Digital customer service and customer-to-customer interactions: investigating the effect of online incivility on customer perceived service climate
Authors: Bacile Todd J. 
Published: June 2020

PurposeThe domain of digital service not only includes digital service products made available for purchase but also the provision of digital customer service, such as customers seeking support on brands' social media channels. This type of digital customer service introduces new challenges not found in offline service recovery situations. This research highlights one such occurrence by investigating customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions during digital service recovery. In particular, dysfunctional dialog, such as online incivility (e.g. rude and insulting comments), directed at a complainant by a fellow customer is investigated.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data from an online panel are utilized to test the hypothesized relationships between dysfunctional customer behavior (i.e. online incivility), C2C interactional justice, customer perceived service climate and three forms of experiential value using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe results show that customer perceptions of the firm's service climate are negatively affected by online incivility but only when such incivility produces C2C injustice. This outcome is notable due to the strong relationship found between customer perceived service climate and the following three forms of online experiential value: sociability, hedonic and pragmatic value. Thus, a weakened service climate subsequently leads to weakened experiential value for complainants.Research limitations/implicationsThe theoretical implications of two nascent constructs, C2C interactional justice and customer perceived service climate, are further developed with reference to digital customer service situations. In particular, given that prior research has focused on customer perceptions of service climate in core consumption situations of enjoyable face-to-face service experiences, it has only considered optimal or extremely positive service climate assessments in non-digital contexts. This study expands the understanding of the customer perceived service climate construct by examining the implications of a sub-optimal service climate in a digital customer service situation of an unenjoyable service experience. The limitations include a small sample size, the use of hypothetical scenarios and a failure situation limited to a single industry.Practical implicationsManagers who oversee social media channels or online communities must be prepared to act upon C2C online incivility. Deeming such communications as innocent online chatter not worthy of company intervention is a mistake, as the results of this study show that such inaction may lead to negative customer perceptions of the digital service environment and harm the customer experience.Originality/valueThis work develops a greater understanding of the importance of C2C interactional justice and customer perceived service climate in online customer service situations that prior research has yet to establish. In particular, previous studies have not investigated the negative effects of a situation that produces sub-optimal customer perceptions of a service climate.