Chatbot service usage during a pandemic: fear and social distancing

Health organizations have relied heavily on social distancing to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this research is to examine what factors can influence customers' evaluations of social distancing as well as how and when these evaluations drive their usage of chatbot services. Using structural equation modeling to analyze the experimental data from 200 U.S. consumers, we found that when the service situation is utilitarian (hedonic) in nature, customers' contamination fear influences their chatbot usage during service encounters through their social distancing attitudes (subjective norms) and then perceived usefulness of chatbots. Our findings provide meaningful theoretical contributions and practical implications.