Abstract
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’ inclination 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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 2023 EMAC Annual Conference |
| Publisher | European Marketing Academy |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
| Event | EMAC 2023 - University of Souther Denmark, Odense, Denmark Duration: 23 May 2023 → 26 May 2023 |
Conference
| Conference | EMAC 2023 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Denmark |
| City | Odense |
| Period | 23.05.2023 → 26.05.2023 |
Keywords
- Service recovery
- Recovery
- Social closeness
- Social presence
- Word-of-mouth
- Negative word-of-mouth
- Positive word-of-mouth
- Failure
- Dissatisfaction
