Social anxiety and the consumer: Examining the relationship between social media users' level of social anxiety and attitudes toward customer service channels

Customer service is an integral part of a company's marketing strategy, and particularly important is understanding customers' attitudes toward customer service channels. Unfortunately, little is known about the attitudes of individuals with social anxiety toward customer service channels. This paper contributes to the customer service research literature by exploring the link between consumers' degree of social anxiety and attitudes toward customer service channels. It particularly focuses on the social media channel, as increased social media use has been observed among users with social anxiety. Data were collected through an online survey of 97 respondents. Survey respondents were asked to evaluate ten customer service channels on their ability to provide on three relevant attributes of customer service and rate twenty statements from the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed a significant, positive linear relationship between level of social anxiety and attitude toward the self-service and online live-assist customer service channel types, but not the social media nor offline live-assist channels.