An exploration of customer perceptions of temporality in contemporary customer complaint behaviour using social media: Exceptional experiences in luxury London hotels
Increasing use of digital technology has led to growing focus on time and temporality in an accelerated society. Adoption of mobile devices and social media platforms by customers has led to evolving customer behaviour in consumption experiences, including complaining. Conspicuous consumption of exceptional experiences, very often shared via social media, frequently take place in luxury London hotels. A conceptual framework combining the four central themes of literature; contemporary customer complaint behaviour, temporality, social media use and consumption, led to the overall research question, “what is the role of temporality in contemporary customer complaint behaviour using social media in the context of luxury hotels?”. Adopting a constructivist ontology, interpretivist epistemology and an exploratory, qualitative research approach, this study comprised four stages of data collection in two phases. The research design of the first phase involved online observation; in stage one, the researcher’s participation in an online forum on Twitter on two occasions and in stage two, social media scraping of four social media platforms; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TripAdvisor. The research design of the second phase of data collection comprised; in stage three 13 semi-structured interviews with customers who had used social media to complain about luxury London hotels, and in stage four, eight semi-structured interviews with senior hoteliers of luxury London hotels. Data analysis in phase one followed an interpretivist approach to online observation and in phase two, followed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings revealed four critical, linked, fluid and perpetually transient, customer perceptions of temporality in contemporary customer complaint behaviour; temporality perceived as: a valuable resource, a rate of movement, an experience of now and a memory or vision. Resultantly, the researcher recommends the applicability of the empirical framework in complaint management in luxury London hotels. Further research could develop the findings of the present study, such as; exploration of customer perceptions of temporality in a range of customer behaviour or marketing contexts beyond complaints, studies of varying temporal windows within which complaints are made, including the abandonment of complaints by customers. Further research might also explore temporal disappointments and consequences of complaint making, such as customer feelings of regret or embarrassment.
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