Purpose

Digital platform users not only consume but also produce communication related to their experiences. Although service research has explored users' motivations to communicate and focused on outcomes such as electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), it remains largely unexplored how users iteratively interact with communication artifacts and potentially create value for themselves, other users and service providers. The purpose of this paper is, thus, to introduce communicative affordances as a framework to advance user-created communication (UCC) in service.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing from the literature in communication, service research and interactive marketing, an affordance perspective on UCC in service is introduced.

Findings

Three UCC affordances for the service context are presented – interactivity, visibility and anonymity – opportunities and challenges for service providers associated with these affordances are discussed and, finally, affordance-specific research questions and general recommendations for future research are offered.

Research limitations/implications

By conceptualizing UCC in service from an affordances perspective, this paper moves beyond the traditional sender–receiver communication framework and emphasizes opportunities and challenges for service research and practice.

Practical implications

Instead of focusing separately on specific technologies or user behaviors, it is recommended that service managers adopt a holistic perspective of user goals and motivations, use experiences and platform design.

Originality/value

By conceptualizing UCC as an augmenting, dialogical process concerning users’ experiences, and by introducing communicative affordances as a framework to advance UCC in service, an in-depth understanding of the diverse and ever-evolving landscape of communication in service is offered.

中文翻译：

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在服务中推进用户创建的通信 (UCC) 的功能：交互性、可见性和匿名性

目的

数字平台用户不仅消费而且产生与其体验相关的交流。尽管服务研究已经探索了用户的交流动机，并专注于诸如电子口碑 (eWOM) 等结果，但在很大程度上仍未探索用户如何迭代地与交流工件交互并可能为自己、其他用户和服务提供商创造价值。因此，本文的目的是引入交流可供性作为框架，以在服务中推进用户创建的通信 (UCC)。

设计/方法/方法

借鉴传播、服务研究和互动营销方面的文献，介绍了 UCC 在服务中的可供性视角。

发现

介绍了服务上下文的三个 UCC 可供性——交互性、可见性和匿名性——讨论了与这些可供性相关的服务提供商的机遇和挑战，最后，提供了特定于可供性的研究问题和对未来研究的一般性建议。

研究限制/影响

通过从可供性的角度对服务中的 UCC 进行概念化，本文超越了传统的发送者-接收者通信框架，并强调了服务研究和实践的机遇和挑战。

实际影响

与其单独关注特定技术或用户行为，建议服务经理对用户目标和动机、使用体验和平台设计采取整体视角。

原创性/价值

通过将 UCC 概念化为关于用户体验的增强性对话过程，并通过引入交流可供性作为推进 UCC 在服务中的框架，提供了对服务中交流的多样化和不断发展的景观的深入理解。