Summary
Recent technological advancements have increased companies’ use of virtual human-like characters with anthropomorphic
appearances, called “avatars” for customer care. Responding to the increased use of such humanlike customer care avatars (CCA), this
project aims to investigate how and under which circumstances CCAs’ level of behavioural realism affects consumers’ emotions, cognition, and performance outcomes during consumer-CCA communication, with a particular focus on communication failure incidents, utilizing qualitative and quantitative investigations. Particularly, a systematic literature review and in-depth interviews for qualitative investigation, and a series of experimental studies for the quantitative investigation will be employed. The project takes an interdisciplinary perspective
by combining knowledge from marketing, technology, communication, and psychology. As such, this research is expected to
contribute novel knowledge to the customer-technology interface literature, which is an area that the Marketing Science Institute has
identified as one of the top research priorities for 2022. As experts estimate that the use of avatars will increase by 241% in the
hospitality and by 187% in the consumer goods industry, understanding customer-avatar interfaces is of utmost importance within
this research area. Moreover, this project is proposed in response to the European Union’s declaration of funding research and
innovation that supports Europe’s digital transformation with a new generation of technologies as one of the top priorities for
2019-2024.
appearances, called “avatars” for customer care. Responding to the increased use of such humanlike customer care avatars (CCA), this
project aims to investigate how and under which circumstances CCAs’ level of behavioural realism affects consumers’ emotions, cognition, and performance outcomes during consumer-CCA communication, with a particular focus on communication failure incidents, utilizing qualitative and quantitative investigations. Particularly, a systematic literature review and in-depth interviews for qualitative investigation, and a series of experimental studies for the quantitative investigation will be employed. The project takes an interdisciplinary perspective
by combining knowledge from marketing, technology, communication, and psychology. As such, this research is expected to
contribute novel knowledge to the customer-technology interface literature, which is an area that the Marketing Science Institute has
identified as one of the top research priorities for 2022. As experts estimate that the use of avatars will increase by 241% in the
hospitality and by 187% in the consumer goods industry, understanding customer-avatar interfaces is of utmost importance within
this research area. Moreover, this project is proposed in response to the European Union’s declaration of funding research and
innovation that supports Europe’s digital transformation with a new generation of technologies as one of the top priorities for
2019-2024.
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More information & hyperlinks
| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101104928 |
| Start date: | 18-09-2023 |
| End date: | 17-09-2025 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | - 214 934,00 Euro |
Cordis data
Original description
Recent technological advancements have increased companies’ use of virtual human-like characters with anthropomorphicappearances, called “avatars” for customer care. Responding to the increased use of such humanlike customer care avatars (CCA), this
project aims to investigate how and under which circumstances CCAs’ level of behavioural realism affects consumers’ emotions, cognition, and performance outcomes during consumer-CCA communication, with a particular focus on communication failure incidents, utilizing qualitative and quantitative investigations. Particularly, a systematic literature review and in-depth interviews for qualitative investigation, and a series of experimental studies for the quantitative investigation will be employed. The project takes an interdisciplinary perspective
by combining knowledge from marketing, technology, communication, and psychology. As such, this research is expected to
contribute novel knowledge to the customer-technology interface literature, which is an area that the Marketing Science Institute has
identified as one of the top research priorities for 2022. As experts estimate that the use of avatars will increase by 241% in the
hospitality and by 187% in the consumer goods industry, understanding customer-avatar interfaces is of utmost importance within
this research area. Moreover, this project is proposed in response to the European Union’s declaration of funding research and
innovation that supports Europe’s digital transformation with a new generation of technologies as one of the top priorities for
2019-2024.
Status
SIGNEDCall topic
HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01-01Update Date
31-07-2023
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