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Can Chatbot Anthropomorphism and Empathy Mitigate the Impact of Customer Anger on Satisfaction?

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Wisdom, Well-Being, Win-Win (iConference 2024)

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Abstract

When customers initiate inquiries with negative emotions following a service failure, whether chatbot service agents can alleviate the undesirable outcomes resulting from negative emotions poses significant challenges for researchers and practitioners. Drawing upon computers are social actors (CASA) framework, this study examines how chatbot anthropomorphism and empathy features function as emotion-focused service recovery to mitigate the adverse effect of customer anger on satisfaction. The model is validated through a three-way factorial between-subjects experiment. The results demonstrate that anger negatively affects satisfaction. Chatbots with empathy features can mitigate this negative impact, whereas chatbots with anthropomorphism features cannot. The findings provide theoretical and practical implications for designing chatbot service agents to achieve emotion-based service recovery.

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Acknowledgement

This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71904215, 72072194), the Social Science Fund Research Base Project of Beijing (19JDGLB029), and the Young Talents Support Program from the Central University of Finance and Economics (No: QYP2211).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China

    Jian Tang, Yunran Wang & Jiayan Guo

  2. School of Business, Guangxi University, Nanning, China

    Xinxue Zhou

  3. School of Insurance, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China

    Chenguang Li

Authors
  1. Jian Tang
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  2. Yunran Wang
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  3. Xinxue Zhou
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  4. Jiayan Guo
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  5. Chenguang Li
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jian Tang , Xinxue Zhou or Chenguang Li .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. iSchool organization, Berlin, Germany

    Isaac Sserwanga

  2. University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Hideo Joho

  3. Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Jie Ma

  4. Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Preben Hansen

  5. Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Dan Wu

  6. University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Masanori Koizumi

  7. University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Anne J. Gilliland

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Tang, J., Wang, Y., Zhou, X., Guo, J., Li, C. (2024). Can Chatbot Anthropomorphism and Empathy Mitigate the Impact of Customer Anger on Satisfaction?. In: Sserwanga, I., et al. Wisdom, Well-Being, Win-Win. iConference 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14596. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57850-2_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57850-2_7

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