Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reconstructing consumer experiences with brands in recent years. However, there have been the unsettled debates on whether humans react to robots (e.g., chatbots) in the same way as they do to other humans, and how the intrinsic strength of AI (i.e., autonomous processing and synthetization of information) and humans (i.e., emotional intelligence) factor in the human-AI interactions in brand communication settings. Hence, this study investigates the conditions under which a service entity of a brand can optimize their potential. To this end, the current study conceptualizes and operationalizes two dimensions that define chatbots’ capabilities – message contingency (i.e., contingency-based interactivity) and emotional intelligence (i.e., sympathy). Based on two experiments, we found that, regarding the same online customer service of an apparel brand, participants rated the human employee to be more competent and warmer than a chatbot. When a human employee who expresses sympathy to the afflicted customer during the conversation, participants considered the employee to be more competent when he/she also exhibits contingency (vs. no contingency) during the conversation, which in turn, elicited higher patronage intentions among participants.

摘要

近年来，人工智能 (AI) 正在迅速重建消费者对品牌的体验。然而，关于人类对机器人（例如聊天机器人）的反应是否与对其他人类的反应相同，以及人工智能（即信息的自主处理和合成）和人类的内在力量如何（即情商）在品牌传播环境中人机交互的因素。因此，本研究调查了品牌服务实体可以优化其潜力的条件。为此，当前的研究将定义聊天机器人能力的两个维度概念化和操作化——消息意外性（即基于意外事件的交互性）和情商（即同情心）。基于两个实验，我们发现，对于服装品牌的相同在线客户服务，参与者认为人类员工比聊天机器人更有能力和热情。当一名人类员工在谈话中对受影响的客户表示同情时，参与者认为该员工在谈话期间也表现出意外事件（与没有意外事件）时更有能力，这反过来又会引起参与者更高的惠顾意愿.