Uncovering customer service experiences with Twitter: the case of airline industry

Abstract

Purpose – In this paper the authors present a study that uses Twitter to identify critical elements of customer service in the airline industry. The goal of the study was to uncover customer opinions about services by monitoring and analyzing public Twitter commentaries. The purpose of this paper is to identify elements of customer service that provide positive experiences to customers as well as to identify service processed and features that require further improvements. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employed the approach of sentiment analysis as part of the netnography study. The authors processed 67,953 publicly shared tweets to identify customer sentiments about services of four airline companies. Sentiment analysis was conducted using the lexicon approach and vector-space model for assessing the polarity of Twitter posts. Findings – By analyzing Twitter posts for their sentiment polarity the authors were able to identify areas of customer service that caused customer satisfaction, dissatisfaction as well as delight. Positive sentiments were linked mostly to online and mobile check-in services, favorable prices, and flight experiences. Negative sentiments revealed problems with usability of companies’ web sites, flight delays and lost luggage. Evidence of delightful experiences was recorded among services provided in airport lounges. Originality/value – Paper demonstrates how sentiment analysis of Twitter feeds can be used in research on customer service experiences, as an alternative to Kano and SERVQUAL models.