THE ROLE OF SOCIAL PRESENCE ON CONSUMER ATTITUDE TOWARDS CUSTOMER SERVICE CHATBOT

• Main Author: Sophia Romdoni, Sarah
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/49430
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The innovation of artificial intelligence, such as chatbot, becomes a valuable alternative for customer service. Chatbot is a novel tool that expected to be the future of customer service. Despite its rising popularity, the studies on the acceptance of this technology from the perspective of the perceived social presence are still lacking. Social presence on chatbot is crucial to be discussed since chatbot is typically an automated program, where social interaction and human warmth are usually minimal compared to the traditional customer service. Hence, this study aims to explore the role of social presence on consumer attitude toward customer service chatbot, specifically on the text-based chatbot. This study uses the technology acceptance model as the theoretical lens, extended with the perceived social presence. Data from 202 participants, which is collected through online survey, were examined quantitatively. The analysis with PLS-SEM shows that perceived social presence, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use influence consumer attitude in using customer service chatbot. Further exploration revealed that social presence influences consumers’ attitude when mediated by perceived ease of use. Perceived social presence also indirectly influences perceived usefulness when mediated by perceived ease of use. This study provides an insight associated with the role of social presence in the technology acceptance model which suggests a relevant recommendation for further studies. Furthermore, the findings can be used by companies that want to develop customer service chatbots as consideration for developing an impactful strategy to increase the consumer adoption level in the usage of customer service chatbot.