Flinkfeldt2022
| Flinkfeldt2022 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Flinkfeldt2021 |
| Author(s) | Marie Flinkfeldt, Sophie Parslow, Elizabeth Stokoe |
| Title | How Categorization Impacts the Design of Requests: Asking for Email Addresses in Call-Centre Interactions |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | Categorization, Requests, Call-center, Institutional talk, EMCA |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year | 2021 |
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| Month | aug |
| Journal | Language in Society |
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| Number | |
| Pages | 1–24 |
| URL | |
| DOI | 10.1017/S0047404521000592 |
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Abstract
Marketing research shows that organizations tailor communication for particular customer `segments', but little is known about the live design of interaction for different categories. To investigate this, we examine telephone calls to a holiday sales call-centre (for `seniors') and a university admissions call-centre (for `young' students). While topically different, call-takers in both datasets requested callers' email addresses in order to progress service. Using conversation analysis, we examine how these requests were designed, where and how `age' was made relevant, and how subsequent service provision was handled in a way that matched callers' presumed age categories. Contrastive to the static notion of `segments', we show how recipient design is bound up with categorial considerations while being responsive to the live unfolding of actual interaction. The article demonstrates how a comparative collection-based approach can be used to analyse the relevance of social categories in situations where this is implicit or ambiguous. (Membership categorization, customer segmentation, conversation analysis, recipient design, requests, age)*
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