Christian Alexander Hildebrand
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Prof. Dr.
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Hildebrand
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Christian Alexander
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christian.hildebrand@unisg.ch
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071 224 7711
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  • Publication
    Voice bots on the frontline: Voice-based interfaces enhance flow-like consumer experiences & boost service outcomes
    ( 2022-06-21)
    Zierau, Naim
    ;
    Hildebrand, Christian Alexander
    ;
    Bergner, Anouk Samantha
    ;
    Busquet I Segui, Francesc
    ;
    Schmitt, Anuschka
    ;
    Leimeister, Jan Marco
    Voice-based interfaces provide new opportunities for firms to interact with consumers along the customer journey. The current work demonstrates across four studies that voice-based (as opposed to text-based) interfaces promote more flow-like user experiences, resulting in more positively-valenced service experiences, and ultimately more favorable behavioral firm outcomes (i.e., contract renewal, conversion rates, and consumer sentiment). Moreover, we also provide evidence for two important boundary conditions that reduce such flow-like user experiences in voice-based interfaces (i.e., semantic disfluency and the amount of conversational turns). The findings of this research highlight how fundamental theories of human communication can be harnessed to create more experiential service experiences with positive downstream consequences for consumers and firms. These findings have important practical implications for firms that aim at leveraging the potential of voice-based interfaces to improve consumers' service experiences and the theory-driven ''conversational design'' of voice-based interfaces.
    Type: journal article
    Journal: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS)
    Volume: 51
    Issue: 4
    URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-022-00868-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11747-022-00868-5
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/108596
    Scopus© Citations 22
  • Publication
    Empathy by Design: The Influence of Trembling AI Voices on Prosocial Behavior
    ( 2023-11-14)
    Fotis Efthymiou
    ;
    Christian Hildebrand
    Recent advances in artificial speech synthesis and machine learning equip AI-powered conversational agents, from voice assistants to social robots, with the ability to mimic human emotional expression during their interactions with users. One unexplored development is the ability to design machine-generated voices that induce varying levels of “shakiness” (i.e., trembling) in the agents' voices. In the current work, we examine how the trembling voice of a conversational AI impacts users' perceptions, affective experiences, and their subsequent behavior. Across three studies, we demonstrate that a trembling voice enhances the perceived psychological vulnerability of the agent, followed by a heightened sense of empathic concern, ultimately increasing people's willingness to donate in a prosocial charity context. We provide further evidence from a large-scale field experiment that conversational agents with a trembling voice lead to increased click-through rates and decreased costs-per-impression in an online charity advertising setting. These findings deepen our understanding of the nuanced impact of intentionally designed voices of conversational AI agents on humans and highlight the ethical and societal challenges that arise.
    Type: journal-article
    Journal: IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing
    DOI: 10.1109/TAFFC.2023.3332742
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/120140
    Scopus© Citations 1