Sincerity or incompetence? The double-edged sword effect of sadness expression in chatbots service failure

Chatbot service failure is inevitable, it is critical to improve the effectiveness of service recovery to maintain a strong relationship with customers. This study focuses on the unique role of emotional expressions in chatbot service failure and recovery. From the perspective of negative discrete emotions, this study explores the double-edged sword effects and mechanisms of sadness expression on customers' continued usage intention during chatbot service failure. The results show that sadness expression in chatbot service failure is a double-edged sword, which positively enhances customers' continued usage intention through heightened perceived sincerity while suppressing intentions via reduced perceived competence. Specifically, perceived sincerity functions as a positive mediator, whereas perceived competence operates as a negative mediator. Furthermore, the type of relationship between chatbots and customers moderates the double-edged sword effect of sadness expression on customers' continued usage intention. Compared to assistant-type relationships, friend-type relationships amplify the positive impact of sad expressions on customers' perceived sincerity and attenuate their negative effect on customers' perceived competence. Theoretically, this research broadens the understanding of discrete emotional expression efficacy in human-AI communication strategies, offering scholars a dialectical perspective to evaluate the role of emotional cues in human-chatbot interactions. Practically, it provides actionable guidelines for enterprises to improve the emotional recovery measures and optimize the anthropomorphic design of chatbots.