Research On The Influence Of Anthropomorphic Communication Style Of Intelligent Customer Service On Customer Trust In Online Retail Context

Under the trend of information technology changes,the huge progress of digital economy and e-commerce provide more diversified consumption choices for people’s life,and online retail brings more convenient consumption experience for consumers.However,in the context of online retail,the uncertainty contradiction caused by the separation of product flow and information flow has become increasingly prominent.As a bridge between online retailers and consumers,online customer service provides consumers with instant communication and exclusive services.At present,the problems of human customer service in online retail enterprises are exposed in practice,such as high labor cost,slow response speed and limited working hours.With the development of AI technology and the increasing demand,intelligent customer service comes into being.Compared with human,intelligent customer services have a lower cost and a faster response,thus can improve service efficiency and reduce service cost for online retail enterprises and platforms.However,existing studies show that people’s trust in intelligent customer service is much lower than that of human customer service,and the actual utilization rate of intelligent customer service is low.Therefore,improving consumers’ trust in intelligent customer service is the key to improve the utilization rate of intelligent customer service,reduce labor costs,and reduce costs and increase efficiency for enterprises.Intelligent customer service solves customers’ demands and guides them to complete transactions through instant communication.In the process of communication,can intelligent customer service capture customers’ trust by using anthropomorphic communication? How does the interaction between anthropomorphic communication of intelligent customer service and self-construction of customers affect customer trust?Whether and how do customers’ cognitive social presence and emotional social presence play mediating roles in this interaction? What is its mechanism and effect? In order to answer the above questions,based on social response theory and stereotype content model,this paper divides anthropomorphic communication styles of intelligent customer service into warmth type and competent type,matches different types of self-construction,and studies the influence of their interaction effects on customer trust.In this study,the quasiexperimental method was used to construct four experimental scenes,and the above problems were verified through data collection and analysis of two 2×2 experiments.The results show that there is a matching relationship between intelligent customer service anthropomorphic communication style(competent type,warmth type)and customer self-construction(independent type,interdependent type).The interaction terms of the two have a positive impact on customer trust,and the sense of social presence is the mediating variable.Specifically,for independent customers,when the anthropomorphic communication style of intelligent customer service is competence-based,customers have a higher degree of trust in intelligent customer service;For interdependent customers,when the anthropomorphic communication style of intelligent customer service is warmth type,customers have a higher degree of trust in intelligent customer service.Independent selfconstructing customers can generate a higher sense of cognitive social presence in the context of intelligent customer service competence-based anthropomorphic communication style,thus enhancing the degree of trust in intelligent customer service.Interdependent selfconstruction customers can generate a higher sense of emotional social presence in the context of intelligent customer service using the warm anthropomorphic communication style,thus enhancing the degree of trust in intelligent customer service.Combined with the development and application status of intelligent customer service in China and the conclusion of this paper,the following suggestions are put forward on how to optimize the communication style of intelligent customer service in the context of online retail.First of all,enterprises should give anthropomorphic characteristics to intelligent customer service,narrow the distance between "human" and "machine",and blur the boundary between intelligent customer service and human customer service;Secondly,the enterprise should combine the product positioning,consumption scenario,communication context and semantics for the customer portrait,according to the type of customers to provide features matching intelligent customer service communication styles;Finally,enterprises can add interactive elements to the communication function of intelligent customer service,improve the accuracy of the reply,create a higher degree of social presence for customers,and enhance their trust in intelligent customer service.