Proceedings of 6th Annual American Business Research Conference
9 - 10 June 2014, Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel, New York, USA, ISBN: 978-1-922069-52-8
Effectiveness of Service Recovery Strategy Using Social Network
Run Niu
This study explores service recovery strategies for social network customers from a service organization’s
perspective. Specifically, we study the relationships between social media agent responses to customer
complaints, customer emotion changes and customer satisfaction. In addition, we investigate the effects of
recovery speed on customer emotion changes and satisfaction. The results are based on 347 mini cases
drawn from the Twitter accounts of a sample of airlines. Ground theory approach is used to conduct
qualitative
analysis
using
NVivo
9,
a
qualitative
data
analysis
program.
A conceptual framework is developed to link agent responses, customer emotion changes and customer
satisfaction from the lens of service providers, using an operations-oriented approach. We found that agent
responses that involve real time problem solving are positively related to customer emotion change.
Responses that do not require customers to take further initiatives by themselves are positively related to
customer satisfaction. There is a strong positive linkage between customer emotion change and customer
satisfaction. We highlight the value and potential of service recovery strategies for social network customers
and provide insights for recovery operations where agent responses should be focusing on real time problem
solving. Our findings support the benefits of empowering social network agents for service recovery
operations.
This study is the first attempt to investigate the service recovery process for social network customers using
an operations-oriented approach. The results uncover the potentials of employing service recovery strategies
using social network.
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Dr. Run Niu, Department of Business, Webster University, St Louis, United States, Email: runniu68@webster.edu