Abstract:

Today, more and more banks tend to integrate chatbots into mobile applications in the framework of marketing communications. For banks, this integration is also a way to stay in contact with customers and at the same time to reduce costs. But unlike other digital platforms or social media interactions, in the communication that brands establish with their customers through chatbots, "Computer is a social player." The paradigm is very important. In fact, in recent years, research on the axis of human-computer interaction has shown that robots, chatbots and avatars are focused especially on anthropomorphic (human-like) characteristics. Because in chatbot designs, with the use of anthropomorphic features, it is intended to facilitate users/customers interacting with chatbots. Therefore, in the framework of our work in mobile banking, we have tried to examine the basic antropomorphic design features of the chatbots we have chosen as a sample, in the framework of literature and observation, creating analytical units, to present a coding table. In this context, our work in Turkey in 2020 has been comparatively studied the chatbot designs of the two banks (Garanti BBVA and Business Bank) with the most active size in the context of anthropomorphic features. As a research method; observational state study was selected and content analysis was performed as a data collection technique. Thus, anthropomorphic characteristics that the banks selected for sampling have taken into account in the chatbot design process have been attempted to be identified and the new chatbot strategies are a basis that can be considered in the development process. According to the findings of the study, both banks have been shown to use visual and verbal anthropomorphic features in different proportions in chatbot designs. In both banks’ chatbot designs, visual anthropomorphic clues, such as the image/identity clues of the speaking instrument, the chinese (movement) clues, the proxemic (personal field) clues, have been found to be less used than the verbal anthropomorphic clues, primarily classified as form and content. On the other hand, the importance of taking into account and measuring the identity identified anthropomorphically in the process of dialogue flow to enhance user interaction with chatbots used as a new channel in marketing communication has been tried to reveal.

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