Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

More than FAQ! Chatbot Taxonomy for Business-to-Business Customer Services

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Chatbot Research and Design (CONVERSATIONS 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12604))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Chatbots are becoming increasingly important in the customer service sector due to their service automation, cost saving opportunities and broad customer satisfaction. Similarly, in the business-to-business (B2B) sector, more and more companies use chatbots on their websites and social media channels, to establish sales team contact, to provide information about their products and services or to help customers with their requests and claims. Customer relations in the B2B environment are especially characterized by a high level of personal contact service and support through expert explanations due to the complexity of the products and service offerings. In order to support these efforts, chatbots can be used to assist buying centers along the purchase decision process. However, B2B chatbots have so far only been marginally addressed in the scientific human-computer interaction and information systems literature. To provide both researchers and practitioners with knowledge about the characteristics and archetypal patterns of chatbots currently existing in B2B customer services, we develop and discuss a 17-dimensional chatbot taxonomy for B2B customer services based on Nickerson et al. [1]. By classifying 40 chatbots in a cluster analysis, this study has identified three archetypal structures prevailing in B2B customer service chatbot usage.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Nickerson, R.C., Varshney, U., Muntermann, J.: A method for taxonomy development and its application in information systems. Eur. J. Inf. Syst. 22(3), 336–359 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2012.26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Sangroya, A., Saini, P., Anantaram, C.: Chatbot as an intermediary between a customer and the customer care ecosystem. In: Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Management of Digital EcoSystem, pp. 128–133 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Corea, C., Delfmann, P., Nagel, S.: Towards intelligent chatbots for customer care - Practice-based requirements for a research agenda. In: Proceedings of 53rd Hawaii International Conference of System Sciences, pp. 5819–5828 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Cui, L., Huang, S., Wei, F., Tan, C., Duan, C., Zhou, M.: Superagent: A customer service chatbot for E-commerce websites. In: Proceedings of 5th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, pp. 97–102 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Gnewuch, U., Morana, S., Maedche, A.: Towards designing cooperative and social conversational agents for customer service. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Gnewuch, U., Heckmann, C., Morana, S., Maedche, A.: Designing and implementing a B2B chatbot: Insights from a medium-sized service provider in the energy industry. In: Proceedings of 14th International Conference Wirtschaftsinformatik (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Rossmann, A., Zimmermann, A., Hertweck, D.: The impact of chatbots on customer service performance. Springer International Publishing (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51057-2_33

  8. Damnjanovic, V.: Entry market strategy for weaver chatbot using the digital B2B model. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Artificial Intelligence: Applications and Innovations, pp. 40–43 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Følstad, A., Skjuve, M.: Chatbots for customer service: User experience and motivation. In: Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Conversational User Interface (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Følstad, Asbjørn., Skjuve, Marita, Brandtzaeg, Petter Bae: Different chatbots for different purposes: towards a typology of chatbots to understand interaction design. In: Bodrunova, Svetlana S., et al. (eds.) INSCI 2018. LNCS, vol. 11551, pp. 145–156. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17705-8_13

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Hewitt, T., Beaver, I.: A case study of user communication styles with customer service agents versus intelligent virtual agents. In: Proceedings of the SIGdial 2020 Conference, pp. 79–85 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Xu, A., Liu, Z., Guo, Y., Sinha, V., Akkiraju, R.: A new chatbot for customer service on social media. In: Proceedings of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 3506–3510 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Hwang, Shinhee., Kim, Beomjun, Lee, Keeheon: A data-driven design framework for customer service chatbot. In: Marcus, Aaron, Wang, Wentao (eds.) HCII 2019. LNCS, vol. 11583, pp. 222–236. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23570-3_17

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Rėklaitis, K., Pilelienė, L.: Principle differences between B2B and B2C marketing communication processes. Manage. Organ. Syst. Res. 81(1), 73–86 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1515/mosr-2019-0005

