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

CAN THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BRANDED MOBILE APPLICATION COUPONS BE INCREASED THROUGH STORYTELLING?

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

Opinion-leading silver surfers in the UK: a personality-based approach to managing negative electronic WOM

The purpose of this study is to investigate the diffusion of negative opinions over the Internet in relation to specific personality antecedents (i.e. Altruism, Need for uniqueness, Self-confidence) and communication outcomes (i.e. Overall satisfaction, E-complaint-propensity). Based on an online survey consisting of 2,393 e-consumers aged 50+, the present research methodology uses Structural Equation Modelling to verify the proposed conceptual relationships. Findings confirm the positive influence of online opinion-leaders on the propensity to spread negative e-WOM and demonstrate the importance of personality characteristics as means to influence negative online opinion-diffusion. Importantly, negative e-WOM was further found to reduce consumers' overall satisfaction and to possibly occur in addition to direct e-complaining. This research therefore is the first to empirically establish the concept of negative Opinion-leadership in an online context and in relation to e-consumers above 50, in addition to proposing a novel, personality-based model of negative online opinion diffusion. For marketing practitioners, this study emphasises the importance of negative online opinion-leaders as a target group that requires distinct communication strategies. Marketing and complaint mangers are recommended to appeal to specific personality traits in order to prevent negative online opinion-cascades and possibly encourage direct complaints

Post-purchase behavior: consume complaint behavior / Azmi Mat...[et al.]

Consumer complaints are no longer viewed as a negative light to the organization performance. In general, consumer complaints can be used as a benchmark for appraisal of their service quality and an important opportunity for the companies to improve. In other words, complaints play an important indicator to measure the level of service excellent or quality in a product. If there is no complaint from consumers, it is dangerous. It means, consumers do not care at all or they are apathetic towards the services or products offered by the organizations. Hence, consumers should be encouraged to speak up directly to the organization when they experience a service failure as complaints can help companies to be aware of their shortcomings and failures. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the factors affecting consumer complaining behavior as well as to investigate the possible action that consumer will take when they experience a dissatisfaction episode. This study is beneficial for the companies, future researchers and individual consumers as well

Webcare's effect on constructive and vindictive complainants

Purpose: This paper aims to demonstrate that online complainants' reactions to a company's service recovery attempts (webcare) can significantly vary across two different types of dissatisfied customers ("vindictives" vs "constructives"), who have dramatically diverging complaint Goal orientations. Design/methodology/Approach: Online multi-country survey among 812 adult consumers who recently had a dissatisfying brand experience and turned to a marketer-generated social media site to voice an online complaint for achieving their ultimate complaining goals. Scenario-based online experiment for cross-validating the survey findings. Findings: Results suggest that "vindictive complainants" - driven dominantly by brand-adverse motives - are immune to any form of webcare, while "constructive complainants" - interested in restoring the customer-brand relationship - react more sensitively. For the latter, "no-responses" often trigger detrimental brand-related reactions (e.g. unfavorable brand image), whereas "defensive Responses" are likely to stimulate postwebcare negative word-of-mouth. Research limitations/implications: This research identifies the gains and harms of (un-)desired webcare. By doing so, it not only sheds light on the circumstances when marketers have to fear negative effects (e.g. negative word-of-mouth) but also provides insights into the conditions when such effects are unlikely. While the findings of the cross-sectional survey are validated with an online experiment, findings should be interpreted with care as other complaining contexts should be further investigated. Practical implications: Marketers have to expect a serious "backfiring effect" from an unexpected source, namely, consumers who were initially benevolent toward the involved brand but who received an inappropriate response

Dealing with firestorms : brand strategies to manage negative word of mouth during social media crisis

The growth of the Internet and social media platforms is changing the way how individuals communicate with each other. Through the fast communication, companies are facing negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) through social media channels. Therefore, it is of high importance to control and manage the spread of negative electronic word-of-mouth (eNWOM) and shouldn’t be underestimated by brands. This dissertation explores the differences between four online response strategies, aimed at managing NWOM during a social media crisis. Effects are analyzed over brand attitude and consumers intention to pass on NWOM. An in-between experimental study design was implemented. It aimed to analyze how participants´ brand attitude (BA) and intention to pass on NWOM changed, after being randomly exposed to one of the four response strategies. The main conclusion obtained shows, that all of the strategy combinations tested, had statistically significant differences among each other. Therefore, they were not equal within their effectiveness on the construct of BA and their intention to pass on NWOM. Thus, all hypotheses of this dissertation were accepted. The “mortification” and “delay and reducing offensiveness” strategy result to be the most effective strategies managing online firestorms. The “no action” strategy results to be the less effective strategy in managing firestorm situations. By exploring the field of electronic NWOM brands lack of preparation of how to respond to online firestorms was recognized. Which is why this dissertation will add not only academic but also managerial value within this field of research.O crescimento das plataformas sociais tem vindo a modificar a maneira como nós comunicamos. Através da rápida comunicação entre nós e dentro das plataformas sociais, as empresas estão a enfrentar uma negativa comunicação “boca a boca”. Consequentemente, é necessário controlar e gerir a propagação deste tipo de comunicação. A presente tese explora a diferença entre quatro estratégias online que têm por objetivo gerir a comunicação “boca a boca” durante crises de mídia social. Os efeitos destas quatro estratégias são analisados de acordo com a atitude perante a marca e a intenção dos consumidores a comunicar negativamente “boca a boca”. Para tal, foi implementado um experimento com o objetivo de avaliar a mudança na atitude dos participantes em relação aos critérios descritos após serem aleatoriamente expostos a uma das quatro estratégias mencionadas. A principal conclusão do estudo demonstra que as quatro estratégias combinadas são estatisticamente diferentes umas das outras. Consequentemente, as estratégias não são iguais em termos de eficácia em construir uma atitude perante a marca ou em alterar a intenção em comunicar negativamente “boca a boca”. Deste modo, todas as hipóteses testadas são consideradas válidas. As estratégias de “humilhação” e de “atraso em reduzir a ofensa” demonstraram ser a mais eficientes em gerir crises online. Através de explorar a comunicação eletrónica de “boca a boca” as marcas demonstram uma falta de preparação na maneira como devem reagir a crisis online. Deste modo, a presente tese irá não só acrescentar valor académico, mas também valor dentro deste campo de pesquisa

