Is there any value in the online reviews of remedial satisfied customers? An empirical study in the hospitality industry

Hospitality service providers lack attention to the positive reviews written by remedial satisfied customers, although they have devoted a lot of energy to service recovery. Drawing on the accessibility-diagnosticity framework, this study investigates the relationship between the online review types of remedial satisfied customers and potential customers' booking intentions. The results indicate that outcome satisfactory review not only improves review impression and positively affects customers' booking intentions, but also reduces perceived risk and enhances customers’ booking intentions. The review valence consistency plays a moderating role in the dual-path effect of online review types on booking intentions.     

Born Unequal: A Study of the Helpfulness of User-Generated Product Reviews

Online user-generated product reviews have become an indispensible tool for consumers and thus for retailers who want to attract and retain consumers. Yet, relatively little is known about what causes consumers to find an online peer review helpful to their shopping tasks. Prior research examines mostly the effects of product reviews on consumer product attitude, product choice, and product sales. This paper, however, provides an analysis of the determinants of review helpfulness. In two studies, we examine the effects of review characteristics, product type, and reviewer characteristics on perceived review helpfulness. With data collected from a real online retailer, we provide empirical evidence to support our conceptual predictions. Specifically, both review valence and length have positive effects on review helpfulness, but the product type (i.e., experiential vs. utilitarian product) moderates these effects. Using content analysis of reviews, we develop a measure of expressed reviewer innovativeness (i.e., the predisposition toward new products as revealed in review content). A curvilinear relationship exists between expressed reviewer innovativeness and review helpfulness. These findings lead to pertinent managerial implications.     

How managerial responses to online reviews affect customer satisfaction: An empirical study based on additional reviews

This study investigates the internality of managerial responses (MRs) to online reviews on the responded customers' (i.e., customers who have posted an initial review and then being responded by the company through an MR) satisfaction. By utilizing the data of additional reviews (ARs), an innovative social media module for customers to express follow-up opinions that complement their initial reviews, we examine the impact of MR treatment on the customers' AR valence. We leverage the insight that the observability of MR at the time of the responded customer posts an AR is a crucial condition to the impact of the MR, and thus regard the observability of MR as an exogenous treatment for model identification. Fixed effects models with extensive control variables are proposed to estimate the MR treatment effects. The results show that MRs have significant positive impacts on customers' satisfaction in ARs. Further explorations show that the positive impacts are mainly due to the positive effects of MRs on nonpositive initial reviews (MR-Ns), suggesting that MR-Ns are an effective management tool for customer complaints. Moreover, this study identifies MR delay as a boundary condition for the internality of MRs because MR delay negatively moderates the positive impacts of MRs. Therefore, companies should promptly respond to customers' negative opinions in their reviews. This study is among the very first to clearly identify the internality of MRs on the responded customers’ satisfaction. We show that the existing results on the externality of MRs are not directly applicable to the internality of MRs, highlighting the novelty of this study. The obtained new insights provide practical guidelines for companies to adjust their intervention strategies on e-commerce platforms.     

Analysis of customers' satisfaction with baby products: The moderating role of brand image

The previous experience of customers is assessed by textual reviews and ratings to reflect their levels of satisfaction with the service or product. Online reviews and ratings have played a vital role to assess the performance of the services or the quality of goods. This research explores customers' levels of satisfaction with baby products on Amazon.com through text mining and survey-based methodologies. The moderating role of a brand image is also investigated on the relationship between customers' satisfaction and recommendations to others. Two sources of data were utilized, online reviews from the Amazon portal and responses of the participants on a large-scale survey. The research model is developed based on the factors that were extracted from the text mining approach. Following that, a questionnaire was distributed and the collected data were inspected using Partial Least Squares Structural Equations Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings revealed that several dimensions have an influential effect on customers' experiences with baby products, among which are comfortableness, material quality, easy use, easy return, design, price, packaging, and size information. In addition, the moderating influence of the brand image on the hypothesis between customers' satisfaction and recommendations to others was significant. By deploying the two-phase methodology, baby product vendors can understand the influential variables in customers' experiences and their impacts on customers’ satisfaction more accurately.     

