Abstract
How can chatbots undo their mistakes? Repair strategies for misunderstandings in a chatbot conversation This paper presents a taxonomy of chatbot repair strategies identif ied in the f ields of communication science and dialogue systems. Subsequently, two experimental studies investigated the effects of miscommunication in chatbot conversations. In both experiments, participants engaged f irst in a successful and then a (manipulated) unsuccessful chatbot conversation. The unsuccessful chatbot responded to the misunderstanding with either defensive or accommodative repair strategies. The f indings of both studies reveal the negative impact of an unsuccessful chatbot conversation on brand attitude compared to a successful chatbot conversation. However, if the chatbot uses an accommodative repair strategy, brand attitude is rated higher than if the chatbot uses a defensive repair strategy. Also, study 2 showed that the chatbot’s communicated expertise (being an expert vs. in training) does not impact this relation. Thus, the way in which misunderstanding is communicated by the chatbot is more important than the expertise exhibited by the chatbot.
| Translated title of the contribution | Hoe halen chatbots de kink uit de kabel? |
|---|---|
| Original language | Dutch |
| Pages (from-to) | 288-325 |
| Number of pages | 38 |
| Journal | Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Christine Liebrecht, Emiel van Miltenburg, Charlotte van Hooijdonk, Florian Kunneman, Anouk Merckens & Nik Niessen.
Keywords
- brand attitude
- chatbots
- miscommunication
- misunderstanding
- online customer service
- quality of interaction