Two Sides of the Story: Media Choice and Media Use ofWeb-based E-mail and Live Chat Customer Services

摘要

Chat services that provide real-time help for customers have been adopted widely and rapidly on many websites in the pastfew years. Our paper investigates online live chat customer services from two perspectives: media choice between chatservice and web e-mail, and media use of chat service analyzed from the perspectives of characteristics, interactivity andsocioemotional content. We collected four types of data including system log files, surveys, excerpts of chat transcripts, andunstructured interviews with service representatives. In addition to quantitative data analysis, ATLAS.ti was used to analyzequalitative data in our study. We found that for the purpose of seeking help with questions, more users chose to use web emailthan chat service. When using the chat service, representatives and users interact with each other through text exchange,page pushing, and co-browsing. They also perform activities such as clarification and attracting attention, and usesocioemotional content such as greetings and expressing feelings.