Unravelling the Hospitality Confusion: Understanding Customer Experience through Chatbots
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2023-07-13
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en
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Abstract
Nowadays, firms are investing more and more into chatbots to enhance the customer
experience which creates new touchpoints in the customer journey. This is also the case for
Online Travel Agencies (OTA), where chatbots are implemented with increasing amounts. This
industry is about to grow and therefore customers might become confused by the many options
that are offered. This study provides insights into how customer confusion affects the outcomes
of Customer Experience (CX). Moreover, it explains how the CX, in particular utilitarian value
and Seeking Information Behaviour, mediates this relationship. Therefore, a one-factor,
between-subjects experiment was conducted using a Wizard-of-Oz approach. Participants were
randomly assigned to one of the two conditions. In both conditions participants were asked to
buy a fictional product. However, in only one condition participants were intentionally
confused to examine the differences in confusion. SmartPLS was used to analyse the serial
mediation model. The research shows differentiating results. In contrast to the literature,
customer confusion does not affect the customer experience outcomes directly, however this
relationship is negatively mediated by utilitarian value. Moreover, customer confusion does
affect the overall CX negatively. The study provides a better understanding of how customers
experience confusion in a chatbot encounter and its effects on the outcomes. The findings
provide several directions for future research avenues, such as including a fictional product that
OTA’s usually offer. Moreover, it recommends managers with practical guidance to develop
chatbots and therefore enhance the CX during chatbot encounters.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen