How do consumer-to-consumer interactions affect bystanders on corporate social media (CSM)? (In)civility in advocates’ responses and complainant-bystander psychological distance

The role of other consumers (i.e. bystanders and brand advocates) in webcare has been underexplored in the setting of CSM. This study fills the void by portraying a dynamic network among the consumer who posts a complaint, the advocate who replies to the complaint, and the bystander who observes the service interaction. Specifically, this study investigated how the tone (civil vs. uncivil) of the advocate’s defensive response affects the bystander’s service evaluation and how the complainant-bystander psychological distance serves as a boundary for the bystander’s information processing. Study 1 revealed that consumer-to-consumer (C2C) interactional justice is the mechanism underlying the relationship between defensive response and satisfaction with complaint handling. Study 2 demonstrated that the bystander’s perceived distance to the failure experience moderates his/her cognitive processing of C2C service interactions such that the mediation (defensive response → C2C interactional justice → satisfaction with complaint handling) is stronger when the bystander feels psychologically closer to the service event. Both theoretical and practical implications regarding service management on CSM channels are also discussed.