Exploring the influence of online reviews and motivating factors on sales: A meta-analytic study and the moderating role of product category

Online reviews, which significantly influence product sales, have been a central research topic in the field of marketing. Meanwhile, some motivating factors related to online retailers have been linked to product sales. While several articles have examined the impact between online reviews and motivating factors on product sales, many of the conclusions drawn are contradictory. From 28 studies focusing on online reviews and sales, this study performs a meta-analysis to analyze the true impacts of six review-related factors (i.e., the number of reviews, star ratings, standard deviation of ratings, helpfulness, review length and sentiment), and two motivating factors (i.e., price discounts and special shipping) on product sales. Meanwhile, this paper also studies how one product-related factor (i.e., product age) and one reviewer-related factor (i.e., reviewer's reputation) influence the relationship between online reviews and product sales. In addition, to study the moderating effect of product category, we divide the selected literature into two subgroups which are search and experience products. The results indicate that only review length and special shipping have no significant impact on product sales, while product category has a valid and specific moderating effect on the relationship between these determinants and sales. The presented conclusions will have important implications for academic research and for future industry practice.     

Rewarding customers who keep a product: How reinforcement affects customers' product return decision in online retailing

A lenient product return policy represents the status quo of current return management practice in online retailing because it increases customers' order tendency. However, at the same time, many customers tend to return products under this policy, which incurs considerable costs for retailers. The present research introduces a keep reward (i.e., providing incentives to keep a product) as a new promotion strategy to improve the conventional lenient policy. Drawing on operant conditioning, the authors propose and test the reinforcing effect of a keep reward on customers' keep decision, compared to the conventional lenient policy. Results of a qualitative pilot study suggest that a keep reward is generally feasible in online retailing practice, especially in the low‐ to mid‐price segment and with rewards that are linked to future purchases. Two experimental studies verify the positive effect of a keep reward. Study 1 shows that it substantially increases keep intention compared to a conventional lenient policy. Study 2 shows that the effect on keep intention is moderated by customers' online shopping frequency, and this moderating effect is mediated by repurchase intention. In particular, the keep reward is most effective among frequent shoppers because they are more inclined to repurchase and thus, benefit from the reward. In summary, both studies support the keep reward as a valuable add‐on to the conventional lenient policy because order intention remains comparably high, while keep intention is higher. Theoretical implications and recommendations for online retailers on how to implement a keep reward in different industries are discussed.     

Price matching and product differentiation strategies considering showrooming

Showrooming, a phenomenon in which customers use brick-and-mortar stores to assess products and then purchase them from online retailers (o-retailers) for lower prices, is considered a great threat to traditional retailers (t-retailers). To combat showrooming, many t-retailers have executed price matching which enables customers to pay o-retailers' lower prices for the identical product. To avoid direct competition with t-retailers who execute price matching, many o-retailers have begun to sell differentiated products from t-retailers, which weakens the information advantage to customers from practicing showrooming. Motivated by these observations, we construct a duopoly game, where a t-retailer and an o-retailer sell products in a same category, to study the profitabilities of product differentiation and price matching in the context of showrooming. The results show that in the scenario without price matching, the o-retailer is likely to benefit from product differentiation only when the o-retailer's differentiated product is more popular with customers than the t-retailer's product. However, in the price matching scenario, the o-retailer also has the opportunity to benefit from product differentiation when the o-retailer's differentiated product is less popular with customers than the t-retailer's product, and product differentiation can be a win-win strategy for the two retailers under certain conditions. Considering the o-retailer's product differentiation decision, the t-retailer is only likely to execute price matching if the non-digital attributes of the product category sold by two retailers are not very obvious.     

Personalized managerial response and negative inconsistent review helpfulness: The mediating effect of perceived response helpfulness

Understanding the effect of managerial response on online review management has attracted the attention of scholars in recent years. However, the effect of personalized managerial response on the negative inconsistent review is a lack of evidence. This study investigates how personalized managerial responses influence negative review helpfulness according to the various levels of review inconsistency and the underlying mechanism behind the effect. We adopted a secondary data analysis based on the TripAdvisor dataset and used an online experiment study to investigate the impact mechanism. Findings reveal that the personalized managerial response positively influences review helpfulness, review inconsistency (negative rating with positive textual sentiment) moderates the effect of personalized managerial response on review helpfulness, and perceived response helpfulness mediates the above relationships. More specifically, personalized managerial response to negative inconsistent reviews has a pronounced effect on consumers’ perception of response helpfulness and their evaluation of review helpfulness. This study improves the current understanding of managerial responses, and provides practical guidance for hoteliers, consumers, and travel websites.     

