Siri S Smile

Siri's Smile

The Smiling Chatbot

Significant advances in the field of artificial intelligence have given a strong tailwind to the spread of technologies based on it. AI technologies are increasingly influencing private contexts but also the service sector where more and more service encounters are handled by chatbots. In part, however, the spread of chatbots and the associated focus on their functional advantages seem to contradict extant research findings that service interactions are also driven by emotional components. A central role is played here by so-called emotional contagion (i.e., the unconscious transfer of emotions from employees to customers). Against the background that this contagion with positive emotions can lead to a better evaluation of the service transaction in the further course, it is the goal of this book to investigate the effects of positive displayed emotions of a chatbot. For this purpose, six consecutive studies were conducted. The results show that the expression of positive emotions by a chatbot enriches the service interactions by transmitting positive emotions that, in the further course, do also lead to a better evaluation of the service experienced. Moreover, it is shown that these emotional reactions are dependent on the customer’s personality and the chatbot’s appearance, expressed through an avatar.

For the Taking

The girl with no wolf. An extra mouth to feed. A liability. A defenseless miscreation. Seraphina had heard it all. She had felt it all too. The bone aching bruises, the defenseless claw scratches just shy of her neck on the edges of her collarbone, she had seen it all too. It had been so long since it had started that she couldn't recall a time when the degradation was compliments and not insults. Now, it was all she ever expected. If she had known five years ago that not having a wolf would cause this much hate she would have begged her parents to move to another pack. It felt like an eternity since it all happened. Or rather what didn't happen. She still could not shift. She was defective. A mistake in the gene pool. But she didn't know she would end up like this. She couldn't have, just like she couldn't have expected to come face to face with the Alpha Slayer. A man casted in shadow. Not many had ever seen his face, but that didn't make him any less real. Alphas after all were dethroned from the likes of him. Word spreads quickly. So, when Seraphina ends up in his line of sight she has a lot more to figure out than just not having a wolf, because it very well might cost her, her life.