Talking or Typing? - Using Conversation Analysis for Distinguishing the Role of Media in Service Encounters

Communication between suppliers and customers often needs to be handled by the use of different media. It is a challenge to determine which media to use for a certain communicational purpose. In this paper three different situations are identified in which different media would be suitable to use in each situation. These situations are derived from ongoing conversations in a B2B setting and analysed with conversation analysis. The paper results in a distinction between the three basic categories of conversations in which the choice of media plays an essential role; typing, talking/typing and talking. A thorough analysis of conversations increase the knowledge about which interactions that could be transferred to a SST and which interactions that should be handled on an inter-personal level