Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/317229 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Citation: 
[Journal:] Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies [ISSN:] 2345-0037 [Volume:] 14 [Issue:] 2 [Year:] 2023 [Pages:] 220-241
Publisher: 
Vilnius University Press, Vilnius
Abstract: 
Despite the increasing number of companies employing chatbots for tasks that previously needed human involvement, researchers and managers are only now beginning to examine chatbots in customer-brand relationship-building efforts. Not much is known, however, about how managers could modify their chatbot greeting, especially incorporating humour, to increase engagement and foster positive customer-brand interactions. The research aims to investigate how humour in a chatbot welcome message influences customers' emotional attachment and conversion-to-lead through the mediating role of engagement. The findings of the experiment indicate that conversion-to-lead and emotional attachment rise when chatbots begin with a humorous (vs neutral) greeting. Engagement mediates this effect such that a humorous (vs neutral) greeting sparks engagement and thus makes users more emotionally attached and willing to give out their contact information to the brand. The study contributes to the existing research on chatbots, combining and expanding previous research on human-computer interaction and, more specifically, human-chatbot interaction, as well as the usage of humour in conversational marketing contexts. This study provides managers with insight into how chatbot greetings can engage consumers and convert them into leads.
Subjects: 
Chatbot
conversational agent
conversion-to-lead
emotional attachment
engagement
humour
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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