The Influence Of Company’s Feedback Method On The Effects Of Negative Electric Word-of-mouth

With the development of E-commerce, electric word-of-mouth has become one of thekey channels for consumers to know the company and the product. Generally speaking,negative electric word-of-mouth can curb consumer behavior. However, phenomenon like"negative word of mouth can also promote sales" happens in society, and it has not beenfully explained. Meanwhile, prior research has focused on whether companies shouldresponse to the negative eWOM or not, but none of them discuss about how shouldcompanies respond. Therefore, the following questions are put forward:1) Is it certain thatnegative eWOM will curb consumer behavior?2) What factors will influence the effectsof negative eWOM?3) When will negative eWOM promote consumer behavior?4) Whatkind of feedback method should companies take to make the negative eWOM promoteconsumer behavior?In order to clarify these questions, a comprehensive literature review related tonegative eWOM was taken to find the factors that influence the effects of negative eWOM.These factors are divided into five categories:1) the company, brand or product itself;2)the properties of the negative eWOM;3) the sender of the negative eWOM;4) the receiverof the negative eWOM;5) the shopping website. Trough analysis and induction, anintegrated framework of factors that influence the effects of negative eWOM was putforward. Then, a model of the influence of company’s feedback method on the effects ofnegative eWOM was constructed and tested through empirical study. The model discussedabout how the interaction effects of product category, importance of negative attributesand company’s feedback methods influence the negative eWOM effects.The study found that product category will affect consumers’ perceived risk directly,the importance of negative attributes and the way of company’s feedback will affect theconsumer’s confidence of negative eWOM and then affect their perceived risk, andperceived risk will affect consumer’s purchase intention. The interaction effect ofcompany’s feedback method and product category on purchase intention, and theinteraction effect of company’s feedback method and the importance of negative attributeon consumer’s confidence of eWOM are both significant. Based on these findings, somesuggestions about how companies should respond to the negative eWOM are put forward. For example, for utilitarian products, especially when the negative attribute is veryimportant，the company should give defensive feedback to reduce consumer’s confidenceof negative eWOM and perceived risk, and to increase consumer’s purchase intention. Butfor hedonic products, especially when the negative attribute is not that important, thenegative eWOM will not curb consumer behavior significantly, so the company could justmake service recovery through accommodative feedback to improve the customers’satisfaction and consumers’ purchase intention. This study can also provide sometheoretical support for related research.