How Effective Are Anthropomorphic Chatbots? A Study of Consumer-Chatbot Communication in Taiwan

Abstract

Contextualized in the tech-savvy Taiwanese market, this experiment evaluates how a brand chatbot’s anthropomorphic visual identity cues and conversational cues jointly influence consumer perceptions of the chatbot to drive brand evaluation. By adopting social presence indicators as anthropomorphic conversational cues, the findings confirm the advantage of conversational cues and the significance of chatbots’ perceived warmth and hedonic value as mediators driving consumer responses. However, the results highlight that anthropomorphic visual identity cues of human names and faces may not always be ideal and should not be employed as a default chatbot design. When anthropomorphic visual identity cues are used, chatbots’ messages must include numerous conversational cues to enhance the perceived warmth of the chatbot and improve consumer response.