Racial Discrimination in Social Media Customer Service: Evidence from a Popular Microblogging Platform

The concept of racial inequality has existed from the early days of service provision, with evidence dating back to ancient civilizations. While the emergence of the Internet and social media has drastically transformed almost every aspect of everyday life, including the intrinsic values of social relationships, the impact of racial disparities on receiving services on online platforms is not so evident. Although many consumer brands provide customer service on social media today, little is known regarding the prevalence and magnitude of racial discrimination in the context of social media customer service. Thus, in this study, we examine the existence and the extent of racial discrimination against African-Americans in social media customer service. We analyzed all complaints to seven major U.S. airlines on Twitter for a period of nine months. Interestingly, our empirical analysis finds that African-American customers are less likely to receive brand responses to their complaints on social media. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to empirically analyze the racial discrimination phenomenon in the context of social media customer service

Customer Service on Social Media: The Effect of Customer Popularity and Sentiment on Airline Response

Many companies are now providing customer service through social media, helping and engaging their customers on a real-time basis. To study this increasingly popular practice, we examine how major airlines respond to customer comments on Twitter by exploiting a large data set containing Twitter exchanges between customers and three major airlines in North America. We find that these airlines pay significantly more attention to Twitter users with more followers, suggesting that companies literarily discriminate customers based on their social influence. Moreover, our findings suggest that companies in the digital age are increasingly more sensitive to the need to answer both customer complaints and customer compliments while the actual time-to-response depends on customer’s social influence and sentiment as well as the firm’s social media strategy

Racial Bias in Social Media Customer Service: Evidence from Twitter

Recent incidents of alleged discrimination against consumers of ethnic minorities have created a lot of bad press and public relations debacles for companies in the United States. Emergence of the Internet and social media has enabled individuals to publ

When Social Media Delivers Customer Service: Differential Customer Treatment in the Airline Industry

Companies increasingly are providing customer service through social media, helping customers on a real-time basis. Although some traditional call centers might prioritize customers based on their expected business values, the grounds for differential customer service on social media are unclear, since there has been little theoretical or empirical investigation of this new phenomenon. Building on the literature of social psychology and complaint management, we hypothesize two main drivers of differential treatment: the social media influence effect, which refers to the impact of the customer’s relative standing on social media, and the bystander effect, which refers to the impact of the presence of other social media users. To test these effects, we analyzed more than three million tweets to seven major U.S. airlines on Twitter from September 2014 to May 2015. The evidence is clear that airlines respond to less than half of the tweets directed at them by complaining customers—in contrast with traditional call centers, which are expected to address all callers. Interestingly, we find that the airlines are more likely to respond to complaints from customers with more followers, and customers with more followers are more likely to receive faster responses, thus confirming the existence of a concealed (or at least unpublicized) social media influence effect. We also find that airlines are less likely to respond to complaints with multiple parties mentioned, confirming the existence of the bystander effect. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper in the literature to study the existence and drivers of differential treatment when customer service is delivered on social media, and we expect our findings will have important implications for companies, customers, and regulators

What Drives Successful Complaint Resolutions on Social Media?: Evidence from the Airline Industry

Several companies effectively manage customer complaints on social media today, interacting with their customers on a real time basis. To study this increasingly popular practice, we examine brands’ complaint resolution efforts on social media, by exploiting a unique dataset of complaint-based customer interactions on Twitter, with a major airline. We find that complaining customers with a higher number of followers are more likely to be satisfied about their social media interaction with the brand. Moreover, the customers having an outcome related complaint, rather than a process related complaint, and also the customers who do not experience handoffs during the conversation, are more likely to be satisfied about their complaining experience on social media. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to empirically investigate the potential drivers of successful complaint resolutions in the context of social media customer service