Project description
How behavioural realism affects customer care avatars
Recent technological advancements enable companies to use virtual human-like characters to provide customer care online, called customer care avatars (CCAs). Experts suggest that the use of avatars will increase by 241 % in the hospitality sector and by 187 % in the consumer goods industry. Additionally, the EU intends to fund research and innovation to promote digital transformation. Thus, understanding customer-avatar communication patterns is critical in this research area. The MSCA-funded AvatarBAR project aims to investigate how behavioural realism of the language used by CCAs impacts consumers’ emotions, cognition, and performance outcomes. The project will focus on service failure and recovery communications by conducting systematic literature reviews, in-depth interviews for qualitative investigation, and experimental studies for quantitative inquiry.
Objective
Recent technological advancements have increased companies’ use of virtual human-like characters with anthropomorphic
appearances, called “avatars” for customer care. Responding to the increased use of such humanlike customer care avatars (CCA), this
project aims to investigate how and under which circumstances CCAs’ level of behavioural realism affects consumers’ emotions, cognition, and performance outcomes during consumer-CCA communication, with a particular focus on communication failure incidents, utilizing qualitative and quantitative investigations. Particularly, a systematic literature review and in-depth interviews for qualitative investigation, and a series of experimental studies for the quantitative investigation will be employed. The project takes an interdisciplinary perspective
by combining knowledge from marketing, technology, communication, and psychology. As such, this research is expected to
contribute novel knowledge to the customer-technology interface literature, which is an area that the Marketing Science Institute has
identified as one of the top research priorities for 2022. As experts estimate that the use of avatars will increase by 241% in the
hospitality and by 187% in the consumer goods industry, understanding customer-avatar interfaces is of utmost importance within
this research area. Moreover, this project is proposed in response to the European Union’s declaration of funding research and
innovation that supports Europe’s digital transformation with a new generation of technologies as one of the top priorities for
2019-2024.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
2000 Frederiksberg
Denmark
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.