Negative Online Reviews And Firm Response To The Reviews

The scale of Chinese online shopper becomes larger and larger,but the risk of shopping online is still much greater than that of in-store shopping.So much uncertainty exists in online purchase that many consumers take the step to reference online reviews and ratings before they make purchase decisions.The advancement of communication technology and the prevalence of social media make online reviews an ever-important source of product information.Online reviews play an important role in reducing uncertainty and providing indirect experiences to potential customers.Online consumer reviews usually are user-oriented and directly relevant to the information that consumers need.In fact,online reviews serve the role of information provider and recommender,which may influence consumers,purchase behavior.But negative reviews or experiences are more impressive and more likely to influence consumers decisions.Many cases demonstrate that online sellers' failure to respond to negative reviews may lead to serious consequences.The paper offered a literature review on the concepts,the features,and the function of online review.Then it continued to provide theories on the influence of negative reviews,the impact of review manipulation,and the value of firm response to negative reviews.In addition,theories of review response strategy provided a framework for detailed analysis.Data of negative online reviews and review response from six brands on tmall.com and jd.com were collected.Data classification and coding was conducted subsequently.In the end,the paper picked out some flaws in the existing review response and propose possible strategies to improve response from the perspective of trust theory.Furthermore,empirical study was conducted to test the effectiveness of suggested strategy improvement.