Communication Design Quarterly Mar 2017

The social help desk

Chris Lam ; Mark A. Hannah

Abstract

Technical support, a traditional practice of technical communication, is rapidly changing due to the ubiquitous use of digital technologies (Spinuzzi, 2007). In fact, many technology companies now have dedicated Twitter accounts specifically for providing technical support to end users. In response to this changing technical support landscape, we conducted an empirical study of Twitter-based interactions among six companies and their customers in order to examine the nature of the emerging technical support genre on Twitter. Among other findings, we discovered technical support was widely sought among the customers of the companies studied (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Samsung, Hewlett Packard, and Dell) with nearly 200,000 tweets recorded in just a 38-day timespan. We also found a majority of individuals used Twitter to complain about a brand as opposed to seeking support for a specific technical problem. In our entry, we discuss the implications of these and other findings for technical communication practitioners and researchers who design for technical documentation in social media contexts.

Journal
Communication Design Quarterly
Published
2017-03-22
DOI
10.1145/3068698.3068702
CompPile
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Topics
writing across the curriculum empirical research multimodality social media technical communication multilingual writers place and space

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Cagle et al. (2019)
    Shades of denialism
    Communication Design Quarterly

Cites in this index (15)

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    Technical Communication Quarterly
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    Technical Communication Quarterly
Show all 15 →
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CrossRef global citation count: 13 View in citation network →

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