arbiter
JournalsAccount

“Hold on, I’ll connect you to a human agent”: Recipient design, repair, and their impact on progressivity in human-chatbot conversations

Gabriëlla Martijn et al.

Discourse & Communication2026https://doi.org/10.1177/17504813261418360article
ABDC A
Weight
0.50

Abstract

This study analyzes recipient design in handover conversations involving customers, customer service chatbots, and human agents, and examines how repair strategies initiated by chatbots and human agents impact conversational progressivity. These text-based conversations were analyzed using Conversation Analysis. Findings show customers formulate their request and subsequent messages concisely when communicating with a chatbot (pre-handover), but use details, full sentences, and politeness markers when communicating with a human agent (post-handover). Moreover, both chatbots and human agents frequently initiate repairs to address troubles of understanding promptly, but their approaches differ: chatbots generalize inquiries broadly, often resulting in multiple sequences of repair, while human agents use follow-up questions to specify and guide responses, ensuring progressivity.

Open via your library →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/17504813261418360

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{gabriëlla2026,
  title        = {{“Hold on, I’ll connect you to a human agent”: Recipient design, repair, and their impact on progressivity in human-chatbot conversations}},
  author       = {Gabriëlla Martijn et al.},
  journal      = {Discourse & Communication},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/17504813261418360},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

“Hold on, I’ll connect you to a human agent”: Recipient design, repair, and their impact on progressivity in human-chatbot conversations

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.