One Voice, One Impression: Why Customers Perceive the Service Quality of AI Voice Bots Holistically and What It Means for Electronic Commerce

AI voice bots are a standard channel for post-purchase service in electronic commerce, yet conversational-agent research has centered on text chatbots, and whether the quality dimensions of a voice agent are perceived as separate remains open. This study argues that customers experience the agent as one unified impression, because a voice-first encounter is a continuous spoken dialogue without a visual interface, so customers respond to the agent as a single social actor. Perceived quality is theorized as a higher-order construct, building on information systems success theory, technology acceptance theory, and social responses to computers, and tested on a cross-sectional survey of 295 voice bot users in Israel across eight service categories, with partial least squares structural equation modeling and competing measurement models. The quality facets remain distinguishable, yet one general factor accounts for most of their common variance, supporting a single higher-order construct. Perceived quality is the strongest predictor of overall service quality, directly and partly through perceived usefulness, while interaction complexity shows no significant moderating or predictive effect. Because the data are cross-sectional and self-reported, these relationships are associations, not demonstrated causal effects. The study extends success and acceptance theory to the voice-first service encounter.