The Mechanism Of Chatbot’s Social Presence On Continued Use Intention And Purchase Intention

Chatbot’s social presence is the consumer’s perception that a chatbot is a real person.In the environment of retail innovation,chatbots are more and more involved in retail activities,and they are an important source of consumer interaction and information acquisition,and its social presence has a positive impact on consumers’ perceived experience and shopping intentions.In recent years,the development of artificial intelligence(AI)has promoted the innovation practices of retailers,but the innovation activities of retailers are often internal activities that consumers are not aware of,and the innovation activities of retailers need to be perceived by consumers to produce positive behavioral consequences.As a front-end innovation product of retailers,chatbots interact with consumers directly or indirectly,and its social presence is the main way for consumers to perceive retailers’ innovation activities and create novel experiences.However,few studies have linked the social presence of chatbots with consumers’ perception of innovation experience.How social presence affects consumers’ continued use intention and purchase intention and its boundary conditions have not been fully explained.Based on this,this study from the perspective of social relations and consumer perception perspective,according to the theory of Social Presence,Innovativeness Theory,and Self-determination Theory as the foundation built an integrated framework: social presence-experiential innovativeness –self-determined satisfaction(intimacy/sense of empowerment)-continued use intention/purchase intention,to explore the mechanism of social presence on consumers’ continued use and the purchase intention,and the moderating role of communication style in this process.In this study,442 valid questionnaires were collected by experimental and questionnaire methods to research the relationship between social presence and consumers’ continued use and purchase intentions and to further explore the mediating role of experiential innovativeness and self-determined satisfaction as well as the moderating role of communication style.The empirical results show:firstly,the theoretical model of "social presence-experiential innovativeness –self-determined satisfaction(intimacy/sense of empowerment)-continued use intention/purchase intention" is supported.Secondly,the influence of social presence on continued use intention and purchase intention needs to go through two processes.Experiential innovation and self-determined satisfaction play a chain-like mediating in the influence of social presence on consumers’ continued use and purchase intention.Thirdly,the chatbot’s communication style has a moderating effect on social presence and the influence of social presence on experiential innovativeness and intimacy.A cute communication style leads to a higher level of social presence.When the level of social presence is low,consumers perceive higher experiential innovativeness under cute communication style,which further enhances consumers’ intention of continued use and purchase intention.When the level of social presence is high,consumers perceive more experiential innovativeness under formal communication style,thus enhancing consumers’ intention of continued use and purchase intention.This study extends social presence theory to the interaction of retailer experiential innovativeness,explores the chain-like mediating role of experiential innovativeness and self-determined satisfaction,and reveals the differential effects and boundary conditions of chatbot ’ s social presence on consumer behavior.The results of this study can help retailers to have a deep understanding of consumers’ psychological activities,it provides theoretical and practical help for retailers to design chatbots and carry out smart retail innovation activities.