Imagine, you’re on a birthday party without a mobile phone, tablet or laptop but you would like to have some information about a certain experience good because you’re considering a buy. I guess you might ask your friends or family relatives about their findings and opinions. Think again how you’re purchase decision looks like after they share a negative story about that related product….

In contrast with the traditional word of mouth ( face-to-face context ) , consumers use blogs, search engines, internet communities, social media, and consumer review systems to gather information and make informed purchase decisions. Due to the rise of internet and the development of phones, tablets or laptops, traditional word-of-mouth interactions are replaced/substituted by electronic word of mouth. So e-WOM, defined as “any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet” (T. Hennig-Thurau, 2003) is an important source used during the path to purchase or so called customer journey. Upon that, previous research conducted by Bickart and Shindler, show that customers actually pay more attention to the information provided by other customers rather than those of the salesperson or marketers because they have used the product and is considered as more trustworthy.

Understanding the importance of e-WOM, e-commerce sites attempt to encourage their customers to produce more e-WOM because consumer-produced information provides potential customers with a sense of trust. But how can firms (Online retailers), encourage their customers e-WOM participation, what are customers motivations and how does it affects e-Loyalty (customer loyalty in the internet market) ?

Research done by Yoo, C.H et al. in order to examine the impact of e-WOM participation on e-loyalty, has shown that both intrinsic and extrinsic motives have an impact on e-WOM participation. Specifically, it was found that internal motivation  most influences customer’s participation (fig 2). Customer’s participation is operationalized as the actual level of involvement and frequency in e-WOM writing and reviews. Customers participation behavior does have a significant impact on formation of Site identification. Site identification can be devided in (1) Personal site identification; the extent to which a customer thinks the image of an online shopping site matches his/ her own image, and (2) Social identification which refers to the identification that a customer feels with respect to interactions, via the e-WOM system, with other customers on the same online shopping site.( C.H, Yoo, 2013)

e-WOM participation behavior enhances social identity among customers. Additionally social identity plays a role in using the e-WOM system. It is for this reason important to maintain an e-WOM system for customers so they can develop a strong social identity on the site through enhanced interaction with other customers.

Finally, both personal and social site identifications have a significant influence on customer e-loyalty. Remarking,  that personal identification has a stronger impact on e-Loyalty.

Conclusive, based on the conducted research, when e-WOM is well managed, it was shown that it has positive effects on the  customer evaluation of the company and on intentions to repurchase.

Created by : Luut Willen

References :

Bickart, R.M. Schindler, Internet forums as influential sources of consumer information, Journal of Interactive Marketing 15 (2001) 31–40.

Hennig-Thurau, G. Walsh, Electronic word-of-mouth: motives for and consequences of reading customer articulations on the internet, International Journal of Electronic Commerce 8 (2003) 51–74.

Chul Woo Yoo, G. L. (2013). Exploring the effect of e-WOM participation on e-Loyalty in e-commerce. Decision Support Systems :DDS (2013)