Responding at a higher level: Activity progressivity in calls for service

In a set of calls to an airline service in which agents ask for customers’ identifying information, some customers respond by providing different, unrequested information. This paper examines these non-direct, nonconforming responses and shows that those customers anticipate hierarchical institution-specific stages in the activity and respond to the higher-level purpose for which the question was produced. Customers thereby promote the progress of the larger activity in an institutionally relevant way. This suggests that participants can depart from type-conformity with an orientation to activity progressivity.