Purpose The development of self-service technologies, while intended to better serve customers by offering them autonomy, has created situations in which individuals may require additional help. The purpose of this paper is to explore perceptions of chat as an assistance channel, to identify its perceived role in a customer service environment. Design/methodology/approach In all, 23 semi-structured interviews held with both chat and non-chat users assessed perceptions of chat in an assistance encounter. A thematic analysis was used. Findings The findings highlight a paradoxical perception of chat in a customer assistance context. On the one hand, customers perceive live chat as mainly beneficial in a customer service context, alleviating embarrassment, perceived threats and potential dissatisfaction linked to assistance requests. On the other hand, the elusive nature of a chat conversation interlocutor (human or artificial) adversely affects how customers interpret assistance from companies. Research limitations/implications This research underscores the perceived threats of assistance encounters and shows the ambivalent role of chat in such a context. It also highlights chat’s specific features that make it a relevant medium for assistance requests. Practical implications This study helps companies better understand customers’ perceptions of assistance requests and chat in that context. Companies can use the findings to develop better ways to address assistance needs and offer transparent and fully personalized human chat to provide an inclusive service. Originality/value This paper highlights the ambivalent role of chat as an assistance channel, easing assistance requests but also entailing a potential negative spillover effect, when negative chat perceptions of an artificial interlocutor have consequences.

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Le consommateur est de plus en plus confronté à des processus et des technologies complexes dans le cadre de sa consommation quotidienne. Les difficultés qui en découlent peuvent entraver son expérience et avoir des conséquences négatives sur la satisfaction, le bouche à oreille et les comportements de réachat. Bien que les entreprises proposent très souvent une assistance à la clientèle, beaucoup de clients ne font pas la démarche de demander assistance. Dans cette recherche, nous présentons un cadre issu de la psychologie sociale qui souligne les menaces perçues par l’individu envisageant de demander assistance afin de mieux expliquer les comportements d’évitement d’une telle demande. Ce travail donne lieu à l’élaboration et au développement du construit de « propension à éviter de demander assistance ». Il participe ainsi à la compréhension des facteurs déclenchant ou inhibant le comportement de demande d’assistance chez les clients. En proposant et en validant une nouvelle échelle de mesure de ce comportement, la présente recherche apporte une contribution méthodologique à la littérature. Elle concourt par ailleurs à mieux expliquer le comportement des clients préférant renoncer à l’utilisation d’un produit ou d’un service plutôt que de demander assistance.

Consumers are increasingly confronted with complex processes and technologies as part of their daily consumption. This difficulty, in turn, can hinder their experience and may have negative consequences in terms of satisfaction, word of mouth, and repurchase behaviors. Although companies often offer customer assistance, many consumers do not make the step to ask for help. In this research, we introduce a social psychological framework centered around the threats associated with help-seeking to better explain help-avoidant behaviors. Doing so, we introduce and develop the “propensity to avoid seeking assistance” construct to better understand what triggers and hinders customers’ assistance request behavior – or lack thereof. By offering and validating a new scale to measure such behavior, this research adds a methodological contribution to the literature. It also contributes to better explain the behavior of customers who would rather abandon using a product or service than ask for help.