Critical review of the e-loyalty literature: a purchase-centred framework

Over the last few years, the concept of online loyalty has been examined extensively in the literature, and it remains a topic of constant inquiry for both academics and marketing managers. The tremendous development of the Internet for both marketing and e-commerce settings, in conjunction with the growing desire of consumers to purchase online, has promoted two main outcomes: (a) increasing numbers of Business-to-Customer companies running businesses online and (b) the development of a variety of different e-loyalty research models. However, current research lacks a systematic review of the literature that provides a general conceptual framework on e-loyalty, which would help managers to understand their customers better, to take advantage of industry-related factors, and to improve their service quality. The present study is an attempt to critically synthesize results from multiple empirical studies on e-loyalty. Our findings illustrate that 62 instruments for measuring e-loyalty are currently in use, influenced predominantly by Zeithaml et al. (J Marketing. 1996;60(2):31-46) and Oliver (1997; Satisfaction: a behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw Hill). Additionally, we propose a new general conceptual framework, which leads to antecedents dividing e-loyalty on the basis of the action of purchase into pre-purchase, during-purchase and after-purchase factors. To conclude, a number of managerial implementations are suggested in order to help marketing managers increase their customers’ e-loyalty by making crucial changes in each purchase stage

Justice, emotions and satisfaction in complaint behavior in services

This study proposes a marketing approach to service recovery (SR) models in order to help to explain what factors affect cumulative satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth following complaint behavior. The model has its base on the definition of perceived justice and its influence on satisfaction with service recovery (SSR) and on emotions (positive and negative). Trust acts as a central construct in the model, receiving influence from the affective and cognitive aspect and mediating the relationship between SSR and cumulative satisfaction and between positive/negative emotions and loyalty. The sample for this study consists of 303 Spanish B2C-EC users who made a complaint after an electronic transaction. Results from the analysis show the influence of perceived justice ?mainly interactional justice and procedural justice? on SSR, and the relevance of positive emotions as a key factor in SSR processes, in contrast to the major role which negative emotions have traditionally played in these models. Furthermore, trust mediates the relation between SSR and cumulative satisfaction, and is the factor which has a higher influence on loyalty, whilst cumulative satisfaction becomes the more relevant factor affecting WOM

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

Using emoji in an e-commerce context: effects in brand perception, quality of service and intention to recommend

The increasing development of digital technologies has lead to business model disruption, transformation and developed new means of providing services and products (e.g., e-banking and e-commerce). In order to cope with, and benefit from these changes, people have changed their habits. Such is the case of Electronic Mediated Communication (EMC) that changed how and what people communicate (e.g., Skype, e-mail). Text-centric EMC (e.g., IM, e-mails) has itself evolved to allow the expression of emotion between sender and receiver, namely through the use of emoji. However how service providers and brands relate with their progressively more digital customer base in electronic contexts, and what may be the outcomes of that relationship is still an unexplored area of research. In the present work, we present two experiments that aimed to examine the influence of emoji use in brand-consumer communication during an online ticket selling transaction, on consumers perception of brand, quality of service and intention to recommend. Besides manipulating emoji presence (or absence), we additionally manipulated message valence (e-commerce transaction success or failure - Experiment 1) and product scarcity (Experiment 2). Overall, results suggest that guaranteeing service success is more determinant of brand and quality of service evaluation than the type of language used. Specifically, in Experiment 1, emoji use seems to have influenced the perception of language informality, while in Experiment 2, seems to have influenced the perception of brands social presence and warmth, language informality and funniness, as well as quality of service.A evolução das tecnologias digitais levou ao surgimento de novos modelos de negócio, e formas de fornecer serviços e produtos (e.g., e-commerce). Adaptando-se a estas mudanças, as pessoas alteraram parte dos seus hábitos. Um exemplo é o caso da Comunicação mediada por meio Eletrónicos (EMC), que mudou a forma e o conteúdo do que as pessoas comunicam (e.g., Skype, e-mail). A EMC em formato de texto (e.g., e-mails) evoluiu, permitindo a expressão da emoção entre emissor e recetor, nomeadamente através da utilização de emoji. No entanto, a forma como marcas e prestadores de serviço se relacionam com clientes em contextos eletrónicos, e quais os possíveis resultados desse relacionamento, é uma área de pesquisa pouco explorada. Neste trabalho apresentamos dois experimentos que examinam a influência do uso de emoji na comunicação da marca-consumidor durante uma venda de bilhetes on-line, na perceção da marca, qualidade do serviço e intenção de recomendar dos consumidores. Para além da presença (ausência) de emoji, manipulámos a valência da mensagem (sucesso ou insucesso da transação - Experimento 1) e a disponibilidade de produto (Experimento 2). Globalmente, os resultados sugerem que garantir o sucesso de serviço é mais determinante para a avaliação de marca e qualidade de serviço do que o tipo de linguagem utilizado. Especificamente, no Experimento 1, o uso de emoji parece influenciar a perceção de informalidade da linguagem, enquanto no Experimento 2, parece ter influenciado a perceção de presença social e calor da marca, de linguagem ser informal e divertida, assim como qualidade de serviço

Psychological contract violation and customer intention to reuse online retailers:exploring mediating and moderating mechanisms

