Help Shape Social Media Research

Last month, Social Media Explorer’s first report, Customer Twervice: Exploring Best Practices and Case Studies In Customer Service Efforts Using Twitter, gave us a look at how many brands are turning to social media for customer service and service recovery efforts. Apparently, I wasn’t the only person interested in the topic.

My friends at the University of Louisville and Murray State University, namely Professors David Faulds and Tom Peterson (marketing professors, UofL) and Glynn Mangold (marketing professor, Murray State University) have started an interesting academic research project around service recovery via social media. Specifically, the professors are looking into companies using the social space for the specific reason of correcting failures in service to retain a customer’s good standing or good will. (And yeah, I’ve already told them about half a dozen case studies off the top of my head.)

According to Professor Faulds, “The objective of the research is to investigate how social media venues can be used by both consumers and organizations in correcting service failures. We are exploring the use of social media across a variety of environments including profit and non-profit organizations, as well as producers of services and manufacturers of consumer products.”

What the professors need is your help.

If you know of a service recovery example, case study or company practicing the active pursuit of service recovery using any social media method (not just Twitter), please let us know. And we would love personal stories and anecdotes, not just the name of a company doing it. If you’ve personally Tweeted your disgust in service at a restaurant or store and someone reached out to you, tell us about it. All your stories are important in this project.

Please reach out to us with the information by any of the following methods:

• Post a comment with the name of the company and explanation of what they are doing below.
• Email Professor Faulds with the information at djfaul01– at — louisville.edu.
• Email me at jason — at — socialmediaexp.wpengine.com and I’ll forward the information.

Any and all information you can provide will be appreciated. We’ll do the follow up calls and work to gather the information. We just need to cast a wide net and find as many examples as possible for the research. And don’t limit your suggestions to the big names. (We know many of them.) Give us small businesses, too. And don’t forget email marketing, blogs, Facebook and other methods besides Twitter. Any and all points in these directions will help.

While we’re not 100-percent certain, we suspect this research project will wind up being one of, if not the first of its kind from the academic perspective. And I’ve been promised I can share the results here when they’re ready, so we can all benefit from the knowledge.

Thanks for your help. Now tell us your service recovery story in the comments.

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