Understanding the impact of online customers’ shopping experience on online impulsive buying: A study on two leading E-commerce platforms

Research offers some indication that the online customers' shopping experience (OCSE) can be a strong predictor of online impulsive buying behavior, but there is not much empirical support available to form a holistic understanding; whether, and indeed how, the effects of the OCSE on online impulsive buying behavior are affected by customers' attitudinal loyalty and self-control are not well understood areas of research. In this study, we examine how functional and psychological dimensions of the OCSE influence online impulsive buying within e-commerce platforms. We will investigate customers' attitudinal loyalty as a mediator between the OCSE and online impulsive buying behavior, and the customers' self-control as a moderator between customers' attitudinal loyalty and online impulsive buying. To analyze these relationships we will conduct an online survey (n = 1489) with customers of two leading Chinese e-commerce platforms: Jindong and Taobao. The findings from structural equation modeling indicate a positive relationship between the tested dimensions of the OCSE and customers' online impulsive buying. We also find a mediating role of customers' attitudinal loyalty and negative moderation of customers’ self-control. Theoretically, the findings contribute to the literature regarding online impulsive buying and the online customer experience. For managers, the findings stress the importance of ethical management with regard to the online shopping experiences.     

Impact of customers' assessment of website attributes on e-relationship in the securities brokerage industry: A multichannel perspective

The paper focuses on the comparison between pure e-retailers and multichannel retailers' customers and how they differ in their evaluations of functional and relational attributes of the website, as well as how these attributes impact online relationships. An online survey among online securities investors was conducted. Subjects were self-selected from blogs and forums dedicated to personal finance. A total of 326 questionnaires formed the final sample of this study. By using a series of univariate analyses of variance, structural equation modeling, and multi-group analysis, this research empirically demonstrates that the e-service quality evaluation and determinants of online relationship are different in multichannel contexts versus pure online ones. Results show that customers of multichannel retailers are not more loyal than those of pure online retailers. However, multichannel retailers exceed pure online retailers at achieving a higher level of online trust and a higher assessment of website features. The paper concludes with managerial implications that may be useful in multichannel retailing.     

Comparing consumer-produced product reviews across multiple websites with sentiment classification

ABSTRACT

Online consumer reviews have been extensively studied. However, existing literature analyzing online consumer review data mostly relies on a single data source, resulting in potentially biased analytics conclusions. Many websites encourage consumers to post reviews of their purchased products, so that new consumers can evaluate these reviews for the same product across different websites to help them make purchasing decisions. Confusions often arise in this process, because there often exist substantial discrepancies in customer reviews across different retailers on the same product. Clarifying such confusions can help consumers reduce concerns to make up their mind for their purchases, therefore benefiting both consumers and retailers. Through text analytics and sentiment analysis, we comparatively examine the underlying patterns of online consumer reviews of three large retailers including Sears, Home Depot, and Best Buy for a same product. Afterward, we combine online consumer reviews from these large retailers and conduct an overall text analytics and sentiment analysis. The overall results are further compared with the results from individual retailers. The findings show that the sentiment of the online consumer reviews could vary substantially so relying on a single data source to make purchase decision is not a wise idea. Based on the results, we further devise a framework to comparatively examine and integrate multiple data sources for social media analytics of online consumer reviews. This study offers important managerial implications and identifies several new research directions for social media analytics.     

Do cultural orientations moderate the effect of online review features on review helpfulness? A case study of online movie reviews

The perceived helpfulness of online product reviews plays a critical role in consumers’ decisions in e-commerce. In this context, based on the literature on information processing and cultural effects, this study explored the role of review features in the perceived helpfulness of online movie reviews. A cross-cultural investigation (i.e., China cf. the United States (US)) was employed to identify high-vs. low-context cultural orientation and uncertain avoidance orientation as moderators. The results reveal that review length, timeliness, title sentiment, and emotional expressions are significant predictors of helpfulness for consumer reviews in China and the US. In addition, cultural differences between the two countries, that is, high-vs. low-context culture and uncertainty avoidance, moderated the relationships between review length, timeliness, title sentiments, and review helpfulness.     

When does electronic word-of-mouth matter? A study of consumer product reviews

Online consumer product reviews, a form of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), have attracted increased attention from researchers. This paper examines the persuasiveness of eWOM. Drawing on regulatory focus theory, the authors propose that the consumption goals that consumers associate with the reviewed product moderate the effect of review valence on persuasiveness. Data from lab experiments and actual online retailers suggest that consumers who evaluate products associated with promotion consumption goals perceive positive reviews to be more persuasive than negative ones (i.e., a positivity bias). Conversely, consumers who evaluate products associated with prevention consumption goals perceive negative reviews to be more persuasive than positive ones (i.e., a negativity bias).     