This study examines the impact of psychological contract violation (PCV) on customer intention to reuse online retailer websites via the mediating mechanisms of trust and satisfaction. The moderating role of perceived structural assurance (SA) is also investigated. An empirical study conducted among online shoppers confirms the indirect effects of PCV on customers’ intention to reuse via trust and satisfaction. The findings also support the moderating impact of perceived SA in the network of relationships. The study underscores the importance of SA as a trust-building mechanism for mitigating the deleterious effects of PCV among online customers, although the role of SA in preserving satisfaction is found to be limited. The findings suggest that online retailers may benefit by investing in SA and addressing the negative effects of PCV proactively rather than simply relying on post-failure service recovery mechanisms

Website Service Quality and Shopping Website Stickiness: The Mediating Effect of Website Involvement

Website service quality has been considered to be important to increase users’ stickiness toward website in online shopping context. However, the underlying mechanism through which website service quality can influence shopping website stickiness remains unclear. In this study, the concept of website involvement was introduced to explain why people tend to favor sticking a shopping website. Also, four dimensions of website service quality (i.e. recovery , reliability, personalization, and responsiveness) were identified from existing related literature to influence consumers’ website involvement. Unlike prior studies, the “Stimulus-Organism- Response” model and an integrated framework combining the transactional view and the relational view of consumer-website interaction were used to test the relationship among website service quality , website involvement (cognitive involvement and affective involvement), and website stickiness. Empirical result shows that website service quality has no significant direct impact on website stickiness. However, it has significantly positive effects on both cognitive involvement and affective involvement, which in turn significantly correlate to website stickiness, indicating that website involvement plays full mediating role in the relation between website service quality and website stickiness. The results also indicate that consumer affective involvement strongly influences their cognitive involvement toward a shopping website

Negative online word-of-mouth: Behavioral indicator or emotional release?

The influence of negative online word-of-mouth on the behavior of those receiving it has been addressed extensively in the academic literature. Remarkably, the question whether negative online word-of-mouth should also be seen as a behavioral indicator of its sender remains unaddressed. Answering this question is relevant as it provides companies with insight into the need to engage in interaction with those who negatively express themselves online or whether these expressions should be seen as temporary emotional releases without any intended conduct. To fill the existing research gap, this research paper proposes and empirically tests a sender-oriented model, investigating the influence of emotions, negative online word-of-mouth on repatronage and switching intentions. As disclosing negative feedback online may also reflect the sender's motivation to inform the consumer community or to provide constructive feedback to the company responsible for the dissatisfying consumption, community usefulness and company usefulness are included as behavioral moderators. The results of an empirical survey conducted amongst real senders of negative information confirm that negative online word-of-mouth is directly driven by positive and negative emotions and is strongly predictive for the sender's intended conduct. The motivation to help other consumers was demonstrated to function as behavioral moderator. The paper concludes with theoretical and managerial implications, and suggests avenues for further research. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

A bibliometric investigation of service failure literature and a research agenda

Purpose - This research studies the citations made in service failure literature, and assesses the knowledge construction of this region of exploration to date. Design/methodology/approach - The bibliometric investigation assesses 416 service failure articles in business associated research. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is employed to uncover the scope of the scholarly impacts that have helped understand the nature of the service failure literature. The establishment of knowledge in the service failure literature is revealed by analysing co-citation data to identify significant topical impacts. Findings - The theoretical model combines five areas with significant propositions for the future improvement of service failure as an area of investigation. The most important research themes in-service failure literature are service failure, service failure communication, the recovery process, recovery offer and intention. Research limitations/implications - Potential research concentrating on the service failure literature could use search terms improved from the literature review, or use a comparable approach whereby a board of well-informed scholars approved the keywords used. Practical implications - This paper is beneficial for any reader who is interested in understanding the components of the perception of justice and recovery and how it improves repurchase intention. Originality/value - The study seeks to influence resource and recovery-based concepts and utilises the five supporting knowledge groups to suggest a plan for future research that fills existing gaps and offers the possibility of expanding and enhancing the service failure literature

Determinants of negative word-of-mouth communication using social networking sites

At present, as customers often turn to social media platforms to share their service experience, this study aims to examine the determinants of their negative word-of-mouth communication using social networking sites following a service failure. Although many studies have examined the electronic word-of-mouth communication, studies on negative word-of-mouth communication using social media platforms remain sparse. Building on the cognitive dissonance theory and social support theory, this study proposes and empirically examines the role of contextual, individual and social networking factors in determining the customers’ intentions to engage in negative word-of-mouth communication using social networking sites. Self-reported retrospective survey was used to obtain responses from 206 online shoppers. The results of the structural equation modelling showed that feeling of injustice, firm attribution, firm image, face concern, reappraisal, use intensity and tie strength are key antecedents of negative word-of-mouth communication. The findings provide valuable insights for managers in developing effective Webcare interventions for negative word-of-mouth communication on social networking sites

Consumer Data Privacy in Marketing Research: A Study of Value-Based and Cognate-Based Approaches

In this paper, we used Smith et al. (2011)’s classification of privacy definitions based on cognate-based and value-based approaches and reviewed the marketing literature for the past five years on consumer information privacy. We added an extra dimension to this classification by looking at whether the research has a regulatory emphasis or not. Our results indicate that there are plenty of research articles on cognate-based and non-regulatory underscoring research as well as value-based and regulatory emphasis articles. There is exigent need for more research on cognate-based, regulation focused and value-based, non-regulation focused accentuation