Research On The Strategies Of Consumer Trust Repair Under Product Harm Crisis

Due to the more fierce competition in the industry, the rapid dissemination of information, the more strict product safety legislation and the enhancement of consumer rights awareness, product harm crisis occurs frequently in recent years. The product purchase decisions are largely based on consumer trust. Consumer trust in the enterprise would be seriously damaged by the product harm crisis which has a catastrophic impact on enterprises. Timely consumer trust repair is crucial for the enterprise, however, most companies often deal with the crisis based on the experience and intuition and did not respond effectively, resulting in long-term and even devastating negative impact by the product harm crisis on businesses. Understanding and grasping the methods and process of consumer trust repair is critical for consumer trust repair, which gradually taken seriously by the scholars at home and abroad.Based on collating and summarizing relevant research results at home and abroad systematically, this paper which makes a combination use of norms scientific research methods, such as chaos theory and game theory and system science theory, and empirical methods, such as the actual research and structural equation model and case study, makes intensive research on the chaos characteristics of consumer trust under product harm crisis and direct consumer trust repair and indirect consumer trust repair of the crisis brand, and trust repair of the negative spillover by the product harm crisis. This paper revealing the mechanism of consumer trust repair, not only expand and enrich the perspective and method of trust repair research and crisis management theory, but also provide decision supporting and guidance for enterprise manager especially the high management staff in trust repair, which can help the enterprises in China to face the trust crisis successfully and strengthen the competitiveness.Firstly, the consumer trust network was established based on the analysis of consumer trust constitution and transitivity. The impact of the product harm crisis on consumer trust violation was analyzed. The butterfly effect phenomenon of consumer trust was put forward and case studies were launched. Based on evolutionary game theory and chaos theory, the dynamic evolution model of consumer trust was established. The consumer trust leaded to chaos through period-doubling bifurcation. Consumer trust repair was essentially the remedy of the evolution of complex systems which could be chaotic. Then an architecture of the mechanism of consumer trust repair was constructed, which contained the direct repair mechnism, the indirect repair mechnism and the repair mechnism of negative spillover. That provides a new perspective and entry point for the theory study and practice of consumer trust repair.Secondly, The trust repair strategy, ability, integrity, benevolence, perceived risk and trust after the repair are important for the problem of direct consumer trust repair in the product harm crisis, the relationship among these variables was analyzed. The theoretical model of direct consumer trust repair was established. Drawn lessons from foreign mature scale and modified, the scenario simulation method was adopted to design the questionnaire and structural equation model was established to verify assumptions. The results show that perceived risk worked as the mediating variable in the process of consumer direct trust repair. Then, the significant regulating effects between trust repair strategy and corporate credibility for the product harm crisis event were investigated and verified.Thirdly, the influence of information transmission on indirect consumer trust of the crisis brand was analyzed. It pointed out that indirect consumer trust was in essence of the problem of information transmission control. Based on the perspective of information dissemination, the indirect consumer trust model under product harm crisis was built. The numerical simulation of the consumer trust repair process in the uniform network and complex network was carried out using the runge-kutta method and limited node iteration method respectively. The impact on consumer trust repair for the variable initial value, the transmission rate, transmission coefficient, time delay and complex network topology was discussed.Then, consumer trust of the brands which product harm crisis did not occur in the enterprise still can be destroyed due to the negative spillover effects of the crisis brand. The impact of negative spillover effects on consumer trust in the other product brands was analyzed. The consumer trust repair model of negative spillover of product harm crisis was established based on signaling game theory. Advertising, reputation and commitment to compensation were selected as signals. the trust repair strategies balances in different situations was analyzed. The asymmetric information problem between businesses and consumers was solved. The study showed that information asymmetry leaded to the lack of trust in a certain extent. Signal transmission was the most direct and common approach to solve information asymmetry which could solve consumer trust repair problems due to negative spillover of product harm crisis effectively.Finally, select FAW airbag crisis, Sanlu melamine crisis, KFC instant chicken crisis, Shuanghui clenbuterol crisis, Baushe and Lomb care solution crisis and Mengniu aflatoxin crisis as examples, the evolution of product harm crisis over time and strategies of the enterprise were analyzed. Combining with the above theoretical research results, consumer trust repair mechanism in the cases were analyzed. Finally, through comparative case analysis, the effects of perceived risk, severity of the crisis, information dissemination, response time and occurrences of trust violation in the process of consumer trust repair were shown, and the consumer trust repair effect of the negative spillover of product harm crisis in the enterprise was also analyzed.