5. EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
6.7. Future research
Both customer behavior and service recovery in the context of social media provide interesting settings for research in future as this research not only left several questions un-answered but also as the study went on, several cases raised the attention that would need further investigation. As this study only “scratches the surface” on customer behavior on social media, it is recommended to study online customer behavior further in terms of why people complain on social media. Moreover, this study could not identify the lifecycle of
customer complaints thus it would be interesting to examine whether disappointed customers complain on different channels when the number of failed service experiences increases. In other words, a specific customer group could be investigated to observe the lifecycle of customer dissatisfaction.
Also a research among psychological factors behind eWOM on social media would create better understanding on both complainer and third party triggers for public conversation, which actually would continue for example Zajonc (1965) and Latané’s (1981) work on social influence theories (cited in Schaefers & Shamari 2015, 1) further. Moreover, even though this research also aimed to observe how successful companies have created a service recovery culture and how to maintain effective service recovery culture as Hoffman et al. (2016) suggested, results remain narrow providing an excellent possibility for future research.
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APPENDICES
Appendix 1: eWOM examples on social media
Case 1: Maskun Kalustetalo (2016) - Facebook
A female had bought a sofa from Masku, a Finnish furniture shop on February 2nd while assured by the seller that the item would be delivered by the beginning of April to make it to her daughter’s 3rd birthday. Estimated date of delivery was March 10th and she called Masku on March 14th as the sofa had not been delivered yet. Given a vague excuse from the seller she contacted consumer protection organization to make a complaint. As the seller had not provided an exact date of delivery the organization could do nothing.
After making several calls to the seller she received no sofa but only excuses and empty promises. When her daughter’s birthday came, the guests had only those to sit on and still no sofa. On April 21st, exactly six weeks after the original estimated date of delivery, the seller contacted her with a request to pick up the sofa as they would only store it for 7 days.
Her frustrated Facebook post about the struggle was shared over 4.500 times and her ironic message to the audience was that when buying anything, contact the consumer protection organization to know the correct way of the delivery contract to have at least some rights come the similar situation. She also promised to send a plate of chocolate to the furthest living person who would share her post.
Source: Facebook (2016)
Case 2: VR #nakkigate (2014) - Twitter
A male customer posted on Facebook a picture of a hotdog with two sausages he had bought on a train demanding an answer from the railway company. The meal was advertised as “a hotdog with two sausages”. He was disappointed to find that instead of two regular size sausages, they were two small ones that combined would make one regular size sausage. Needless to say he felt even more betrayed when the railway company’s replies were only belittling the problem.
(To be continue)
(Appendix 1 continues)
Soon after his post had raised a huge discussion on social media, Finnish newspaper released an aftermath news where another customer was pleasantly surprised when buying the same hotdog, which now did not only have the two small sausages but also a regular one. The railway’s restaurant company executive had promised to react to the feedback and so the original social media post had shown the grievance which by going viral had the company fixing the issue.
Sources: Ilta-Sanomat (2014); Twitter (2014)
Case 3: Midhill ”Watergate BRGR” (2013) - Facebook
A bit on the odd side is the case where a customer after an unpleasant surprise posted on the restaurant’s Facebook wall about unmentioned additional 1.5€ charge on tab water.
Had the first reply from the restaurant been apologetic, there might not have been a social media storm. The restaurant belittled the problem by saying that the price is justified as “the waiter delivers the water to the table” and that “water is free at home, not at the restaurant”
raising a lot of resistance from the people reacting to the topic.
As the case went viral the owner of the restaurant, a famous Finnish television chef, posted an apology on behalf of the restaurant offering “free water only today when ordering Watergate BRGR” with a picture of him having the dish with classic internet meme text “Epic Fail”.
Free tab water at the restaurant was accomplished for one day, people had something to talk for a week and the case faded to infinity.
Sources: Ilta-Sanomat (2013); Taloussanomat (2013)
(To be continue)
(Appendix 1 continues)
Case 4: Posti ”Posti ninja” (2013) - Facebook
Thousands of likes and hundreds of comments on Facebook post about post-ninjas, those silent package deliverers who only leave a note saying “We tried to reach you but you were not home. Please pick up your package at the post office using this card”. Original poster
Thousands of likes and hundreds of comments on Facebook post about post-ninjas, those silent package deliverers who only leave a note saying “We tried to reach you but you were not home. Please pick up your package at the post office using this card”. Original poster