Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles (한국의류학회지)

The Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles (한국의류학회)
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Comparing the Effects of Courteous vs. Humorous Apologies for Chatbot Service Recovery

챗봇의 서비스 회복을 위한 정중한 사과와 유머러스한 사과의 효과 비교

  • Min Jeong Seo (Korean Living Science Research Institute, Hanyang University)
  • 서민정 (한양대학교 한국생활과학연구소)
  • Received : 2023.09.05
  • Accepted : 2024.03.18
  • Published : 2024.04.30
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Abstract

Human agents are increasingly being replaced by chatbots. However, like humans, chatbots can also make mistakes in service delivery by failing to provide accurate answers to customer questions while research on service recovery has been highly focused on human employees. Recognizing the necessity of research on effective chatbot service recovery strategies, this study investigated the relationships among service recovery messages (courteous apology vs. humorous apology), perceived sincerity, recovery satisfaction, and continuous usage intention. An online experiment was conducted with the participants randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions (courteous apology vs. humorous apology). After using the chatbot developed for this study, the participants completed a questionnaire. The analysis results revealed that, in comparison to the humorous apology, the courteous apology had a higher positive predictive effect on perceived sincerity, Furthermore, perceived sincerity and recovery satisfaction sequentially mediated the relationship between the chatbot's courteous apology and continuous usage intention. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the courteous apology was a more effective approach as a chatbot service recovery strategy. This study offers insights into crafting recovery service messages for chatbots.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

이 논문은 2021년 대한민국 교육부와 한국연구재단의 지원을 받아 수행된 연구임 (NRF-2021S1A5B5A17055218).

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