This research examines how gender may affect customer responses to a bank chatbot. Across two chatbot gender and respondent gender contexts, we show that a male bank chatbot significantly increases customer satisfaction, and brand conceptual fluency more than a female bank chatbot. We also show how the interaction between
chatbot gender and chatbot gender–respondent gender congruence influences perceived intimacy and information richness. Our findings are relevant to banks, fintech and other businesses that are rapidly adopting chatbots to engage consumers and enhance branding.

ABSTRACT I
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS II
TABLE OF CONTENTS III
LIST OF TABLES IV
LIST OF FIGURES V
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Research background 1
1.2 Research objective 2
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 3
2.1 Chatbots 3
2.2 Gender 5
2.3 Brand Communication Style 11
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 12
3.1 Overview 12
3.2 Experiment stimuli 13
3.3 Main study 14
3.3.1 Design and participants 14
3.3.2 Measurements 16
3.3.3 Data analysis 16
CHAPTER 4 RESULTS 19
4.1 Chatbot Gender; Chatbot Gender–Respondent Gender Congruence 19
4.2 Chatbot Gender; Chatbot Communication Style 21
CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 23
5.1 Chatbot gender, Chatbot gender–Respondent gender congruence 23
5.2 Chatbot communication style 24
5.3 Managerial implications 24
5.4 Limitations and Future study 25
REFERENCES 28
APPENDIX 31

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