IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v63y2010i8p793-800.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Avatars as salespeople: Communication style, trust, and intentions

Author

Listed:
  • Keeling, Kathleen
  • McGoldrick, Peter
  • Beatty, Susan

Abstract

Interactions with retail salespersons in stores contribute to building trust and profits. Within the largely impersonal Internet, an interactive animated character or avatar, playing the social role of an online sales assistant, should provide a potent source of social presence and so have the potential to replace some of these interactions. This investigation tests whether avatars with social- or task-oriented communication styles contribute to user trust and patronage intentions. Further tests explore the moderating effects of product/service type. The study includes an online experiment and survey, involving 636 participants, mainly from North America, Oceania and Europe, allocated randomly to different treatments. Task-oriented communications contribute to trust, which in turn contributes to patronage intentions, especially for search goods/services. Social-oriented communications also contribute directly to trust and to patronage intentions, most strongly for credence goods/services. The authors recommend a three-fold approach to avatar implementation, involving requirements captured to define appropriate appearance, role, interaction style and content for the task. Conclusions include further suggestions for development and research.

Suggested Citation

  • Keeling, Kathleen & McGoldrick, Peter & Beatty, Susan, 2010. "Avatars as salespeople: Communication style, trust, and intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(8), pages 793-800, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:63:y:2010:i:8:p:793-800
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148-2963(09)00231-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gefen, David & Straub, Detmar W., 2004. "Consumer trust in B2C e-Commerce and the importance of social presence: experiments in e-Products and e-Services," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 407-424, December.
    2. Campbell, Margaret C & Kirmani, Amna, 2000. "Consumers' Use of Persuasion Knowledge: The Effects of Accessibility and Cognitive Capacity on Perceptions of an Influence Agent," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 27(1), pages 69-83, June.
    3. Lipshitz, Raanan & Strauss, Orna, 1997. "Coping with Uncertainty: A Naturalistic Decision-Making Analysis," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 149-163, February.
    4. Bhatnagar, Amit & Ghose, Sanjoy, 2004. "Segmenting consumers based on the benefits and risks of Internet shopping," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(12), pages 1352-1360, December.
    5. Eastlick, Mary Ann & Lotz, Sherry L. & Warrington, Patricia, 2006. "Understanding online B-to-C relationships: An integrated model of privacy concerns, trust, and commitment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(8), pages 877-886, August.
    6. Woodside, Arch G & Davenport, J William, Jr, 1976. "Effects of Price and Salesman Expertise on Customer Purchasing Behavior," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(1), pages 51-59, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Ying-Hueih & Hsu, I-Chieh & Lin, Chia-Chen, 2010. "Website attributes that increase consumer purchase intention: A conjoint analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(9-10), pages 1007-1014, September.
    2. Cao, XinYu & Mokhtarian, Patricia L, 2005. "The Intended and Actual Adoption of Online Purchasing: A Brief Review of Recent Literature," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt095934s0, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    3. Van Horen, Femke & Pieters, Rik, 2013. "Preference reversal for copycat brands: Uncertainty makes imitation feel good," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 54-64.
    4. Choi, Yung Kyun & Yoon, Sukki & Lacey, Heather P., 2013. "Online game characters' influence on brand trust: Self-disclosure, group membership, and product type," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 996-1003.
    5. McCole, Patrick & Ramsey, Elaine & Williams, John, 2010. "Trust considerations on attitudes towards online purchasing: The moderating effect of privacy and security concerns," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(9-10), pages 1018-1024, September.
    6. Alisa Frik & Luigi Mittone, 2016. "Factors Influencing the Perceived Websites' Privacy Trustworthiness and Users' Purchase Intentions," CEEL Working Papers 1609, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    7. Featherman, Mauricio & Jia, Shizhen (Jasper) & Califf, Christopher B. & Hajli, Nick, 2021. "The impact of new technologies on consumers beliefs: Reducing the perceived risks of electric vehicle adoption," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    8. Xusen Cheng & Fei Guo & Jin Chen & Kejiang Li & Yihui Zhang & Peng Gao, 2019. "Exploring the Trust Influencing Mechanism of Robo-Advisor Service: A Mixed Method Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-20, September.
    9. Nepomuceno, Marcelo Vinhal & Laroche, Michel & Richard, Marie-Odile, 2014. "How to reduce perceived risk when buying online: The interactions between intangibility, product knowledge, brand familiarity, privacy and security concerns," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 619-629.
    10. Mukherjee, Amaradri & Smith, Ronn J. & Turri, Anna M., 2018. "The smartness paradox: the moderating effect of brand quality reputation on consumers' reactions to RFID-based smart fitting rooms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 290-299.
    11. Guanrong Liu & Soey Sut Ieng Lei & Rob Law, 2022. "Enhancing social media branded content effectiveness: strategies via telepresence and social presence," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 245-263, June.
    12. Robert Zinko & Paul Stolk & Zhan Furner & Brad Almond, 2020. "A picture is worth a thousand words: how images influence information quality and information load in online reviews," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 30(4), pages 775-789, December.
    13. Jinsoo Park & Hamirahanim Abdul Rahman & Jihae Suh & Hazami Hussin, 2019. "A Study of Integrative Bargaining Model with Argumentation-Based Negotiation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-21, December.
    14. Suwelack, Thomas & Hogreve, Jens & Hoyer, Wayne D., 2011. "Understanding Money-Back Guarantees: Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Outcomes," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(4), pages 462-478.
    15. Chadwick J. Miller & Daniel C. Brannon & Jim Salas & Martha Troncoza, 2021. "Advertising, incentives, and the upsell: how advertising differentially moderates customer- vs. retailer-directed price incentives’ impact on consumers’ preferences for premium products," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(6), pages 1043-1064, November.
    16. Yu Wang & Shanyong Wang & Jing Wang & Jiuchang Wei & Chenglin Wang, 2020. "An empirical study of consumers’ intention to use ride-sharing services: using an extended technology acceptance model," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 397-415, February.
    17. Mäntymäki, Matti & Salo, Jari, 2013. "Purchasing behavior in social virtual worlds: An examination of Habbo Hotel," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 282-290.
    18. Tuk, M.A. & Verlegh, P.W.J. & Smidts, A. & Wigboldus, D.H.J., 2008. "Interpersonal Relationships Moderate the Effect of Faces on Person Judgments," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2008-057-MKT, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    19. Skarmeas, Dionysis & Leonidou, Constantinos N., 2013. "When consumers doubt, Watch out! The role of CSR skepticism," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(10), pages 1831-1838.
    20. Venkatesh, Viswanath & Maruping, Likoebe M. & Brown, Susan A., 2006. "Role of time in self-prediction of behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 160-176, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:63:y:2010:i:8:p:793-800. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.