服务失败情境下智能客服化身拟人化的负面影响:厌恶感的中介机制

When Service Failed:The Detrimental Effect of Anthropomorphism on Intelligent Customer Service Agent Avatar--Disgust as Mediation

企业将智能技术嵌入线上客服系统时,需要在交互界面塑造智能客服化身。本文针对全球《财富》500强企业的预研究发现,当前领先企业在应用智能客服化身的实践中,尚未形成某种规律或趋势,急需相关理论研究。本文以智能客服的服务接触失败为情境,研究探索智能客服化身形式和行为的不一致性产生的负面效应。三个实验研究的结果表明,在服务失败情境下,高形式拟人化的化身会加剧顾客对智能客服的厌恶感和负面态度。研究一验证了高形式拟人化的负面效应及厌恶感的中介作用。研究二验证了沟通风格的调节作用。当智能客服使用社交导向的沟通风格(v s.任务导向)时,厌恶感得到缓解。研究三验证了内隐人格倾向的调节作用。对于渐变论者(v s.实体论者)来说,高形式拟人化的化身(相对于低形式拟人化)不会引起更强的厌恶感。研究结论对企业构建智能客服的设计框架、制定智能客服失误的应对策略等具有战略借鉴意义。

As artificial intelligence technology gets more sophisticated,firms tend to use intelligent customer service system.Online intelligent customer service agents can show a vivid visual image,agile ability of human-computer conversation,mapping the real customer service person into the online platform.For example,Gongxiaozhi from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China,and Youyou of Bank of China establish a human-like customer service agent avatar through the anthropomorphic appearance.AliMe from Taobao and Xiaodong of JD.com improve customers’chat experience through social language.In terms of machine attribute,intelligent customer service agents have higher efficiency than human customer service agents in dealing with objective and procedural tasks.However,intelligent customer service agent cannot answer the simple subjective questions.For example,in 2016,IKEA abruptly stopped using intelligent customer service agent,Anna,who has attractive human-like appearance and nature language processing.Because Anna’s language style and visual form are too human-like,customers often talk about topics unrelated to shopping to it,which results in many stupid mistakes.As far as we know,service failure is inevitable,it is important to design the form and behavior of intelligent customer service agents to create a positive customer experience.Although the previous studies on intelligent customer service agents find the positive effect of anthropomorphism,it still cannot catch up the cutting-edge marketing practice,and there are the following deficiencies.First,these fragmented concepts fail to give insights to the phenomena,which break the balance between form and action.Second,the existing studies take service success as the assumption,and rarely explore the influence and mechanism of anthropomorphism in the case of service failure.Based on these research gaps,this paper proposes two research questions.First,is it possible to introduce a new concept that integrates the form and behavior characteristics of intelligent customer service agents to reveal the rules behind the anthropomorphism of intelligent customer service agents?Second,in the case of service failure,what negative effects will anthropomorphism of intelligent customer service agents have,and how to avoid or weaken this negative effect?“Avatar”is a Sanskrit word,and it means the descent to Earth of the god.In the age of artificial intelligence,an avatar is a computer-controlled digital representation with an anthropomorphic appearance.Avatars are widely used in social psychology,human-computer interaction,education and other fields.Avatar’s forms have been constantly enriched,including name,pattern,voice,and real person.Anthropomorphic customer service agents,chatbot,and voice assistant are all specific manifestations of corporate avatars.The form-behavior similarity framework reveals the function of the avatar.There is a complementary relationship between form and behavior.Behavior similarity can compensate for form similarity(e.g.,voice assistant).However,when the form similarity is inconsistent with the behavioral similarity,the effect of the avatar will be weakened or even produce negative effects.For example,humanoid robots have a high form similarity,but their behavior is significantly different from that of human,which leads to the uncanny valley effect and makes people feel disgusted.This paper focuses on intelligent customer service agent avatars of firms and defines them as digital representatives of firm customer service agents controlled by intelligent algorithms.Firms assign different social cues(visual forms,communication styles,etc.)to their customer service agent avatars,reflecting the customer service and customer relationships that firms map in the digital world.This paper consists of a pilot study and three lab experiments.The pilot study inspects intelligent customer service agent avatars used by the top 100 firms in the 2018 Global Fortune 500,and collects 50 representative cases.The results show that the leading firms in the world have no dominant methods and guidelines for the design of avatar such as the appearance,name,communication style and other elements.Thus,how to apply the intelligent customer service agent avatar remains at an exploratory stage,and we need relevant theoretical research urgently.The three experiments focused on the anthropomorphism of form and behavior of intelligent customer service agent avatars.Study 1 demonstrates that in service failure situations,avatars with high anthropomorphized form aggravate the negative attitude.Like the uncanny valley effect,avatars with high anthropomorphized form result in a more negative attitude in a service failure situation.Study 1 also confirms the mediating role of disgust and rules out alternative explanation of other negative emotions(such as anger,and contempt).Study 2 provides evidence that the moderating effect of communication style.When the intelligent customer service agent avatar uses social-oriented communication style,the influence of service failure can be eased.The social-oriented communication style can make up for the behavioral deficiencies of intelligent customer service agent avatars,weaken the inconsistency between form and behavior,and thus reduce disgust.Study 3 verifies the moderating effect of implicit personality and finds the boundary condition of negative effects.In the case of service failure,when the customers are entity theorists,high form anthropomorphism will produce negative effects,causing disgust and aggravating the negative attitude.When consumers are incremental theorists,high anthropomorphism will not aggravate negative effects.To expand the external validity and enhance the robustness of the experiments,different service contact failure scenarios are used in Study 1,Study 2 and Study 3,covering the core and peripheral service contact.In addition,in all three experiments,customers attribute service failures to intelligent customer service agents,which is the premise for the main effect to happen.This paper introduces the avatar-based theory into the field of intelligent customer service,and proposes the concept of intelligent customer service agent avatar,which has important theoretical contribution.First,the new concept extracts the essence behind scattered terms.The form-behavior similarity framework integrates the conflicting conclusion and promotes the integration of artificial intelligence and consumer behavior theory.Second,based on intelligent customer service failure situations,this paper focus on the negative effect of avatar anthropomorphism and theoretical mechanism,which enhance the development of service marketing theory in the context of artificial intelligence.The conclusions of this paper are meaningful to the design and application of intelligent customer service agents.First,the avatar-based theory provides a comprehensive strategic framework for designing intelligent customer service agents.Second,the formal-behavioral similarity framework provides effective strategies for dealing with mistakes of intelligent customer service agents.Third,firms should design intelligent customer service agent avatars according to customer portraits.