The Impact of Chatbot Response Time on Human-Chatbot Interaction: Novice versus Experienced Users [in press]

Organizations increasingly use chatbots as scalable solutions for customer service. To provide more natural interactions with chatbots, their design often incorporates social cues. While previous studies have focused on visual or verbal cues, research on chronemic cues is scant. Therefore, drawing on social response theory, we investigate how chatbot response time influences users’ perceived social presence and intention to use a chatbot. Due to the novelty of chatbots, we examine whether these relationships differ for novice and experienced chatbot users. We conducted a 4 (response time: near-instant, dynamic, static-medium, static-long) x 2 (experience: novice, experienced user) between-subjects laboratory experiment (N=244). Our findings show that response time represents a social cue, triggering different social responses from novice and experienced users, and that their experience significantly influences how users form usage intentions. Our study highlights the critical role of subtle social cues and the need for designers to consider users’ chatbot experience.