Technological advances have enabled firms to automate customer service by employing artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. Despite their many potential benefits, interactions with chatbots may still feel machine-like and cold. The current study proposes the use of humour by chatbots as a gateway to humanizing them and thereby enhancing the customer experience. Across three experimental studies, the results reveal that (i) the use of humour enhances service satisfaction when it is used by a chatbot but not when it is used by a human agent, (ii) this chatbot humour effect is serially mediated by enhanced perceptions of anthropomorphism and interestingness of the interactions with the chatbot, and (iii) whilst both positively and negatively valenced chatbot humour may enhance the interestingness of the interactions, socially appropriate (i.e., affiliative) humour as opposed to inappropriate (i.e., aggressive) humour leads to enhanced service satisfaction. This study extends the understanding of the humanization processes of chatbots and provides guidelines for how firms should use chatbot humour to positively influence consumers' service satisfaction.

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聊天机器人幽默对消费者服务评价的影响

技术进步使公司能够通过使用人工智能 (AI) 聊天机器人来实现客户服务自动化。尽管有许多潜在的好处，但与聊天机器人的交互可能仍然感觉像机器一样冷漠。当前的研究建议聊天机器人使用幽默作为使它们人性化并从而增强客户体验的途径。在三项实验研究中，结果表明 (i) 当聊天机器人使用幽默时，幽默的使用会提高服务满意度，但当它被人类代理使用时，则不会，(ii) 这种聊天机器人的幽默效果是由增强的感知连续介导的拟人化和与聊天机器人互动的趣味性，以及（iii）虽然积极和消极的聊天机器人幽默都可以增强互动的趣味性，社交适当（即，附属的）幽默与不恰当的（即攻击性的）幽默相反，可以提高服务满意度。本研究扩展了对聊天机器人人性化过程的理解，并为企业应如何使用聊天机器人幽默来积极影响消费者的服务满意度提供了指导方针。