Complaint De-Escalation Strategies on Social Media
Journal
Journal of Marketing
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2022-11-16
Author(s)
;
Grewal, Lauren
;
Cummings, Krista Hill
;
Roggeveen, Anne L.
;
Villarroel Ordenes, Francisco
;
Grewal, Dhruv
Abstract
To date, the literature offers multiple suggestions for how to recover from service failures, albeit without explicitly addressing customers’ negative, high-arousal states evoked by the failure. The few studies that do address ways to improve negative emotions after failures focus on face-to-face interactions only. Because many customers today prefer to complain on social media, firms must learn how to effectively de-escalate negative, high-arousal emotions through text-based exchanges to achieve successful service recoveries. With three field studies using natural language processing tools and three preregistered controlled experiments, the current research identifies ways to mitigate negative arousal in text-based social media complaining, specifically, active listening and empathy. In detail, increasing active listening and empathy in the firm response evokes gratitude among customers in high-arousal states, even if the actual failure is not (yet) recovered. These findings provide a new theoretical perspective on the role of customer arousal in service failures and recoveries as well as managerially relevant implications for dealing with public social media complaints.
Language
English
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Volume
87
Number
2
Official URL
Subject(s)
Division(s)
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
JM 2023 # Complaint Deescalation Strategies on Social Media.pdf
Size
1.18 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
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