Peter KerkhofSonja Utz
Camiel BeukeboomVU University Amsterdam
Dept. of Communication Science9th International Conference on Research in Advertising
ICORIA, June 25/26 2010Madrid, Spain
The ironic effects of organizational responses to negative online consumer reviews
The rise of social media
• 2003: No Facebook, no Twitter, no Linkedin, no Hyves
• 2009:• Hyves 10.000.000 members in the Netherlands• Facebook: 4000.000.000 members, 600.000 new members,
60.000.000 use mobile Facebook• Linkedin: 53.000.000 members, 1 new member each second
(86.000 daily)• 75.000.000 members on Twitter, 800.000 tweets per hour
• 19% of all tweets is brand related• 20% of all brand related tweets is evaluative
– 55% positive, 33% negative
Source: Jansen et al., 2009
Brands in social media
Brands in social media
Brands in social media
Brands in social media
Brands in social media
The effects of consumer generated content
• Productevaluations
• Sales
• Brand awareness
• Reputation
• Trust
Brands have started to respond
Top 100 Dutch brands (2009):- 35 present in social media- mainly Twitter & Hyves
Brands have started to respond
Online reputation management:- Monitoring- Adding content - Starting brand communities - Influencing the influencers- Responding to online complaint & questions
Brands have started to respond
Brands have started to respond
Brands have started to respond
• Interpersonal • Computer-mediated• Public• Shared• On consumers’ territory
A new kind of brand communication
A new kind of brand communication
• Customer care• Marketing• PR• Sales• Product development
• Audience effects of responding to online complaints
• No response vs. ....–Apologies vs. denial– Informal (vs. formal) responses–Empathic reactions– .....
• Source effects
Our research
• Dependent variables– Credibility (competence, integrity)– Product evaluations– Review(er) credibility– Communicated customer commitment– Conversational human voice – Underdog effect
Our research
Design
Complaint
Apologies
Formal
Informal
Denial
Formal
Informal
No response
• Online experiments• n = 20 – 25 per cell• Apologies vs. denial vs.no response• Dependent variables: evaluation of brand,
review(er), • Moderator: prior brand involvement
Study 1
Study 1
Study 1
Study 1
Results
Results
Results
• Study 1:• online customer care backfires
• organizational competence • reviewer competence• severity of complaint
• especially (but not only)•when responsibility is denied•among brand involved customers
Study 2: Effects of informal vs. formal responses
- 2 (formal vs. informal) x 2 (apologies vs. financial compensation) design + control
Results Study 2
• Cognitive responses• Communicated relational commitment • Conversational voice• Fairness • Underdog effect
Positive effects of informal responses
Perso
onlijk
, exc
uses
Onper
soon
lijk, e
xcus
es
Perso
onlijk
, ver
goed
ing
Onper
soon
lijk, v
ergo
eding
Geen r
eacti
e0.0%
20.0%
40.0%
60.0%
Cognitive responses (% positive)
Study 3
- Replicates effects of informal reactions
- Moderation by company size
Conclusions
- be careful how to respond to brand mentions in social media
- be informal
- apologize when necessary
- is not responding still an option?
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