warmth while use of visual nonverbal cues results in higher warmth perceptions but lower competence perceptions. The interaction effect of verbal and visual nonverbal cues indicates that visual nonverbal cues have a compensatory effect on message interactivity and vice versa, such that customer-perceived warmth and competence are prone to trade-offs between verbal cues and visual nonverbal cues. Furthermore, perceived warmth and competence mediate the indirect effects of verbal and nonverbal cues on customers’ cooperation intentions. Theoretical and practical implications of use of verbal and nonverbal cues during online communications in service recovery processes are discussed.

在计算机介导的沟通中同时使用言语和非言语提示会影响客户的感知及其行为意图。基于补偿效应理论，本研究调查了在线服务恢复过程中客户服务代理使用的口头和非言语提示如何影响客户对服务聊天代理的热情和能力的感知以及他们与服务代理合作以完成服务的意愿。恢复过程。主体间的2个（消息交互提示：高与低）×2（视觉提示：高与低）实验设计可用于识别在线交流中使用的言语和视觉非言语提示对客户态度的主要影响和交互作用和行为。结果表明，使用言语提示可以提高对聊天代理能力的认识，但是在使用视觉非语言提示时，对聊天代理人的温暖的感知较低，会导致较高的温暖感知，但对能力的感知较低。言语和视觉非言语提示的交互作用表明，视觉非言语提示对消息的交互性具有补偿作用，反之亦然，因此客户感知的温暖和能力易于在言语提示和视觉非言语提示之间进行权衡。此外，感知到的热情和能力介导了言语和非言语暗示对客户合作意向的间接影响。讨论了在服务恢复过程中的在线通信过程中使用口头和非语言线索的理论和实践意义。