Can AI help you? – A banking chatbot study

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2022-07-19

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en

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Chatbots are often used in service industries to provide a quick and 24/7 service option to the customer. In the banking sector, chatbots are often used for similar causes. However, due to risk concerns, these chatbots may not offer the intended customer experience. This study provides insight into the effect of information transparency on the customer experience during an interaction with the banking chatbot. For this purpose, a scenario-based experiment was conducted. Dutch citizens above 18 years old were randomly assigned to one of two chatbots. One displayed high information transparency, while the other chatbots demonstrated low information transparency. The participants evaluated their interaction through a survey. The PROCESS tool by Hayes was used to analyze a serial mediation effect. While the sample size of the study was rather low, this problem has been minimized by using bootstrapping methods. The results support the serial mediation model. Information transparency does not directly affect the customer experience, but this relationship is positively mediated by trust and willingness to share. Also, the results highlighted the strong effect of trust in the model. Trust showed to be a rather complex construct, with chatbot bias and education level having a significant negative influence on the trust level a respondent exhibited. The results were based on an experiment in which respondents knew the scenario was fake, making the results less robust. Nevertheless, the results of this study provide a broader knowledge and understanding of the indicators of customer experience for banking chatbots. The findings of this research give many directions for more detailed future research on (banking) chatbots. Furthermore, this study recommends developers use design attributes like information transparency, to enhance the users’ trust and willingness to share, ultimately resulting in a better customer experience during the chatbot interaction.

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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen