Chatbots in e-commerce: The effect of chatbot language style on customers’ continuance usage intention and attitude toward brand

The utilization of chatbots has grown in popularity in recent years, leading to an increasing interest among academics and practitioners. This study investigates the effect of chatbot language style on customers' continuance usage intention and attitude toward brand. Two scenario-based experiments were conducted to examine the underlying mechanism. The results show that when chatbots adopt an informal (vs. formal) language style, customers’ continuance usage intention and brand attitude increase through the mediating role of parasocial interaction. Further, this study identifies brand affiliation as a pertinent moderator, such that the effect of chatbot language style is attenuated for people who have no prior relationship with the brand. The findings contribute to the existing chatbot literature and offer practical implications for brand managers to develop optimal language strategies when deploying chatbots in e-commerce.