Triggering Word-of-Mouth with Social Closeness and Complaint-Reaction-Time?!

Every day, millions of consumers observe online complaints and adapt their purchase-related intentions accordingly. This work sheds light on the role of (a) social closeness to the complainant and (b) reaction time of the recovering company on observing consumers’ in-clination to spread negative and positive word-of-mouth (PWOM and NWOM). We ran a 2 (social closeness: close vs. distant) x 2 (reaction time: immediate vs. delayed) between-subjects online experiment with participants observing an online complaint about a COVID-19 related service failure at a fictitious hotel. The results showed that observers show higher NWOM if they perceive high – as compared to low – closeness towards the complaining person as well as if the company has a delayed – as compared to an immediate – reaction. However, these effects do not occur for PWOM. Implications for theory and practice on the diversity of PWOM vs. NWOM are discussed.