Active and Empathic Listening in Social Media: What do Stakeholders Really Expect

Abstract

Researchers examined expectations and evaluations of active-empathic listening (AEL) during digital dialogic communication between organizations and customers. Through an experimental design, participants (N= 180) rated responses for social media communication from an organization to hypothetical customer messages. Results indicate individuals expect a high level of AEL from organizations’ social media responses, and higher active-empathic responses were rated as more competent. When communicating with an organization via social media, 22.1% stated that the response did not meet expectations versus 76.7% reporting the response met or exceeded expectations. Implications and future research avenues are discussed.