Why should I believe this? Deciphering the qualities of a credible online customer review

Online customer reviews have been shown to have a powerful impact on the sales of a given product or service. However, the qualities of a ‘credible’ online customer review are still subject to debate. Existing research has highlighted the potential influence of a range of factors on the credibility of an online customer review, but relies heavily on quantitative methods and a ‘top down’ approach. In turn, this can reduce our understanding of the influence of these factors into merely discerning whether one pre-determined factor is more influential than another is. This paper adopted a ‘bottom up’ thematic analysis of individual qualitative interviews with a purposeful sample of consumers who regularly utilised online customer reviews. The findings uncovered a range of factors that influenced the credibility of an online customer review that were attached to a reader’s personal experience and to the content of a specific review, and inferred the existence of a reciprocal relationship between the constructs of review helpfulness and review credibility.     

How do customers meet their needs in in-store and online fashion shopping? A comparative study based on the jobs-to-be-done theory

Understanding customer needs is key for fashion retailers to stay competitive and innovative. Surprisingly, however, extant literature mainly explores customer needs in terms of a garment and its attributes rather than viewing shopping as a problem-solving process to meet customer needs. Moreover, these studies fail to address how customers meet their needs in-store (ISFR) and online fashion retailing (OFR). To fill this research gap, we empirically investigate customers' personal and social needs and how they can be met through the jobs-to-be-done theory. Findings reveal that, beyond the purchase of a garment, customer needs can be fulfilled through different ways, such as smart technology or a person's high interaction with social others in ISFR and the online shop experience or a social linkage without social interaction in OFR. Additionally, our findings offer potential service innovations for fashion retailing managers.     

Big social data and customer decision making in vegetarian restaurants: A combined machine learning method

Customers increasingly use various social media to share their opinion about restaurants service quality. Big data collected from social media provides a data platform to improve the service quality of restaurants through customers' online reviews, where online reviews are a trustworthy and reliable source that helps consumers to evaluate food quality. Developing methods for effective evaluation of customer-generated reviews of restaurant services is important. This study develops a new method through effective learning techniques for customer segmentation and their preferences prediction in vegetarian friendly restaurants. The method is developed through text mining (Latent Dirichlet Allocation), cluster analysis (Self Organizing Map) and predictive learning technique (Classification and Regression Trees) to reveal the customer’ satisfaction levels from the service quality in vegetarian friendly restaurants. Based on the obtained results of our experiments on the data vegetarian friendly restaurants in Bangkok, the models constructed by Classification and Regression Trees were able to give an accurate prediction of customers' preferences on the basis of restaurants' quality factors. The results showed that customers’ online reviews analysis can be an effective way for customers segmentation to predict their preferences and help the restaurant managers to set priority instructions for service quality improvements.     

Online channel adoption in supermarket retailing

Introducing a new online channel is a crucial decision for brick-and-mortar retailers that requires insight and forecasts into customers' adoption and subsequent behaviour. The aim of this study is to analyse the dynamics in the behavioural heterogeneity of (new) multichannel supermarket customers when the online channel is introduced. A Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was conducted on 1151 adopters of the new online channel of a supermarket retailer to segment customers. We employed an extended “Recency, Frequency and Monetary (RFM)” model that includes customers’ purchases prior to the introduction of the new channel. Results show that adopters of a new channel are not a homogenous group of customers displaying a similar behaviour: two segments – or 35% of the sample – quit the channel after using it for some time, another segment (5%) left the company altogether, the other four segments remained multichannel to different degrees, with one shifting shopping substantially to online. Based on these results, the paper provides directions to retailers for developing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies to manage the different customer segments and support channel performance evaluation and channel management decisions in a multichannel context.     

Online Shopper Reviews: Ramifications for Promotion and Website Utility

Today's consumers are empowered with online shopper reviews which are mostly written and posted by buyers, customers, users, or visitors at a website. Shopper reviews will become more popular and ubiquitous in e-tailing in the near future. However, the marketing literature is still limited when it comes to knowledge of how shoppers perceive and use online reviews in their purchase decisions. Hence, this study explored shoppers’ predispositions toward positive or negative reviews and examined the impact of consumers’ attitudes and usage patterns on their perceived helpfulness and credibility of online shopper/peer reviews. One interesting finding from our study of 342 online shoppers was that consumers who would pay greater attention to positive reviews gave reviews more credible and usefulness ratings than their counterparts who would focus on the negative reviews.