Like the majority of people these days I do the majority of my banking online. Several days ago I saw an erroneous bank charge on my online statement so I decided to contact customer support. Lucky for me, my bank gives me a whopping three different ways to let them know they screwed up. I have my choice of telephone, live chat via their website, or email. At the time, I did not consciously think about any Impression Management models or Media Richness Theories as Professor Hancock would have hoped. Pretty much all that was on my mind was telling some poor customer service rep that they should waive my 8 dollar bank fee and I would have his/her first born if they levied such a surcharge again. In more scientific terms the Locus was Other and the Valence was Positive. O’Sullivan forgot to include people (like me) who enjoy acting the bratty, unsatisfied customer role where accusing others mistakes is a positive. However, I was heavily leaning toward the clarity dialectic as I wanted to be able to explain my problem fully and vent my stress. With the three avenues of communication given to me, email was immediately nixed because I wanted the situation resolved within the next few minutes and not the next few weeks; I also had no idea to what department my email would go. I knew that IM was the most likely to have an operator at any given time, however I had to go through the hassle of communicating my problem to some outsourced third tier rep but would most likely be able to receive clear (prewritten) replies. Telephone, the channel with the least buffer, would allow me to explain myself with the most clarity and the right tone, however, I would have to decode bad English, deal with hold times and social overhead. In the end I chose telephone, which supports O’Sullivan that clarity was the determining factor in choice of medium.
To contrast to this situation a few weeks ago my bank locked me out of their website. Why? I wasn’t sure but probably because some previous time I had typed my password wrong several dozen times in a row. I messed up. In O’Sullivan’s model this would fall strictly under the Self and Negative categories. Living by the motto “Never Apologize”, I actually chose to use email as the method for telling my bank that my problem was now their problem. This was done by being as ambiguously as possible through email with me asking for them to unlock my account and reset my password while never fully admitting that I had directly caused the error (I wasn’t fooling anybody BTW). This example definitely supports O’Sullivan’s hypothesis of a negative self focused interaction preferring computer mediated communication as I was able to maximize results (access my bank account) and minimize costs (keep my dignity…somewhat).
4 comments:
Hey Austin, Great post. Don’t feel alone in your online banking debacles; I have had many of the same situations arise as well. Since I could relate to your pain and suffering, I was able to thoroughly enjoy your blog. I agree with your analysis and application of O’Sullivan’s theory and found that I have also reacted in accordance to the theory in similar situations. When I wanted to challenge the bank about a bogus fee, there was no hesitation whatsoever in me reaching for the phone and dialing—with great ferocity and anger I might add. However, I find that I, contrary to O’Sullivan’s interaction hypothesis, prefer using richer mediums even if the locust and valence are self and negative. I actually believe it's advantageous having the increased cues and richer medium because you can drop the puppy dog face (big, watery eyes and frown) to get some pity from the other individual in the interaction.
Hi Austin, I enjoyed reading your post. I also agree with your analysis on O'Sullivan's theory. Especially when Locus is self and Valence is negative, including me, I have seen that most of people are afraid of forming a negative impression and try to have as small as possible damage on their image. It quite interesting that even behavior of little kids supports this theory. It is not hard to see a little kid mumbling when their parents ask them who broke the flower pot and how it was broken. In this case, valence is of course negative and locus is self.(The assumption was this kid actually broke the flower pot.) He is not likely willing to reveal information about the incident because it is only disadvantageous to be clear on negative aspects of his personalities.
Hey Austin, I thought your idea to use the issue of online banking was very unique and interesting. More and more banks and more and more people are switching over to this method. As a result, it seems I am hearing more stories similar to yours. I definitely agree that both your encountered situations are excellent examples of O’Sullivan’s theory. I think for the first issue you discussed, there could be a slight argument for Media Richness Theory, for efficiency was an important issue in at least one of the channels (email). For example, you mentioned that you decided against the use of email since you didn’t want to wait around for a reply. A telephone call would surely get your message across much faster. This example is slightly flawed, since there were three potential channels to communicate through. For one channel, efficiency was the major factor, which goes with Media Richness Theory. However, to your credit, the other two (telephone call and video chat) definitely fall under O’Sullivan’s theory.
Been there done that. Your analysis of possible avenues for communication with banks is dead on. There really isn't any good way to communicate with those people (sometimes it takes all three modes of communication to get something done).
I think your application of O'Sullivan's theory is really accurate. I especially like the unconventional usage of "positive" valence. And when you throw in the role efficiency played in choosing your media, you also touched on the Media Richness Theory as well.
Overall, this was a really great example that allowed for critical examinations of all our recent theories.
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