A contact center is operated by reference to response time statistics and social media analytics. A method for identifying a user population's sensitivity to response time delay comprises monitoring social network messaging activity to identify user messages associated with the user population. In some embodiments, the activity relates to at least one of an entity or a product or service associated with the entity. The user population may be selected on the basis of a socio-demographic characteristic or on the basis of observable social networking behavior and/or sentiment over a prior selection phase. The method further includes selecting a loyalty transition boundary identified by detecting a difference in aggregate sentiment between a first group of users receiving a response delayed by a first time period and a second group of users receiving a response delayed by a second time period greater than the first time period.
