Abstract:
Chatbots in the service industry are associated with functional and practical experiences instead of thrilling and delightful experiences. This study examines a serial mediation effect of chatbot affective expressions (x) lead to higher perceived as affective empathic (m1) levels, increases hedonic experience (m2) and lead to higher customer satisfaction (y) scores in sequence. The participants of this study filed in a damage claim of a fictive rafting accident via a low-level affection or high-level affection expressive chatbot, which was evaluated via a survey. The results indicated strong support for the serial mediation model. Moreover, perceived affective empathy and hedonic experience are not the only predictors of customer satisfaction. Conversational errors negatively impact customer satisfaction. Furthermore, utilitarian experience is a stronger predictor of customer satisfaction than hedonic experience. Both the low-level as the high-level affective chatbot provided a high utilitarian experience which explains why both chatbots had a marginal difference in customer satisfaction scores. This research implies that chatbots are perceived as affective entities. However, chatbots must deliver a profound utilitarian experience at a minimal level before considering the implementation of high-level affective expressions for this chatbot.
