Perceived Justice and Email Service Recovery

This study adds to the limited research of email service recovery. It is perhaps the first non-US study of email service recovery as well as the first study to apply a theoretical perspective ¬– perceived justice – to email service recovery. The results of three annual studies using Australian data resemble US results and support extending perceived justice to service recovery via email. The distributive elements of replying and offering compensation, the procedural element of answering completely and the interactional element of thanking the customer showed significant positive relationships with customer satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth and repurchase intent. Perhaps most importantly for practitioners, the results of a stepwise regression showed that incorporating the simple phrase "thank-you" in the email reply was a strong predictor of successful email service recovery. Finally, this study found that response time might be less critical than previously thought

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

A study of negative customer online reviews and managerial responses on social media— case study of the Marriott Hotel Group in Beijing

Putting customers at the center of business is the priority for the global hospitality and tourism companies. The importance of customer satisfaction and perceived higher quality of service dictate the branding images for global hotels within this era of social media. Managers need to understand the nature of online customers' reviews, which can help hotels to reflect on their operations and improve their service quality. The purpose of this paper is to explore the major reasons for hotel customers’ complaints on social media, and discuss how hotel managers respond to these. Researches have showed that negative online reviews have much greater impacts on customers decision making compared with positive reviews in hospitality industry. Limited negative reviews can influence hotels business performance in a long period of time, while many hospitality organisations ignore this challenging issue or not pay enough attention. This study chooses the Marriott Hotel Group in Beijing as a case study. A quantitative content study of customers' online reviews and hotel managers’ responses to these on TripAdvisor was conducted through a netnographic analysis process. The authors aim to analyze in greater detail the effects of hotel attributes on hotel business performance considering customers’ voice as expressed through their negative reviews. It was found that employees' lack of empathy is the main factor underlying customer complaints, followed by reliability, tangible factors, amenities and availability. The managerial responses were analyzed to identify the patterns and key words. The outcome provides a guidance tool for hotel management regarding which service elements to improve and how to respond appropriately to negative reviews

Reputation Agent: Prompting Fair Reviews in Gig Markets

Our study presents a new tool, Reputation Agent, to promote fairer reviews from requesters (employers or customers) on gig markets. Unfair reviews, created when requesters consider factors outside of a worker's control, are known to plague gig workers and can result in lost job opportunities and even termination from the marketplace. Our tool leverages machine learning to implement an intelligent interface that: (1) uses deep learning to automatically detect when an individual has included unfair factors into her review (factors outside the worker's control per the policies of the market); and (2) prompts the individual to reconsider her review if she has incorporated unfair factors. To study the effectiveness of Reputation Agent, we conducted a controlled experiment over different gig markets. Our experiment illustrates that across markets, Reputation Agent, in contrast with traditional approaches, motivates requesters to review gig workers' performance more fairly. We discuss how tools that bring more transparency to employers about the policies of a gig market can help build empathy thus resulting in reasoned discussions around potential injustices towards workers generated by these interfaces. Our vision is that with tools that promote truth and transparency we can bring fairer treatment to gig workers.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, The Web Conference 2020, ACM WWW 202

Shopping For Privacy: How Technology in Brick-and-Mortar Retail Stores Poses Privacy Risks for Shoppers

As technology continues to rapidly advance, the American legal system has failed to protect individual shoppers from the technology implemented into retail stores, which poses significant privacy risks but does not violate the law. In particular, I examine the technologies implemented into many brick-and-mortar stores today, many of which the average everyday shopper has no idea exists. This Article criticizes these technologies, suggesting that many, if not all of them, are questionable in their legality taking advantage of their status in a legal gray zone. Because the American judicial system cannot adequately protect the individual shopper from these questionable privacy practices, I call upon the Federal Trade Commission, the de facto privacy regulator in the United States, to increase its policing of physical retail stores to protect the shopper from any further harm

eWOM: the effects of online consumer reviews on purchasing decision of electronic goods

Internet has become the primary source of information for a large number of consumers and it has dramatically changed the consumer behaviour. One of the main changes in modern consumer behaviour has been the transition from a passive to an active and informed consumer. Internet enables customers to share their opinions on, and experiences with, goods and services with a multitude of other consumers. Online consumer reviews are used by prospective buyers of related products who are interested in obtaining more information from people who have purchased and used a product of interest. Word-of-mouth (WOM) is one of the most important information sources when a consumer is making a purchase decision. The arrival and expansion of the Internet has extended consumers' options for gathering product information by including other consumers' comments, posted on the Internet, and has provided consumers opportunities to offer their own consumption-related advice by engaging in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM can be defined as all informal communications directed at consumers through Internet-based technology related to the usage or characteristics of particular goods and services, or their sellers. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of, one type of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), the online consumer review, on purchasing decision of electronic products. This empirical study also focuses on the relationship between reviews and purchasing behaviour. An instrument was prepared to measure the proposed constructs, with questionnaire items taken from prior studies but adapted to fit the context of e-commerce. The survey was applied to academicians in Turkey through internet. The data was analyzed using the SPSS package. The results show that consumer reviews have a causal impact on consumer purchasing behaviour and they have an effect on choosing the products by consumer. Finally, the results and their implications are discussed

THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE RESPONSE STRATEGIES TO NEGATIVE ONLINE WORD OF MOUTH ON COMPLAINERS’ BRAND ATTITUDE

The advent of customer empowering technologies has provided customers with a plethora of online venues to exchange negative experiences with companies and a multitude of other consumers. To mitigate the effect of negative electronic word of mouth (eWOM) companies are increasingly reacting to customers’ online complaints. However, little attention has been paid to examine the impact of companies’ responses via various online platforms on complainers’ brand attitude change. In addition, previous research has not examined whether customers’ motives in voicing their complaints online and their choice of the online platform influence the effectiveness of corporate responses. The objectives of this research are threefold. First, the research aims to examine the impact of various corporate response strategies (accommodative, defensive and no reply) on customers’ brand attitude. In addition, it examines the moderating impact of platform type (company social networking sites/ third party platforms) and customers‘ motives to write negative comments (venting, redress seeking and altruism) on the relationship between corporate response strategies and customers’ brand attitude. The proposed conceptual model aims to explain the factors influencing the effectiveness of companies’ responses to online negative WOM