"How May I Help You?": Modeling Twitter Customer Service Conversations Using Fine-Grained Dialogue Acts

Given the increasing popularity of customer service dialogue on Twitter, analysis of conversation data is essential to understand trends in customer and agent behavior for the purpose of automating customer service interactions. In this work, we develop a novel taxonomy of fine-grained "dialogue acts" frequently observed in customer service, showcasing acts that are more suited to the domain than the more generic existing taxonomies. Using a sequential SVM-HMM model, we model conversation flow, predicting the dialogue act of a given turn in real-time. We characterize differences between customer and agent behavior in Twitter customer service conversations, and investigate the effect of testing our system on different customer service industries. Finally, we use a data-driven approach to predict important conversation outcomes: customer satisfaction, customer frustration, and overall problem resolution. We show that the type and location of certain dialogue acts in a conversation have a significant effect on the probability of desirable and undesirable outcomes, and present actionable rules based on our findings. The patterns and rules we derive can be used as guidelines for outcome-driven automated customer service platforms.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, IUI 201

Using Customer Relationship Trajectories to Segment Customers and Predict Profitability

A central premise of relationship marketing theory is that economic benefits flow fromretaining customers. However, the early research focus on the duration of the relationship may obscure other important aspects of the interactions with the customer that drive profitability. Borrowing from the branding literature, where different types of customer relationships have been described (but not empirically examined), we study the patterns of business customers’ buying behavior, or trajectories that characterize customer-firm relationships over time, and their impact on profitability. We develop a finite mixture model relating customer relationship trajectories to profitability over a three year period. Our analysis yields five segments, or types of customer-firm relationships, for this dataset. We find key determinants of profitability vary across types of customer relationship. Interestingly, in none of these segments does duration predict profitability.marketing ;

Scalable Inference of Customer Similarities from Interactions Data using Dirichlet Processes

Under the sociological theory of homophily, people who are similar to one another are more likely to interact with one another. Marketers often have access to data on interactions among customers from which, with homophily as a guiding principle, inferences could be made about the underlying similarities. However, larger networks face a quadratic explosion in the number of potential interactions that need to be modeled. This scalability problem renders probability models of social interactions computationally infeasible for all but the smallest networks. In this paper we develop a probabilistic framework for modeling customer interactions that is both grounded in the theory of homophily, and is flexible enough to account for random variation in who interacts with whom. In particular, we present a novel Bayesian nonparametric approach, using Dirichlet processes, to moderate the scalability problems that marketing researchers encounter when working with networked data. We find that this framework is a powerful way to draw insights into latent similarities of customers, and we discuss how marketers can apply these insights to segmentation and targeting activities

Service provider - customer interactions: Key to success of innovative services

The majority of service providers have recognized the need to develop innovative services that meet sophisticated customer needs on time. Because of structural changes in the market, rising costs and shorter lifecycles of services and technologies this has become a more demanding task than ever before. Most of the existing research focuses on the development of products rather than services. However, research in service related innovation activities is highly rewarding, as the service market is about to become a dominant factor of economic development. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of interaction research with special focus on service marketing and service purchasing processes. A short presentation of the most important theoretical results and findings from empirical studies will be given. Furthermore, we will present results from our own case study investigating the IT Service industry. In this context, we have identified three different approaches of successful interactions between service providers and potential buyers during marketing and purchasing processes with innovative results. We will describe these approaches, show their similarities and differences and as a result, provide recommendations for the service industry and potential buyers. --service provider,service market,service marketing,service purchasing

XP customer practices: A grounded theory

The Customer is a critical role in XP, but almost all XP practices are presented for developers by developers. While XP calls for Real Customer Involvement, it does not explain what XP Customers should do, nor how they should do it. Using Grounded Theory, we discovered eight customer practices used by successful XP teams: Customer Boot Camp, Customer’s Apprentice, Customer Pairing, and Programmer’s Holiday support the well-being and effectiveness of customers; Programmer On-site and Road shows support team and organization interactions; and Big Picture Up Front and Re-calibration support Customers steering the whole project. By adopting these processes, XP Customers and teams can work faster and more sustainably

Talk up or criticize? Customer responses to WOM about competitors during social interactions

Popular metrics such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS) highlights many benefits of word of mouth (WOM) to firms. Is WOM all it is claimed to be? Building on social identity theory, this research develops a conceptual model of WOM exchange in social settings and tests the model with customer surveys of three service sectors. The findings show that the effects of (1) positive and negative WOM (P/NWOM) received about competitors and (2) perceived presence of critical incidents (PPCIs) on P/NWOM given about own service provider are far from intuitive. Responses to PWOM received counter the suggestions in the NPS literature. The findings also indicate that the best firms can hope for when receiving NWOM about competitors is that their customers remain silent. It is recommended that firms communicate a message that is consistent with the nuanced views expressed by friends in social circles, rather than a uniformly superior positioning

Salesperson’s Customer Orientation: A Reconceptualization and a New Definition

This study critically examines the existing domains, conceptualizations and operationalizations of the salesperson’s customer orientation constructs present in the literature. The widely used Salesperson orientation-Customer orientation (SOCO) construct (its domain, definition and scale) is examined in detail, and several inconsistencies were found. We also examine other individual-level and organizational-level orientation constructs, including market orientation, in order to appropriately delineate the boundaries of the salesperson’s customer orientation construct. Based on a comprehensive review of literature on the marketing concept, and related literatures on several other relevant orientation constructs, we suggest a new definition of this mid-level construct. Not only is our new definition more encompassing (to include all activities of the salesperson related to customers, and not just their interactions with the customers) but is also more forward-looking (salesperson’s enhanced role not just as need-fulfiller, but more as customers’ value co-creator). We sincerely hope that the new definition suggested by us would encourage scale development efforts from researchers, that would aid in further reducing (if not removing)the several inconsistencies present in the literature related to salespersons’ customer orientation, and its effect on their performance and effectiveness.