The Effect of Anticipated Embarrassment on Consumer Preference for Using Chatbots

In recent years, businesses have started using a variety of conversational chatbots to help improve their customer support efforts. The current research examines the influence of anticipated embarrassment on consumers’ willingness to use chatbots for online searches, develop a deeper understanding of the boundary conditions of this effect, and identify design cues that can be employed to encourage chatbot adoption during embarrassing contexts. When faced with a decision of whether to conduct an online search using a chatbot, consumers are less likely to do so when they anticipate feeling embarrassed about the search than when they do not. This reluctance to use chatbots results from a sense of perceived social presence while interacting with a chatbot, which in turn results in fear of being judged by the chatbot while conducting an embarrassing search. Across nine experiments exploring scenarios related to online search, this research demonstrates the phenomenon and investigates the underlying process. A second set of studies investigates individual self-esteem and individual tendency to anthropomorphize as the boundary conditions for the primary effect. Finally, the third set of studies investigates different design cues, e.g., de-anthropomorphizing and imbuing chatbots with empathetic design cues, that can be employed to increase the usage likelihood of chatbots during embarrassing searches. Further, as theorized, consumers (i) prefer to use traditional search tools (vs. chatbots) to conduct embarrassing online searches (because unlike chatbots, these search tools do not possess humanlike features and therefore do not result in feelings of social presence or anticipated judgment) and (ii) are more willing to conduct non-embarrassing (vs. embarrassing) product searches using chatbots (because individuals do not fear being judged for conducting non-embarrassing searches). Together, the findings reveal an unexamined negative impact of anthropomorphizing chatbots, which has important implications for both theory and practice.