Although chatbots have been widely used in dealing with service complaints, knowledge about the recovery performance of chatbots is limited. Drawing upon lay belief and emotional competence theory, this research explores symbolic recovery performances of chatbots in two experimental studies. The results show that symbolic recovery from chatbots leads to lower customer satisfaction than symbolic recovery from human employees due to the lay belief that chatbots lack emotional competence. Perceived naturalness and perceived sincerity play a sequential mediating role. Customers perceive chatbots' symbolic recovery to be less natural than that of human employees. Less natural recovery is perceived to be less sincere, thus decreasing customer satisfaction with the recovery. Changing perceived diagnosticity of the lay belief can improve customer satisfaction with chatbots' symbolic recovery. This research enriches theoretical research on symbolic recovery and chatbots, providing information for how companies can effectively use chatbots to make an appropriate recovery.

尽管聊天机器人已广泛用于处理服务投诉，但对聊天机器人恢复性能的了解有限。借鉴世俗信仰和情感能力理论，本研究在两项实验研究中探索了聊天机器人的符号恢复性能。结果表明，与人类员工的象征性恢复相比，聊天机器人的象征性恢复导致客户满意度更低，因为人们普遍认为聊天机器人缺乏情感能力。感知自然和感知真诚起序贯中介作用。客户认为聊天机器人的象征性恢复不如人类员工自然。较少的自然恢复被认为是不真诚的，因此降低了客户对恢复的满意度。改变外行信念的感知诊断可以提高客户对聊天机器人象征性恢复的满意度。本研究丰富了符号恢复和聊天机器人的理论研究，为企业如何有效利用聊天机器人进行适当的恢复提供了信息。