Shopbot banking: an exploratory study of customer loyalty effects

Agent technology has been applied to design new services simplifying product and merchant brokering in several customer industries. The term “shopbots” is now generally used to characterize these services. Proposes that shopbots will make customers more rational and less loyal and that loyalty will be adversely affected. Proposes that different forms of loyalty are affected by shopbot access and that the effect of shopbots on loyalty may differ among customer groups. These propositions were tested in an experimental study of customers choosing a financial service provider. The findings suggest that cognitive loyalty is the loyalty form most affected by shopbot access and that the loyalty effects of shopbots depend upon customers’ past switching behavior. However, no effects of shopbots on stronger forms of loyalty were found. Even though this research is exploratory, it suggests that financial service providers may not fear the effects of shopbots on the behavior of their affective and conative loyal customers. It also suggests that to avoid the threat of shopbots, strong forms of loyalty should be developed in long‐term relationships between providers and customers.