Two-Sided Impacts of Service Provider’s Identity Disclosure in e-Customer Service Platforms: Evidence from Two Field Experiments

Sunghun Chung (), Jaehwuen Jung (), Jooyoung Park (), Chul Ho Lee () and Yasin Ceran ()
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Sunghun Chung: School of Business, George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia 20052
Jaehwuen Jung: Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122
Jooyoung Park: HSBC Business School, Peking University, Shenzhen 518055, China
Chul Ho Lee: College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34141, South Korea
Yasin Ceran: Lucas College and Graduate School of Business, San Jose State University, San Jose, California 95192

Information Systems Research, 2025, vol. 36, issue 3, 1631-1651

Abstract: Digital advancements have revolutionized customer service by enabling customers to easily express dissatisfaction and request resolutions through online platforms. Customer complaint management platforms are especially unique in facilitating provider-customer interactions, but researchers overlook implications from service provider anonymity. In this article, two randomized field experiments are conducted to examine a customer complaint management platform to identify how disclosure of service provider identity affects service performance, customer satisfaction, and biases in customers. Study 1, a large-scale randomized field experiment involving 75,041 customers and 1,280 service providers across 672 companies, finds that identity disclosure improves provider performance. This improvement is achieved by removing the provider’s dissociative anonymity, mitigating deindividuation, instilling self-awareness, and motivating personal responsibility. This effect is stronger for inexperienced service providers who work with many colleagues and have more discretion in handling complaints. Customers who receive identity details about providers benefit from better service and perceive higher satisfaction with complaint resolution. Study 2, a field experiment involving 2,710 customers, shows that customers report more satisfaction when customers identify that providers belong to the majority ethnic group compared with when they belong to an ethnic minority. Intriguingly, minority customers showed lower satisfaction with same-ethnicity providers, indicating that ethnic cues and identity matching significantly influence customer satisfaction. Four follow-up studies involving 1,211 participants identify the underlying mechanisms that influence customer and provider behaviors. The article concludes with practical implications for firms and platforms dedicated to customer service.

Keywords: complaint resolution; deindividuation; identity disclosure; identity matching; two sidedness; service performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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