Avatars as salespeople: Communication style, trust, and intentions

Interactions with retail salespersons in stores contribute to building trust and profits. Within the largely impersonal Internet, an interactive animated character or avatar, playing the social role of an online sales assistant, should provide a potent source of social presence and so have the potential to replace some of these interactions. This investigation tests whether avatars with social- or task-oriented communication styles contribute to user trust and patronage intentions. Further tests explore the moderating effects of product/service type. The study includes an online experiment and survey, involving 636 participants, mainly from North America, Oceania and Europe, allocated randomly to different treatments. Task-oriented communications contribute to trust, which in turn contributes to patronage intentions, especially for search goods/services. Social-oriented communications also contribute directly to trust and to patronage intentions, most strongly for credence goods/services. The authors recommend a three-fold approach to avatar implementation, involving requirements captured to define appropriate appearance, role, interaction style and content for the task. Conclusions include further suggestions for development and research.