Friend or foe? Chat as a double-edged sword to assist customers

Abstract

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.

La propension du client à éviter de demander assistance : conceptualisation et développement d’une échelle

“…Les répondants à la phase exploratoire de la présente recherche ont déclaré estimer que certaines entreprises dissimulaient leurs coordonnées, ce qui a été interprété comme le signe d’un manque de volonté à aider. Enfin, les canaux de médiation (chat, email) peuvent procurer une forme de soulagement aux clients souffrant d’anxiété sociale, au moment où ceux-ci envisagent de demander assistance (Delacroix et Guillard, 2016 ; Sangle-Ferriere et Voyer, 2019).…”

“…Dans notre recherche, l’aidant est une institution caractérisée par (a) la distance de la relation (formalisme de la relation avec une institution) et (b) la dissemblance des deux interlocuteurs (l’un représentant l’institution, l’autre étant un particulier). Tant la distance (Sanglé-Ferrière et Voyer, 2019) que l’anonymat (Lim et al, 2013) semblent amoindrir les menaces associées à une demande d’aide. Le constat est le même pour la dissemblance entre les deux interlocuteurs (Nadler, 1987).…”

Changes and evolution in the intellectual structure of consumer dissatisfaction

“…Currently, the most innovative line of research, and which is offering more advances in the field, deals with understanding satisfied and dissatisfied customers through the use of new technologies as text‐mining approach (Berezina et al, 2016), brand‐image (Bakri, Krisjanous, & Richard, 2020), or self‐service technologies (Fan, Wu, Miao, & Mattila, 2020; Sangle‐Ferriere & Voyer, 2019). The amount of accessible information in some sectors, such as the hospitality sector, enables future researchers to continue the advances on the main aspects that influence consumer dissatisfaction, as well as its consequences.…”

Personal goals in consumers' adoption of mHealth services

“…While not a systematic literature review, examination of the recent business, services marketing, information systems and health literature suggests this trend persists (see Table 1), although there are notable exceptions (e.g. Paluch and Tuzovic, 2019;Sangle-Ferriere and Voyer, 2019). For instance, recent research employs TAM to examine the acceptance of high and low interactive retail technology (Riedel and Mulcahy, 2019), or models based on TAM, such as the information adoption model, to examine consumers' intention to use mobile apps (Lee, 2018).…”