Examining the Content and Form of Supportive Conversations with Chatbots

This study evaluates conversational behavior among participants who engaged in conversations with a chatbot or a human support provider. By analyzing 1,232 utterances in the 114 supportive conversations collected from an experiment involving different conditions of chatbots (expert vs. novice bot; high vs. low contingent bot) and a human support provider, the study discovered five conversational sequences, including the extended work-up, the prototypical, the extended delivery, early conclusion, and the close implicature sequence. Comparing human and chatbot conversations, the results showed that conversations with humans were most likely to follow the extended delivery sequence that involved extensive description of the problem, compared to any chatbot conditions. The primary difference between chatbot conditions was that participants were less likely to engage in delivery behavior involving a description of the problem when interacting with the expert chatbot than with the novice chatbot. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.