Purpose

Service providers increasingly use conversational agents (CAs), such as chatbots, to effectively communicate with customers while managing interaction costs and providing round-the-clock customer service. Yet, the adoption and implementation of such agents in service contexts remains a hit-and-miss, and firms often struggle to balance their CAs implementation complexities and costs with relation to their service objectives, technology design and customer experiences. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance on optimizing CA design, therefore, the authors develop a conceptual framework, TRISEC, that integrates service logic, technology design and customer experience to examine the implementation of CA solutions in search, experience and credence (SEC) contexts.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on service marketing and communications research, combining the service context classification scheme of search, experience and credence and the technology infused service marketing triangle foci (service, technology and customer) in its conceptual development.

Findings

The authors find that an opportunity exists in recognizing the importance of context when designing CAs and aiming to achieve a balance between service objectives, technology design and customer experiences.

Originality/value

This study contributes to service management and communications research literature by providing interactive service marketing researchers with the highly generalizable TRISEC framework to aid in optimizing CA design and implementation in interactive customer communication technologies. Furthermore, the study provides an array of future research avenues. From a practical perspective, this study aims at providing managers with a means to optimize CA technology design while maintaining a balance between customer centricity and implementation complexity and costs in different service contexts.

中文翻译：

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TRISEC 框架，用于优化跨搜索、体验和信任服务上下文的会话代理设计

目的

服务提供商越来越多地使用聊天机器人等对话代理 (CA) 来有效地与客户沟通，同时管理交互成本并提供全天候的客户服务。然而，在服务环境中采用和实施此类代理仍然是偶然的，公司经常难以平衡其 CA 实施的复杂性和与其服务目标、技术设计和客户体验相关的成本。本文的目的是为优化 CA 设计提供指导，因此，作者开发了一个概念框架 TRISEC，它集成了服务逻辑、技术设计和客户体验，以检查 CA 解决方案在搜索、体验和信任（SEC ) 上下文。

设计/方法/方法

本文借鉴服务营销与传播研究，将搜索、体验、信任的服务上下文分类方案与技术注入的服务营销三角焦点（服务、技术和客户）相结合进行概念开发。

发现

作者发现，在设计 CA 并旨在实现服务目标、技术设计和客户体验之间的平衡时，认识到上下文的重要性是一个机会。

原创性/价值

本研究通过为交互式服务营销研究人员提供高度通用的 TRISEC 框架来帮助优化交互式客户通信技术中的 CA 设计和实施，从而为服务管理和通信研究文献做出贡献。此外，该研究提供了一系列未来的研究途径。从实践的角度来看，本研究旨在为管理人员提供一种优化 CA 技术设计的方法，同时在不同服务环境中保持以客户为中心与实施复杂性和成本之间的平衡。