The Discourse of Customer Service Tweets

A corpus-linguistic discourse analysis of train operating companies’ and airlines’ customer communication on Twitter.

The Discourse of Customer Service Tweets studies the discursive and pragmatic features of customer service interactions, making use of a corpus of over 1.5 million tweets from more than thirty different companies. With Twitter being used as a professional service channel by many transport operators, this book features an empirical analysis of British and Irish train companies and airlines that provide updates and travel assistance on the platform, often on a 24/7 basis.

From managing crises in the midst of strike action to ensuring passengers feel comfortable on board, Twitter allows transport operators to communicate with their customers in real time. Analysing patterns of language use as well as platform specific features for their communicative functions, Ursula Lutzky enhances our understanding of customers’ linguistic expectations on Twitter and of what makes for successful or unsuccessful interaction. Of interest to anyone researching discourse analysis, business communication and social media, this book’s findings pave the way for practical applications in customer service.