Abstract
Customers' requests and their satisfaction are the primary goal and purpose of interaction in commercial service encounters. Nongranting of service requests, however, is inevitable on some occasions, and its management can be a significant problem. This article examines how agents design their conduct when customers' requests cannot be granted. Using data from calls to an airline service, this article shows that agents can develop customers' requests in a grantable direction in and through sequences that make the request itself. They may shape customers' expectations in advance, rather than failing to provide the service overtly, so that customers will be made to request what the organization can provide.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 109-134 |
| Number of pages | 26 |
| Journal | Research on Language and Social Interaction |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2011 Apr |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The writing of this article was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (KRF2009-361-A00027). I would like to thank three anonymous reviewers, Charles Antaki, and especially John Heritage for their insightful comments on earlier drafts.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Social Psychology
- Communication
- Linguistics and Language