Service Recovery for Social

Network Customers

Ying Fan

University of Colorado Colorado Springs

Run Niu

Webster University

Agenda

▫ Motivations

▫ Research questions

▫ Data collection and analysis

▫ Findings and implications

Motivations

• Popularity of social networks

• Businesses use social media.

• An innovative strategy to improve service recovery

Research questions

RQ1: What are the major failure types complained by social network customers?

RQ2: What are the major customer reactions to service failures?

RQ3: What are the major agent responses to help social network customers?

RQ4: Do customer reactions differ by failure types?

RQ5: Do agent responses differ by customer reactions?

RQ6: Do agent responses differ by failure types?

Why airlines

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 192021 222324252627282930 31 32333435363738394041 424344454647

Am

er

ica

n C

us

tom

er

Sa

tis

fac

tio

n I

nd

ex

(A

CS

I)

ACSI

2009

2010

2011

Why airlines

Sample Airlines Twitter Account Number of Followers (as

of July 24, 2012)

Delta Airlines @DeltaAssist 57,351

United Airlines @United 126,880

American Airlines @AmericanAir 396,768

JetBlue Airways @JetBlue 1,678,227

Air Canada @AirCanada 44,360

Literature Review

• Types of complaints - Service Package

• Customer reactions

• Service encounter triad in service recovery

Service

Organizations

Contact Personnel

who handle

complaints

Frustrated

Customers

Methodology: Data collection

• Real data (tweets) collected from Delta and other airlines’

twitter accounts. (140 character limits)

• Time period: Delta from September to December 2011;

Other airlines Dec 2011 to January 2012

• Mini-Case: the tweet exchange between a passenger and a

social media agent

• A sample of 347 cases (247 from Delta, 19 from United, 27

from American, 34 from JetBlue and 20 from Air Canada)

Some tweets

bhirschyphoto: Hey @Delta, thanks for allowing a cat in the cabin on my last flight. I almost died from allergies!

Itan2Much: Just tried to use ur online chat. Guy who responded didn't ans my questions then said he had to go and disconnected. Great svc!

eSQapeArtist: So, @Delta might need to retire this plane. The arm rests are old school, but 2 seats with no chair backs???

Coding and Analysis

• This research fits within the qualitative research

paradigm

• Analysis is done in Nvivo 9 by two authors

• The coding of the data was followed and accompanied by

multiple iterations of the comparative method of

grounded theory

• Analyze each case to see what issues are presented and

then code the relevant texts to the node as references

• It is possible that one case involves multiple issues

Proposed Service Recovery Process for

Social Network Customers

Customer

reaction

Failure types

Agent

responses

Findings

RQ1.Major Failure Types

RQ1.Major Failure Types Service Failure Category Frequency Percentage

Explicit services 327 69%

Facilitating goods 9 2%

Implicit services 2 0%

Supporting Information 50 11%

Peripheral Services 21 4%

Supporting facilities 66 14%

Total 475 100%

Explicit services Frequency Percentage

People 91 28%

Process 236 72%

Total 327 100.00%

Table 4 Failure type subcategories in explicit services

Findings

RQ2.Major Customer Reactions

Customer Reactions Frequency Percentage

Twit first to complain 213 63%

Vent 50 15%

Offsite traditional customer service recovery is not effective 37 11%

Front line contacts' recovery is not effective 34 10%

To provide feedback and suggestions 6 2%

Total 340 100.00%

Findings

RQ3. Major Agent Responses

Agent action Frequency Percentage

Apology and empathy 240 40%

Provide further directions further ? 99 17%

Remedy Problem 78 13%

Report to management 52 9%

Update information 47 8%

Direct to other services 43 7%

Reassurance on service quality 13 2%

Provide compensation 12 2%

Do nothing 11 2%

Total 595 100.00%

Findings: Linking Recovery Process

Elements

Failure types Agent

responses

Customer

reactions

Findings RQ4. Do customer reactions differ by failure types?

Customer reactions

Failure types

Explicit

services

Facilitating

goods

facilitating

Information

Peripheral

Services

Supporting

facilities

Twit first to complain 55% 78% 59% 38% 68%

Provide feedback and

suggestions 2% 0% 0% 5% 2%

Offsite traditional

customer service

recovery is not

effective

11% 0% 24% 38% 2%

Front line contacts'

recovery is not

effective

12% 0% 10% 5% 11%

Vent 21% 22% 7% 14% 17%

100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

P1: Social network customer reactions will not differ by the types of failures.

Findings RQ5. Do agent responses differ by customer reactions? Customer reactions

Agent actions Venting

Front line

contacts'

recovery is not

effective

Offsite traditional

customer service

recovery is not

effective

To provide

feedback and

suggestions

Twit first

to

complain

Apology and empathy 55% 39% 22% 45% 35%

Provide compensation 0% 4% 3% 0% 3%

Direct to other services 4% 7% 3% 18% 13%

Do nothing 1% 4% 6% 0% 1%

Update information 3% 11% 3% 9% 3%

Remedy problem 4% 11% 25% 0% 13%

Provide further directions 21% 25% 34% 0% 18%

Reassurance on service

quality 3% 0% 3% 18% 2%

Report to management 8% 0% 0% 9% 11%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

P2: Agent responses will differ by social network customers’ reactions to

service failures.

Findings RQ6. Do agent responses differ by failure types?

P3: Agent responses will differ by the types of service failures reported by social

network customers.

Service failure category

Agent responses Explicit

services

Facilitating

goods

facilitating

Information

Peripheral

Services

Supporting

facilities

Apology and empathy 41% 36% 29% 31% 40%

Provide compensation 2% 0% 0% 8% 3%

Direct to other services 2% 9% 14% 8% 25%

Do nothing 3% 0% 2% 0% 5%

Update information 9% 0% 12% 4% 1%

Remedy problem 12% 18% 20% 27% 6%

Provide further directions 22% 18% 16% 15% 13%

Reassurance on service quality 2% 0% 0% 4% 3%

Report to management 7% 18% 6% 4% 5%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Implications

• The majority of failures is in explicit services (core services). And the number of failures caused by processes doubles that caused by people. In the service process, the two main complain areas are flight delay, reschedule and cancellation and baggage lost, damage or delay.

• As an alternative channel for social network customers to voice their complaints, Twitter agents do add values to the service recovery process.

Implications

• The majority of failures is in explicit services (core services). And the number of failures caused by processes doubles that caused by people. In the service process, the two main complain areas are flight delay, reschedule and cancellation and baggage lost, damage or delay.

• As an alternative channel for social network customers to voice their complaints, Twitter agents do add values to the service recovery process.

Implications

• no matter what the failures are, most of the customers do not hesitate to voice frustrations and seek help on Twitter.

• There is a stark contrast when agents response to venting customers and “twit first to complain” customers.

• Different failure types result in different agent responses. Agents’ ability seems limited in addressing failures caused by personnel. For failures caused by the process, agents seem to have the leverage to provide immediate solutions.

Future Research

• The What (Customers satisfaction with the service

recovery process)

• Service encounter triad: Organizations vs. Agents

• Service encounter triad: Organizations vs.

Complaining Customers