Journal of Logistics, Informatics and Service Science | 2026
Authors: Hoang C.C.; Tu T.N.
DOI: 10.33168/JLISS.2026.0506
Journal: Journal of Logistics, Informatics and Service Science
Year: 2026
Publisher: Success Culture Press
Document Type: Article
Open Access: All Open Access; Gold Open Access
Cited by: 0
The proliferation of AI-powered chatbots as the dominant customer service interface in e-commerce—spanning banking, retail, and travel sectors—has intensified scholarly and managerial interest in how these agents can simultaneously project professional competence and interpersonal warmth. Yet how specific self-presentation strategies shape these two critical user perceptions, and through them customer service satisfaction (CSS), remains underexplored. This study proposes and tests a dual-mediation model in which two chatbot self-presentation strategies—self-promotion (SP) and self-deprecation (SD)—exert differential, and partially opposing, effects on CSS through the parallel mediating pathways of perceived competence (PC) and perceived warmth (PW). Grounded in impression management theory (IMT) and the stereotype content model (SCM), six directional hypotheses are derived and tested via a between-subjects experimental survey administered in an e-commerce product-recommendation context. Results confirm an asymmetric competence–warmth trade-off: SP positively predicts PC but negatively predicts PW; SD negatively predicts PC while positively predicting PW; both PC; and PW positively predict CSS. The findings extend IMT and the SCM to AI-mediated e-commerce service and provide context-sensitive design prescriptions for practitioners deploying adaptive chatbot customer service systems. © 2026, Success Culture Press. All rights reserved.
chatbot; customer service satisfaction; impression management; perceived competence; perceived warmth; self-deprecation; self-promotion