Reasons Why Customers Resist AI-Powered Customer Service
Research shows why customers prefer human interaction in certain service scenarios and how businesses should deal with this resistance.
New research reveals the psychological barriers that trigger customer resistance to artificial intelligence and how businesses should manage this process.
Psychological Barriers Against Artificial Intelligence
Research on customer-centric artificial intelligence shows that resistance to the use of technology follows predictable patterns and that chatbots trigger specific psychological barriers.
While companies invest in artificial intelligence to provide faster and cheaper service, studies reveal under which circumstances customers reject this technology.
Reasons for Not Preferring Chatbots
Customers avoid chatbots due to roadblock avoidance caused by uncertainty and multi-step structure, as well as a distinct algorithm aversion effect that further reduces AI adoption.
Being transparent about what chatbots can and cannot do and showing expected wait times can increase engagement rates.
Artificial Intelligence in Delivering Good and Bad News
While artificial intelligence is a better messenger for bad news, humans produce more successful results regarding good news.
Customers who receive a worse-than-expected offer are more inclined to accept it from artificial intelligence rather than a human representative, because AI lacks human intentions.
Human-Like Persona Effect
While humans perform better in delivering better-than-expected offers, this advantage disappears when artificial intelligence is given a human-like persona.
Test Predicting Customer Acceptance
A simple two-question test can predict in advance whether customers will adopt or reject artificial intelligence.
A meta-analysis examining 163 studies shows that preferences depend on whether artificial intelligence is perceived as more capable than a human in that task.