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Understanding the Impact of Low Personalization on Customers’ Prior Negative Experience with Virtual Conversational Agents: A Conceptual Framework

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Business Innovation for the Post-pandemic Era in Vietnam

Abstract

Virtual conversational agents (VCAs) powered by artificial intelligence (AI) have attracted great interest from many research scholars. Its diverse applications are widely acknowledged, and the ability to deliver personalized responses has become a key for increased service quality provided by this AI-powered tool. Building on the perspective of learning from experience theory, this research explores the prior negative experience and presents a conceptual framework to understand its effects on customers’ avoidance behavior with VCAs. Low personalization is expected as the main driver of perceived low informativeness, low credibility, low enjoyment, violation of shared language and information overload, leading to avoidance behavior and switching intention of customers. In addition, time pressure is believed to moderate the links between perceived low informativeness, violation of shared language and information overload as negative prior experiences and switching intention. The findings offer a novel way to understand customer behavior with VCAs under avoidance rather than approach perspective. Important theoretical and managerial implications are provided.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Management Law and Social Sciences, University of Bradford, Richmond Road, Bradford, BD7 1DP, United Kingdom

    Huu Trong Nguyen

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  1. Huu Trong Nguyen
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Correspondence to Huu Trong Nguyen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Business School, RMIT University Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Nguyen Hoang Thuan

  2. The Business School, RMIT University Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Hung Nguyen

  3. The Business School, RMIT University Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Hiep Cong Pham

  4. The Business School, RMIT University Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Alrence Halibas

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Nguyen, H.T. (2023). Understanding the Impact of Low Personalization on Customers’ Prior Negative Experience with Virtual Conversational Agents: A Conceptual Framework. In: Thuan, N.H., Nguyen, H., Pham, H.C., Halibas, A. (eds) Business Innovation for the Post-pandemic Era in Vietnam. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1545-3_7

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