Avatars Smile In Online Service Encounters

Abstract

In recent year s avatar s (life-like characters created by technology) have been part of e-commerce websites. They are used to convey greetings and information about a company s products and services. This study examines the influence of avatar s smile intensity in online service encounters. A model was developed using primitive emotional contagion and feelings as information theories for avatar smile which is the focus of this study, based on which hypotheses were generated.Avatar s smiling expressions may not only elicit perceived social presence, but it can also induce an immersive experience for customers during online service encounters. In their online interaction, customers may mimic an avatar s smiling expressions, which in turn could, influence the customer s emotions going by the primitive emotional contagion theory. Additionally, both social presence and immersion may also influence customer emotions, which in turn could, influence customer s perceived service performance as per the feelings as information theory.subjects were exposed to different avatar s smile intensity, while being asked to complete a task on a fictitious website. The result of the experiment shows that an avatar s smile is positively associated with both social presence and immersion. However, contrary to expectations, the avatar s smile does not have any influence on the customer s smile, thereby providing no support for mimicry effect of primitive emotional contagion theory.Further, the avatar s smile does influence customer s emotions as per the Emotions-as-Social-Information, which in turn, influences service performance , supporting thereby feelings as information theory. The findings of this study show that a smiling avatar can be a viable option for websites to instill a sense of social presence and immersion, and evoke positive customer emotions as well. newline