Publicação
Exploring the dynamics of trust in recommendation chatbots: The roles of perceived value, parasocial interaction, and anthropomorphism
| Resumo: | The growing integration of chatbots in e-commerce highlights their potential to transform customer service by offering continuous, personalized support. This study examines how perceived value, parasocial interaction, and trust influence users' intentions to switch from chatbots to human agents, with anthropomorphism serving as a moderating factor. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) on data from 326 participants, the findings reveal that both perceived value and parasocial interaction significantly reduce users' intentions to switch. Trust was found to strongly influence perceived value across both human-like and robotic chatbots, underscoring its vital role in shaping user perceptions of chatbot services. However, trust did not significantly impact parasocial interaction, nor did it effectively reduce switching intentions in the human-like chatbot scenario. Although anthropomorphic features, such as human-like names and avatars, were expected to enhance the relationship between trust and both perceived value and parasocial interaction, these moderating effects were not statistically significant. Interestingly, users showed a preference for robotic chatbots over human-like ones, as evidenced by a lower tendency to switch to human agents when interacting with robotic chatbots. These insights suggest that chatbots with robotic traits may be more effective in retaining users in certain e-commerce contexts. E-commerce platforms should focus on enhancing the perceived value and emotional engagement while carefully balancing human-like and robotic features to maximize customer satisfaction and loyalty. |
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| Autores principais: | Ferreira, João Francisco Neves |
| Assunto: | Antropomorfismo -- Anthropomorphism Chatbots Comércio eletrónico -- E-commerce Perceived value Interação parassocial -- Parasocial interaction Confiança -- Trust Switching intentions Valor percecionado Mudança de intenções |
| Ano: | 2024 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | ISCTE |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório ISCTE |
| Resumo: | The growing integration of chatbots in e-commerce highlights their potential to transform customer service by offering continuous, personalized support. This study examines how perceived value, parasocial interaction, and trust influence users' intentions to switch from chatbots to human agents, with anthropomorphism serving as a moderating factor. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) on data from 326 participants, the findings reveal that both perceived value and parasocial interaction significantly reduce users' intentions to switch. Trust was found to strongly influence perceived value across both human-like and robotic chatbots, underscoring its vital role in shaping user perceptions of chatbot services. However, trust did not significantly impact parasocial interaction, nor did it effectively reduce switching intentions in the human-like chatbot scenario. Although anthropomorphic features, such as human-like names and avatars, were expected to enhance the relationship between trust and both perceived value and parasocial interaction, these moderating effects were not statistically significant. Interestingly, users showed a preference for robotic chatbots over human-like ones, as evidenced by a lower tendency to switch to human agents when interacting with robotic chatbots. These insights suggest that chatbots with robotic traits may be more effective in retaining users in certain e-commerce contexts. E-commerce platforms should focus on enhancing the perceived value and emotional engagement while carefully balancing human-like and robotic features to maximize customer satisfaction and loyalty. |
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