That's so Embarrassing! When not to Design for Social Presence in Human-Chatbot Interactions

Consumers increasingly rely on chatbots when interacting with firms. This is not only because it is convenient, but also because consumers do not feel judged by these artificial conversational agents. However, when compared to interacting with human employees, interactions with chatbots lack human warmth and sociability. To facilitate these social experiences, firms design their chatbots to convey social presence. Prior research shows that once perceptions of social presence are elicited, consumers’ intentions to use the chatbot increase. However, the present work questions whether designing for social presence is always desirable by spotlighting settings in which the topic of the interaction is perceived as embarrassing by consumers. A scenario experiment shows that while designing for social presence by concealing the chatbot’s identity increases usage intention in non-embarrassing contexts, it backfires in contexts perceived as embarrassing. These results challenge the current mantra of the salutary effects of social presence in human-chatbot interactions