Not with the bot! The relevance of trust to explain the acceptance of chatbots by insurance customers

Industry 4.0 profoundly impacts the insurance sector, as evidenced by the significant growth of insurtech. One of these technologies is chatbots, which enable policyholders to seamlessly manage their active insurance policies. This paper analyses policyholders’ attitude toward conversational bots in this context. To achieve this objective, we employed a structured survey involving policyholders. The survey aimed to determine the average degree of acceptance of chatbots for contacting the insurer to take action such as claim reporting. We also assessed the role of variables of the technology acceptance model, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, as well as trust, in explaining attitudes and behavioral intention. We have observed a low acceptance of insureds to implement insurance procedures with the assistance of a chatbot. The theoretical model proposed to explain chatbot acceptance provides good adjustment and prediction capability. Even though the three assessed factors are relevant for explaining attitude toward interactions with conversational robots and behavioral intention to use them, the variable trust exhibited the greatest impact. The findings of this paper have fair potential theoretical and practical implications. They outline the special relevance of trust in explaining customers’ acceptance of chatbots since this construct impacts directly on attitude but also perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Likewise, improvements in the utility and ease of use of robots are also needed to prevent customers’ reluctance toward their services.

工业4.0（Industry 4.0）正深刻影响保险行业，保险科技（insurtech）的显著增长便是其有力佐证。此类技术中的一员便是聊天机器人（chatbots），可帮助保单持有人（policyholders）无缝管理其生效中的保险保单。本文正是在此背景下，分析保单持有人对于对话式机器人（conversational bots）的态度。
为达成该研究目标，我们面向保单持有人开展了结构化问卷调查。本次调查旨在探明用户通过聊天机器人联系保险公司并开展理赔报案等操作的平均接受程度。此外，我们还评估了技术接受模型（Technology Acceptance Model, TAM）中的感知有用性、感知易用性以及信任等变量，在解释用户态度与行为意向方面的作用。
研究发现，被保险人（insureds）对于借助聊天机器人办理保险业务的接受度偏低。本文提出的用于解释聊天机器人接受度的理论模型，具备良好的拟合度与预测能力。尽管本次评估的三个变量均与用户对对话式机器人的交互态度及使用行为意向显著相关，但信任变量展现出了最强的影响力。
本文的研究结果具备一定的理论与实践应用潜力。研究结果凸显了信任在解释用户对聊天机器人接受度中的特殊重要性：该构念不仅直接影响用户态度，还会作用于感知有用性与感知易用性。同理，还需提升聊天机器人的实用性与易用性，以打消用户对其服务的抵触情绪。