Breaking the Silence: How Chatbots and Human Agents Persuade Noncomplaining Consumers Following Service Failures

ABSTRACT

Firms are less likely to identify and resolve service deficiencies when consumers do not voice their complaints after service failures. A pressing question is how to persuade those noncomplaining consumers to provide feedback, yet empirical research in this area remains scarce. Our study draws on key questions of persuasion (i.e., who should say what to whom ?) to explore the matching effect of the persuasion source, persuasion message, and persuasion recipient on encouraging disclosure among noncomplaining consumers. Across five scenario experiments, we demonstrate that chatbots (vs. human agents) using self‐benefit (vs. other‐benefit) appeals significantly enhance noncomplaining consumers' willingness to disclose prior experiences. We also reveal that self‐focus and self‐presentation serve as crucial mechanisms driving effective communication between service agents and noncomplaining consumers. Moreover, we find that consumers' self‐awareness plays an important moderating role in these relationships. These findings provide actionable insights for firms to effectively use chatbots in service recovery workflows.