论文标题

虚拟助手的销售政策

Sales Policies for a Virtual Assistant

论文作者

Ba, Wenjia, Mendelson, Haim, Zhu, Mingxi

论文摘要

我们通过基于语音的虚拟助手(VA)研究销售的含义。卖方有一套可用的产品,VA决定要提供哪种产品,并以什么价格提供,以最大程度地提高其收入,消费者或总折扣。消费者急躁和理性,鉴于她可以使用的信息,试图最大程度地提高她的预期公用事业。 VA根据消费者的请求和其他可用的信息选择产品,然后顺序介绍它们。一旦将产品提出和定价,消费者就会对其进行评估,并决定是否进行购买。消费者对每种产品的估值包括一个常识,这是常识,以及对消费者私人的评估组件。我们解决了平衡,并开发了实施解决方案的有效算法。我们研究了信息不对称的影响对结果的影响,并研究激励不一致如何取决于私人估值的分布。我们发现,在高度患者或不耐烦的消费者的情况下,单调排名是最佳的,并为其他耐心提供了良好的近似值。产品的预期估值与价格之间的关系取决于消费者的耐心水平,当消费者高度不耐烦时,单调增加(减少)。此外,卖方在总盈余中所占的份额减少了私人信息的数量。我们将VA与传统的基于Web的界面进行比较,该界面在每个页面上同时显示多个产品。我们发现,在一页中,当私人估值呈指数分配时,高价值产品的价格低于低价值产品。最后,由于其演示文稿中固有的承诺能力更大,因此基于Web的界面通常比VA获得更高的利润。

We study the implications of selling through a voice-based virtual assistant (VA). The seller has a set of products available and the VA decides which product to offer and at what price, seeking to maximize its revenue, consumer- or total-surplus. The consumer is impatient and rational, seeking to maximize her expected utility given the information available to her. The VA selects products based on the consumer's request and other information available to it and then presents them sequentially. Once a product is presented and priced, the consumer evaluates it and decides whether to make a purchase. The consumer's valuation of each product comprises a pre-evaluation value, which is common knowledge, and a post-evaluation component which is private to the consumer. We solve for the equilibria and develop efficient algorithms for implementing the solution. We examine the effects of information asymmetry on the outcomes and study how incentive misalignment depends on the distribution of private valuations. We find that monotone rankings are optimal in the cases of a highly patient or impatient consumer and provide a good approximation for other levels of patience. The relationship between products' expected valuations and prices depends on the consumer's patience level and is monotone increasing (decreasing) when the consumer is highly impatient (patient). Also, the seller's share of total surplus decreases in the amount of private information. We compare the VA to a traditional web-based interface, where multiple products are presented simultaneously on each page. We find that within a page, the higher-value products are priced lower than the lower-value products when the private valuations are exponentially distributed. Finally, the web-based interface generally achieves higher profits for the seller than a VA due to the greater commitment power inherent in its presentation.

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