    Google Scholar 

  15. Janssen, A., Passlick, J., Rodríguez Cardona, D., Breitner, M.H.: Virtual assistance in any context: a taxonomy of design elements for domain-specific chatbots. Bus. Inf. Syst. Eng. 62(3), 211–225 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-020-00644-1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Bittner, E., Oeste-Reiß, S., Leimeister, J.M.: Where is the bot in our team? Toward a taxonomy of design option combinations for conversational agents in collaborative work. In: Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Proceedings of Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Diederich, S., Brendel, A.B., Kolbe, L.M.: Towards a taxonomy of platforms for conversational agent design digital nudging view project chatbots and gamification view project. In: Proceedings of 14th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, pp. 1100–1114 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Feine, J., Gnewuch, U., Morana, S., Maedche, A.: A taxonomy of social cues for conversational agents. Int. J. Hum Comput Stud. 132, 138–161 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.07.009

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Feine, J., Adam, M., Benke, I., Maedche, A.: Exploring design principles for enterprise chatbots: an analytic hierarchy process study. In: Proceedings of 15th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Følstad, A., Skjuve, M., Brandtzaeg, P.B.: Different chatbots for different purposes: towards a typology of chatbots to understand interaction design. In: Bodrunova, Svetlana S., et al. (eds.) INSCI 2018. LNCS, vol. 11551, pp. 145–156. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17705-8_13

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Herrera, A., Yaguachi, Lady, Piedra, N.: Building conversational interface for customer support applied to open campus an open online course provider. In: Proceedings of 19th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, pp. 11–13 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Johannsen, F., Leist, S., Konadl, D., Basche, M., De Hesselle, B.: Comparison of commercial chatbot solutions for supporting customer interaction. In: Proceedings of 26th European Conference on Information Systems (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Kvale, K., Sell, O.A., Hodnebrog, S., Følstad, A.: Improving conversations: lessons learnt from manual analysis of chatbot dialogues. In: Følstad, A., et al. (eds.) CONVERSATIONS 2019. LNCS, vol. 11970, pp. 187–200. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39540-7

  24. Li, F.L., et al.: AliMe assist: an intelligent assistant for creating an innovative E-commerce experience. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, pp. 2495–2498 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Michaud, L.N.: Observations of a new chatbot: drawing conclusions from early interactions with users. IT Professional 20(5), 40–47 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Sousa, D.N., Brito, M.A., Argainha, C.: Virtual customer service: building your chatbot. In: Proceedings of ACM International Conference of ICBIM, pp. 174–179 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Chatbots Life: The Chatbot Conference - AI, Chatbots, Virtual Assistants and Voice, https://www.chatbotconference.com/. Accessed 27 Aug 2020

  28. Chatbots.org: Chatbot Reviews, Community & News, https://www.chatbots.org/. Accessed 30 Aug 2020

  29. Fleiss, J.L.: Measuring nominal scale agreement among many raters. Psychol. Bull. 76(5), 378–382 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1037/h0031619

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Landis, J.R., Koch, G.G.: The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics 33(1), 159–174 (1977). https://doi.org/10.2307/2529310

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Ward, J.H.: Hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 58(301), 236–244 (1963)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  32. Gimpel, H., Rau, D., Röglinger, M.: Understanding FinTech start-ups – a taxonomy of consumer-oriented service offerings. Electron. Markets 28(3), 245–264 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-017-0275-0

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Balijepally, V., Mangalaraj, G., Iyengar, K.: Are we wielding this hammer correctly? A reflective review of the application of cluster analysis in information systems research. J. Assoc. Inf. Syst. 12(5), 375–413 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Systems Institute, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Königsworther Platz 1, 30167, Hannover, Germany

    Antje Janssen, Davinia Rodríguez Cardona & Michael H. Breitner

Authors
  1. Antje Janssen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Davinia Rodríguez Cardona
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Michael H. Breitner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antje Janssen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. SINTEF, Oslo, Norway

    Asbjørn Følstad

  2. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Theo Araujo

  3. CERTH-ITI, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Symeon Papadopoulos

  4. University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Effie L.-C. Law

  5. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Ewa Luger

  6. University of Agder, Grimstad, Norway

    Morten Goodwin

  7. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Petter Bae Brandtzaeg

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 5.

Table 5. Definitions of taxonomy dimensions and underlying conceptual bases
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Janssen, A., Rodríguez Cardona, D., Breitner, M.H. (2021). More than FAQ! Chatbot Taxonomy for Business-to-Business Customer Services. In: Følstad, A., et al. Chatbot Research and Design. CONVERSATIONS 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12604. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68288-0_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68288-0_12

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-68287-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-68288-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation