Several companies have integrated large language modeling (LLM)-enabled chatbots into their consumer services to address consumers’ needs. However, these needs are multifaceted, including both informational and emotional aspects, which may not be fully met by chatbots alone. Thus, online community users remain a crucial resource for providing support for consumers’ personalized needs. More importantly, existing research often overlooks the dynamic changes in consumers’ needs throughout the pre-purchase and post-purchase stages of the consumer journey. This study aims to investigate the role of chatbots and online community users during these stages. We collected threads of questions and responses from community users and chatbots in a consumer advice community on Reddit. Methods included trigram and sentiment analysis, followed by statistical analysis to explore the research question. Our preliminary findings indicate that while chatbots excel at providing professional information in the post-purchase stage, their advantages are less pronounced in the pre-purchase stage, where community users tend to offer more personalized experiences. Although online communities generally provide more objective responses, chatbots are increasingly effective at delivering emotional support, particularly in the pre-purchase stage. This research offers critical insights for companies, online community moderators, and chatbot designers in defining their roles in the consumer journey, providing practical guidance for stakeholders to strategically use chatbots and online consumer communities to effectively address the dynamics of consumers’ needs.