Customer Encounters on Twitter – A Study of Positive Evaluation and Complaint Management on English Corporate Profiles

Anna Tereszkiewicz, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Institute of English Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Her main research interests involve broadly defined computer-mediated communication, the discourse of social media, news discourse and professional communication. Her recent studies concern online news genres, online citizen journalism as well as online corporate communication.

• Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1. Social media and corporate communication 1.1. Social media as a channel of communication1.2. Social media and marketing communication1.3. Social media and electronic word-of-mouth communication1.4. Twitter as a microblogging service1.5. Twitter in corporate communicationChapter 2. Customer encounters as a genre of social interaction 2.1. Customer encounters as a genre of social interaction – basic characteristics2.2. Previous research into customer encounters2.2.1. Face-to-face customer encounters2.2.2. Call centre interactions2.2.3. Online customer encounters 2.3. Crisis communication, complaint and review management 2.3.1. Crisis communication, complaint and review management in traditional channels of interaction2.3.2. Online crisis communication, complaint and review management Chapter 3. Corporate profiles on Twitter – general characteristics 3.1. Company profiles – structure and types of posts3.2. Modes of interaction on the profiles – discursive blending Chapter 4. Positive evaluation and complaint management on Twitter 4.1. Methods and materials4.1.1. Methods4.1.2. Materials4.1.3. The structure of customer encounters on Twitter4.2. Consumer positive evaluation on Twitter4.2.1. Consumer positive evaluation on Twitter4.2.2. Positive review management4.3. Consumer complaint and negative evaluation management on Twitter4.3.1. Consumer complaints on Twitter 4.3.2. Complaint management – responses to complaints and negative evaluations Chapter 5. Selected politeness and lexicogrammatical properties of the tweets 5.1. Methods 5.2. Conventional politeness acts: openings and closings, forms of address and self-identification in the tweets5.2.1. Address forms5.2.2. Self-identification5.2.3. Opening sequences5.2.4. Closing units 5.3. Selected lexicogrammatical properties of the tweets 5.3.1. Informal and non-standard language, mistakes5.3.2. The use of emoticons, hashtags and linksConclusions References