| Social media has changed the ways in which people communicate with organizations. Specifically, Facebook and Twitter are emerging as innovative ways for customers to communicate problems with products and services to an organization. Traditional customer service research has focused on how an organization can effectively recover from a service failure occurring in a closed interaction (occurring privately between the customer and organization), whether that is in-person, on the phone or via e-mail. In order to achieve this, organizations have used compensation and/or an explanation to help recover from a service failure. Organizations can use such methods to foster customer loyalty, increase satisfaction, and increase the likelihood of positive word of mouth (PWOM) after a failure in service has occurred. However, there is a lack of research investigating whether findings from previous literature can be applied to open interactions (occurring publicly between the customer and organization), using social media that are visible to the public.;This study used a 3 (communication mode: in-person, via Twitter, or via Facebook) x 2 (compensation or no compensation) x 2 (explanation or no explanation) experimental design employing scenarios to explore the differences between customer-organization interactions following a service failure with a fictitious airline company. Service failure was communicated to the organization using one of three modes of communication: In-person, via Twitter, or via Facebook. In each scenario, customers checked in for a direct flight that they later find out is delayed and also has an additional layover. In response to the failure and to restore customer satisfaction, the airline offered compensation (an upgrade) or no compensation, and an explanation (why the flight was delayed) or no explanation using the same mode of communication that the customer used to complain. This study utilized an organizational justice framework to explore differences in customer satisfaction, loyalty intentions, PWOM, and negative word (NWOM) intentions following a service failure and recovery that occurred in-person, via Facebook, or via Twitter.;The results of this study are consistent with past research as compensation and explanation had a significant effect on satisfaction, loyalty intentions, PWOM, NWOM, and participant's perceptions of justice. Communication mode had a significant effect on items of interpersonal justice and informational justice, such that participants who complained in-person rated items of interpersonal justice and informational justice higher that those who complained via Twitter or Facebook. Similar to past research, there was also an additive effect for compensation and explanation, such that participants who received both compensation and an explanation had higher ratings of satisfaction, loyalty intentions, PWOM, perceptions of justice, and lower ratings of NWOM when compared to participants who received either compensation or an explanation. There was an interaction between communication mode and explanation on interpersonal and informational justice, such that participants that received an explanation via Twitter perceived the higher levels of informational and interpersonal justice compared to participants that received an explanation in person or via Facebook. There was an interaction between communication mode and compensation, such that participants who received compensation via Twitter or Facebook reported the higher levels of interpersonal justice, loyalty, satisfaction, and PWOM, compared to those that received compensation in-person. |
