Dealing with Service Failures and Complaints on Social Media: The Role of Online Social Support in China

Abstract

In China, social media has altered how clients and businesses talk about poor service. Customers now use social media to voice their complaints and disappointment when service faults occur. This study aims to examine the impact of online social support on customer complaint intentions on social media, as well as discuss the role of personality traits, particularly proactive personality, as a boundary condition in this relationship. In 2023, a survey of 348 college students was conducted and analyzed using hierarchical regression and confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, mediating analysis, as well as moderating analysis. The results revealed that online information support and emotional support had a positive impact on customers’ continued complaint intentions on social media. This study suggests that the complex nature of customer complaints on social media requires a creative management strategy, with possible implications for use in social service agencies. Moreover, these research findings indicate the relationship between information support, emotional support, and customer continued complaint intentions on social media. This study recommends that future research could include more study samples to attain better results to see if these results would also apply directly to the social service area.

Keywords:

• Online social support
• perceived control
• proactive personality
• social media complaints
• service satisfaction

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Youth Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education of China under Grant number 22YJC630201.