The effect of company responses to social media negative word of mouth: A text mining approach

Word-of-mouth (WOM) is emerging in importance for brand reputation and understanding of consumer behavior. Motivations to engage in WOM has been largely studied in marketing literature. How companies respond to WOM online was accounted in marketing literature to deliver distinguishing managerial response strategies to brands. This research project focuses on identifying which response strategy is the most crucial to make customers satisfied after a negative WOM. Text mining and sentiment analysis were used in order to draw conclusions from actual online consumer behavior. Negative WOM (NWOM) was extracted from different brand pages on Facebook, as well as the responses from the companies to these NWOM and the reaction from the NWOM’s writer to the brand’s response. A literature-based framework using Davidow's Facilitation, Apology and Attentiveness, and Benoit's Corrective Action was tested on the data. Further moderation analysis was conducted to test effects of NWOM’s polarity and industry on the relationship between the responses and satisfaction. Results reveal that Facilitation is important to response satisfaction. Whenever brands re-directed original NWOM writers to formal complaint means, their satisfaction increased. This was especially true for hospitality and e-commerce industries. Reversely, for hospitality and e-commerce industries, Apology had a negative impact on response satisfaction. Results yielded that Attentiveness decreased response satisfaction when polarity was a moderator. Managers should provide effective means for consumers to voice their disappointment and not rely on apologies alone. Future research should tackle more in depth the intricacies of languages and the distinction of complainers and brand haters on response strategies.O word-of-mouth (WOM) está a crescer em importância no ramo da reputação da marca e a compreensão do comportamento do consumidor. As motivações para engajar em WOM tem sido amplamente estudado na literatura de marketing. A forma como as empresas respondem ao WOM online foi contabilizado na literatura para fornecer às marcas estratégias de resposta diferenciadas. Este projeto concentra-se em identificar qual a estratégia mais crucial para satisfazer os clientes. O método escolhido foi o text mining e sentiment analysis devido à necessidade na literatura de obter respostas sobre comportamentos reais de consumidores. Extraímos WOM negativo (NWOM) de diferentes páginas de marcas no Facebook, as suas respostas e a reação dos escritores do NWOM a essas respostas. Um modelo da literatura utilizando Facilitation, Apology, Attentiveness de Davidow e Corrective Action de Benoit, foi construído. Análises de moderação foram realizadas para testar os efeitos da polaridade e da indústria da NWOM na relação entre os tipos de respostas e a satisfação. Os resultados revelam que Facilitation é importante para a satisfação. Quando as marcas redirecionavam os escritores da NWOM para meios formais de reclamação, a sua satisfação aumentava. Revela-se verdade para as indústrias de hospitalidade e e-commerce. Adicionalmente, Apology teve impacto negativo na satisfação. Attentiveness diminui a satisfação quando a polaridade é moderador. Os gestores devem construir melhores meios de reclamações e não contar somente nas suas desculpas. Futuros investigadores devem abordar a complexidade das línguas e a distinção entre escritores de reclamações e aversão à marca nas estratégias de resposta

Linking brand attitude to word-of-mouth and revisit intentions in the restaurant sector

Purpose – Following the planned behaviour theory, the aim of the paper is to analyse the role played by brand attachment, brand characteristics and congruence in enhancing brand attitude while leading to revisit intentions and word-of-mouth (WOM) in the restaurant sector. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on the quantitative method and considered 464 questionnaires fulfilled by customers of restaurants. The data were explored employing the partial least square–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Findings – This study expands the literature about WOM and revisit intentions. The paper states that brand attitude positively influenced revisit intentions and WOM. Besides, findings highlighted that analysed concepts were positively correlated and that they played an important role in impacting revisit intentions and WOM, apart from one factor: social self-congruity, which was not significantly related to brand attitude. Practical implications – The results of this paper show practitioners how to develop suitable strategies that set the bases for developing customer loyalty and repeat business. By putting into practice these suggestions in the restaurant sector, brands can easily build up their attitude and boost a positive WOM and the intention to revisit. Originality/value – The study offers a conceptual framework to explore the significance of several factors, including revisit intentions and WOM. In practice, taking into account the proposed framework, it is suggested that restaurant managers should assess these two items using several factors including congruence, brand characteristics and brand attachment