Utility and acceptability of AI-enabled chatbots on the online customer journey

Abstract

Retailers use artificial intelligence (AI) to serve customers better. This study examines the role of chatbots in shaping attitudes of customers relating to usefulness, usability, and trust when shopping for groceries online. Automated conversational agents, or chatbots, not only understand customers, but also provide them product knowledge, and promote behavioral change. Chatbots, automated and cost-effective as they are, provide efficient first-level support because a human employee cannot answer the whole range of customer questions round the clock. For Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with the AMOS analysis programme version 23 is used in this investigation. The online questionnaire was circulated via Google forms (N-375) promoted on social media to respondents who are at least 18 years of age and have completed online transactions, selecting them using a sampling quota in the survey procedure. A novel model will be tested and compared to prior research. According to the study’s findings, attitudes are significantly influenced by usefulness, usability, and trust, whereas attitudes have a major impact on decisions. However, it appears that trust has little impact on consumers’ views about online purchasing. This conclusion could be yet more support for previous research that consistently claims that trust affects customer purchases. In the case of online purchasing, not only is the trust element important for customers to make a choice, but it also matters more than the attitude factor because attitude is a product of many different aspects. Significantly consumer confidence in internet retailers is the factor that most affects attitude. The quantitative investigation revealed that a deep majority of respondents were apprehensive about employing AI and online-retail (e-retail) chatbots, primarily due to concerns about their accuracy and security, but would like to seek the advice of chatbots for informative purposes