Misunderstanding and User Dissatisfaction in AI-Driven Chatbot Interactions with Consumers

Authors

  • Alya Alhajri
  • Khadeyyah Alsereidi
  • Maryam Alteneiji
  • Najwa Mansoor

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47604/ijts.3612

Keywords:

AI Chatbots, User Dissatisfaction, Customer Experience, Personalization, , Emotional Intelligence, Data Privacy

Abstract

Purpose: This study examines the key factors contributing to misunderstanding and user dissatisfaction in AI-driven chatbot interactions, with a focus on intent misinterpretation, emotional responsiveness, personalization, and privacy concerns across multiple service sectors.

Methodology: A qualitative research design was adopted using semi-structured interviews with twelve participants from e-commerce, banking,   education, and customer service sectors. Thematic analysis was applied to identify recurring patterns and user perceptions related to chatbot performance and experience.

Findings: Findings revealed four dominant sources of dissatisfaction: misunderstanding user queries, inaccurate or incomplete responses, lack of emotional intelligence and personalization, and concerns regarding data security and privacy. While chatbots were effective for routine inquiries, they were perceived as inadequate for complex or emotionally sensitive interactions.   

Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice, and Policy: The study contributes theoretically by extending human–AI interaction literature through a user-centered, qualitative perspective. Practically, it offers actionable design recommendations for      improving chatbot empathy, accuracy, and trustworthiness. From a policy perspective, it   highlights the importance of transparent data governance and regulatory compliance in AI-driven service systems.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Adamopoulou, E., & Moussiades, L. (2020). An Overview of Chatbot Technology. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 584(1), 373–383. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49186-4_31

Araujo, T. (2018). Living up to the chatbot hype: The influence of anthropomorphic design cues and communicative agency framing on conversational agent and company per-ceptions. Computers in Human Behavior, 85(85), 183–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.03.051

Arthur. (2016, November 12). Tesco cyber-raid raises serious questions over UK banks’ se-curity. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/12/tesco-cyber-theft-serious-questions-bank-security

Bickmore, T., Trinh, H., Asadi, R., & Olafsson, S. (2018). Safety First: Conversational Agents for Health Care. Human–Computer Interaction Series, 33–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95579-7_3

Boden, M. A. (2016). AI: Its Nature and Future. Oxford University Press.

Brandtzaeg, P. B., & Følstad, A. (2017). Why People Use Chatbots. Internet Science, 10673(1), 377–392. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70284-1_30

Brandtzaeg, P. B., & Følstad, A. (2018). Chatbots: Changing User Needs and Motivations. Interactions, 25(5), 38–43. https://doi.org/10.1145/3236669

Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2017). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004). The Functional Architecture of Human Empathy. Be-havioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3(2), 71–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534582304267187

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (2018). The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Fan, H., Han, B., & Wang, W. (2023). Aligning (In)Congruent Chatbot–Employee Empathic Responses with Service-Recovery Contexts for Customer Retention. Journal of Travel Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472875231201505

Følstad, A., & Skjuve, M. (2019). Chatbots for customer service. Proceedings of the 1st In-ternational Conference on Conversational User Interfaces - CUI ’19, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1145/3342775.3342784

Global Chatbot Market (2020 to 2026) - Rise in Demand for AI-Based Chatbots to Deliver Enhanced Customer Experience Presents Opportunities | Markets Insider. (n.d.). Markets.businessinsider.com. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/global-chatbot-market-2020-to-2026-rise-in-demand-for-ai-based-chatbots-to-deliver-enhanced-customer-experience-presents-opportunities-1030269345

Graham, G., Nisar, T. M., Prabhakar, G., Meriton, R., & Malik, S. (2025). Chatbots in Cus-tomer Service within Banking and Finance: Do Chatbots Herald the Start of an AI Revolution in the Corporate World? Computers in Human Behavior, 165, 108570. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2025.108570

Help |Emirates. (2025). Global. https://www.emirates.com/english/help/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Hlee, S., Park, J., Park, H., Koo, C., & Chang, Y. (2022). Understanding customer’s mean-ingful engagement with AI-powered service robots. Information Technology & Peo-ple, 36(3), 1020–1047. https://doi.org/10.1108/itp-10-2020-0740

Jha, N., Trevisan, M., Mellia, M., Fernandez, D., & Irarrazaval, R. (2025). Privacy Policies and Consent Management Platforms: Growth and Users’ Interactions over Time. ACM Transactions on the Web. https://doi.org/10.1145/3725737

Jurafsky, D., Martin, J. H., Kehler, A., Keith Vander Linden, & Ward, N. (2008). Speech and language processing : an introduction to natural language processing, computational linguistics, and speech recognition. Pearson Education.

Kausar, S. (2024, September 16). How to Handle Data Privacy Concerns with AI Chat Agents. Servquik.com; ServQuik Technologies. https://blog.servquik.com/how-to-handle-data-privacy-concerns-with-ai-chat-agents?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Kenneth Mark Colby. (1975). Artificial paranoia; a computer simulation of paranoid pro-cesses. New York, Pergamon Press.

Luger, E., & Sellen, A. (2016). “Like Having a Really bad PA”: The Gulf between User Ex-pectation and Experience of Conversational Agents. “Like Having a Really Bad PA”: The Gulf between User Expectation and Experience of Conversational Agents, 5286–5297. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858288

Poser, M., Singh, S., & Eva. (2021). Hybrid Service Recovery: Design for Seamless Inquiry Handovers between Conversational Agents and Human Service Agents. https://doi.org/10.24251/hicss.2021.144

Press, G. (2023, February 1). One Negative Chatbot Experience Drives Away 30% of Cus-tomers. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2023/02/01/one-negative-chatbot-experience-drives-away-30-of-customers/

Pum, M. (2022, June 23). User Feedback Integration in Chatbot Improvement. Https://Www.researchgate.net/Publication/387663981_User_Feedback_Integration_in_Chatbot_Improvement.

Purington, A., Taft, J. G., & Ahn, J. (2019). Designing for trust in chatbot interactions. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, 19(4), Article 43, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3342558

Radford, A., Wu, J., Child, R., Luan, D., Amodei, D., & Sutskever, I. (2019). Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners. https://cdn.openai.com/better-language-models/language_models_are_unsupervised_multitask_learners.pdf

Scott, R. (2023, October 19). The Importance of Privacy Considerations in AI Chatbots. Contact Fusion. https://www.contactfusion.co.uk/the-importance-of-privacy-considerations-in-ai-chatbots-protecting-user-data/

Sun, L. (2017, February 28). Facebook Inc’s Chatbots Hit a 70% Failure Rate. The Motley Fool. https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/28/facebook-incs-chatbots-hit-a-70-failure-rate.aspx

Veale, M., & Zuiderveen Borgesius, F. (2021, July 31). Demystifying the Draft EU Artificial Intelligence Act. Social Science Research Network. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3896852

Weizenbaum, J. (1966). ELIZA - a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Communications of the ACM, 9(1), 36–45. https://doi.org/10.1145/365153.365168

Zhang, R. W., Liang, X., & Wu, S.-H. (2024). When chatbots fail: exploring user coping following a chatbots-induced service failure. Information Technology & People, 37(8), 175–195. https://doi.org/10.1108/itp-08-2023-0745

Downloads

Published

2026-02-03

How to Cite

Alhajri, A., Alsereidi, K., Alteneiji, M., & Mansoor, N. (2026). Misunderstanding and User Dissatisfaction in AI-Driven Chatbot Interactions with Consumers. International Journal of Technology and Systems, 11(1), 16 – 34. https://doi.org/10.47604/ijts.3612

Issue

Section

Articles