The Deployment of Chatbots within Customer Experience Management

客户体验管理中聊天机器人的部署

• 批准号: 397270471
• 负责人: Dr. Elisa Konya- Baumbach
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Marketing und Innovation
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-31 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/397270471?language=en
• 关键词: Deployment; Chatbots; within; Customer; Experience

Caused by the ongoing digitalization and the plurality of interaction channels, the amount of touchpoints between companies and customers increases by more than 20 percent each year. As a consequence, the customer journey, that is the customer path from the pre-purchase phase, via the purchase phase through to the post-purchase phase, gets more complex. As customer experiences directly influence company evaluations and customers' willingness to buy, companies are interested in designing the customer experiences at the respective touchpoints in an optimal way. Rapid developments in the area of artificial intelligence now allow companies to employ digital interaction tools. Such interaction tools, particularly chatbots, bear great potential for the management of customer experiences along the customer journey. Chatbots are a form of artificial intelligence and enable one-to-one interactions with customers. To date there is a paucity of research on the effective deployment of chatbots in customer experience management.The overarching aim of this project is to close this research gap by conducting empirical studies based on the Social Response Theory, the Uncanny Valley concept, and the Media Richness Theory. To this end, we plan to investigate how customers perceive chatbots. In doing so, we especially consider characteristics that make chatbots appear more or less human-like. We postulate that these characteristics affect customers' perception of the chatbots which in turn affects chatbot effectiveness like customers' perceived service quality and willingness to buy. Additionally, we aim to uncover to what extent the effectiveness of chatbots differs between the customer journey phases based on phase-specific customer requirements.To gain first insights regarding the deployment of chatbots within customer experience management, we initially conduct expert interviews with companies that already use chatbots. We then build upon this qualitative data basis by conducting three laboratory experiments with consumers that comprise all three phases of the customer journey. A final field experiment aims at investigating the effectiveness of the deployment of chatbots in practice and at validating the laboratory experiment results.The project bears valuable implications for research and practice. Particularly the Uncanny Valley concept is transferred into an entirely new application context, is updated, and, in this way, spurring fruitful future research. Based on the project results and following the consumer-based strategy approach, we can derive essential recommendations for companies regarding the deployment of chatbots along the entire customer journey.

由于持续的数字化和多种互动渠道，公司与客户之间的接触点数量每年增加20%以上。因此，客户旅程，即从购买前阶段到购买后阶段的客户路径，变得更加复杂。由于客户体验直接影响公司的评价和客户的购买意愿，公司有兴趣以最佳的方式在各自的接触点设计客户体验。人工智能领域的快速发展现在允许公司使用数字交互工具。此类交互工具，尤其是聊天机器人，对于沿着客户旅程的客户体验管理具有巨大潜力。聊天机器人是人工智能的一种形式，可以与客户进行一对一的互动。迄今为止，关于聊天机器人在客户体验管理中的有效部署的研究很少。本项目的总体目标是通过基于社会反应理论，恐怖谷概念和媒体丰富性理论进行实证研究来填补这一研究空白。为此，我们计划调查客户如何看待聊天机器人。在这样做的时候，我们特别考虑了使聊天机器人看起来或多或少像人类的特征。我们假设这些特征会影响客户对聊天机器人的感知，进而影响聊天机器人的有效性，如客户感知的服务质量和购买意愿。此外，我们的目标是根据特定阶段的客户需求，揭示聊天机器人在客户旅程阶段之间的有效性差异。为了获得有关在客户体验管理中部署聊天机器人的初步见解，我们首先对已经使用聊天机器人的公司进行专家访谈。然后，我们在此定性数据基础上，对消费者进行了三项实验室实验，这些实验包括客户旅程的所有三个阶段。最后一个现场实验旨在调查聊天机器人在实践中部署的有效性，并验证实验室实验结果。该项目具有研究和实践价值。特别是恐怖谷的概念被转移到一个全新的应用环境中，更新，并以这种方式，刺激富有成效的未来研究。根据项目结果并遵循基于消费者的策略方法，我们可以为公司提供有关在整个客户旅程中沿着部署聊天机器人的基本建议。

项目成果

The Effectiveness of Specific Go-to-Market Strategies for Digital Innovation Adoption: An Abstract

数字创新采用的具体进入市场策略的有效性：摘要

• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-42545-6_85
• 发表时间: 2019
• 作者: Schuhmacher;Monika C;Elisa Konya-Baumbach;Sabine Kuester;und Victoria Kuharev
• 通讯作者: und Victoria Kuharev

Making a first impression as a start-up: Strategies to overcome low initial trust perceptions in digital innovation adoption

作为初创企业给人留下第一印象：克服数字创新采用中初始信任度较低的策略

• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijresmar.2019.01.008
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: International Journal of Research in Marketing
• 影响因子: 7
• 作者: Konya-Baumbach;Monika C. Schuhmacher;Sabine Kuester;und Victoria Kuharev
• 通讯作者: und Victoria Kuharev