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Thursday, November 10
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PP 166
Organizational Reactions to Customer Complaints in Social Media – An Experimental Study on the Perception of Uninvolved Recipients
B. Viererbl
1
, S. Himmelreich
1
, T. Koch
1
1
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Institut für Publizistik, Mainz, Germany
Social media have changed the way how customers and organizations communicate with each other. Next to numerous possibilities, e.g. for interaction or
maintaining relationships with customers, this change also bears severe risks for organizations. Customers are now enabled to voice their dissatisfaction
publicly and therefore not only reach the company or organization itself but also other customers (Hogreve, Eller & Firmhover, 2013). These publicly voiced
complaints are a form of electronic word of mouth communication, defined as any positive or negative statement made by (potential or actual) custom‑
ers or other stakeholders about a product or company via the Internet (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004). Since social media complaints can harm the image
of an organization (van Noort & Willemsen, 2012), they have become highly relevant for pro-active issues management and crisis prevention. Thus, for
organizations it is crucial to know how to effectively react to complaints voiced via social media. The present study thus investigates, how different response
strategies influence the perceived corporate image of uninvolved recipients. As a theoretical background we draw on approaches of crisis communication
and impression management. Coombs (2007) Situational Crisis Communication Theory offers several response strategies depending on the crisis attribu‑
tion of the organizations stakeholder. While Impression Management refers to people's self-presentation attempts in order to influence the perception by
others (e.g. Schlenker, 1980), it can also be applied to an organization’s effort to establish a certain image (Ebert & Piwinger, 2007). Impression Manage‑
ment research (e.g. Schütz, 1998) therefore provides a broader approach for systemizing organizations response strategies. To test the impact of different
response-strategies we conducted an online experiment. We employed a 4 (response strategy: assertive/ offensive/ defensive/ no response) x 2 (corporate
identity: standard/ exclusive) design. Participants first saw a short description of a fictional food delivery service and afterwards a complaint on Facebook
including the organizations reaction. Participants (N=721) were recruited via an online-panel (age range 19 to 82, MAge=38.15, SD=14.22, 59% fe‑
male). To evaluate the hypothesized effects, ANOVAS were conducted. Results show significant main effects of response-strategies on various dimensions
of the perceived corporate image, indicating that defensive strategies lead to a more positive appraisal of an organizations competence (F(3,717) = 3.92,
p = .009), sincerity (F(3,717) = 11.97, p < .001), and warmth (F(3,717) = 9.13, p < .001). Results further reveal a positive effect for offensive strategies
on the perceived excitement (F(3,717) = 7.05, p < .001). There were no significant main effects for the corporate identity and no interactions between
the corporate identity and response strategies. Additionally, our analyses show diverging results for the different strategies on the appraisal of communi‑
cation behavior, indicating that defensive strategies are perceived as more reliable, appropriate and credible than assertive, offensive, or missing reactions.
However, offensive strategies are considered to be more creative and individual. In summary, this study underlines that different response strategies affect
specific image dimensions. Hence, organizations should choose response strategies in accordance to the image dimension they would like to influence.
PP 167
Are All Online Consumer Reviews the Same? Characteristics and Effects on Sales of Green Product Reviews
E. Maslowska
1
, A. Wonneberger
2
1
Northwestern University, Medill IMC, Evanston, USA
2
University of Amsterdam, ASCoR, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Although consumers’interest in organic products has been growing over the last decades, actual sales of such products have not been keeping up with this
development. Different barriers have been related to this attitude-behavior gap of green consumerism. Providing adequate information on green products
seems to be the key to overcoming them. Specifically, recommendations from other consumers have been shown to be the most trusted source of informa‑
tion. Consumer reviews are a common feature of online retailers’websites and there has been a plethora of research into the influence of different review
features. Research on the role of reviews for green products is scarce though. Hence, our aim was to study the role of review exposure, valence and volume
in the purchase probability of green versus non-green products. Phrases such as“natural”or“organic”are vague and often misused. In addition, consumers
may not be convinced that a green product is of the same quality as a non-green one, while it is often more expensive. Hence, consumers are more involved
with the purchase of green products, which means they are more willing to spend time and resources on reading about the product and elaborating on
their decision. Hence, we expected that consumers may be more willing to read reviews about green products. Due to different levels of involvement with
green versus non-green products, the effect of review features, such as valence (i.e., average number of stars) and volume (i.e., higher number of reviews)
may be different. Valence and volume constitute heuristic cues for the quality and popularity of products. Since consumers shopping for green products
read and process reviews more centrally, we expected these cues to matter less for them. Correspondingly, the content of reviews may play a different role,
and consumers of green products may be particularly affected by arguments that directly relate to the main purchase motivations. Thus, we expected that
environmental and health-related references would have a greater effect on sales of green products compared to other types of arguments. We tested our
hypotheses with data from an internet-only retailer selling customer packaged goods. We had 15 weeks of sales data. We included 16 categories of cos‑
metic products and the most popular brands (n = 1,319,757). We tested two logistic regression models and conducted a quantitative content analysis
of a sub-sample of reviews (n = 436) to get insight into arguments used for green versus non-green products. Preliminary findings show that reviews
of green products are significantly more likely to be read than those of non-green products, (Est = .15, SE = .01, χ2= 470.77, p < .0001), suggesting that
reviews may represent a relevant contribution to overcoming the attitude-behavior gap of green consumerism. We also find that when consumers buying
green products do not read reviews, valence does not matter much, which implies a presence of some savvy consumers of green products. We are currently
finalizing the content analysis and building a more comprehensive model, including different clusters of customers.