Challenges in Managing Korean Online Service Requests and Complaints via Business Chat

This study examines how service providers and their business clients in South Korea manage and negotiate face-threatening encounters when making and receiving requests through online chats. An analysis of a collection of these online chats illustrates that unsatisfied communications lead to repeated requests and complaints from clients. The research will focus on examining how service providers adapt to these repeated requests by (re)formulating their response turns to satisfy clients. The study will reveal how their response turns differ by agency, certainty, and immediacy in executing the request, and how certain response types are preferred by clients. According to the findings, what is considered appropriate or polite in person may not be the same in online business-to-business communications.