Because of the new social media platforms (e.g., Yelp, Facebook, Twitter), individuals today have many ways to express their opinions (electronic word-of-mouth [eWOM]) about services, brands, companies, and employees. While positive comments from former customers can convince potential customers to try a service (Park and Lee 2009), negative online published opinions can have a significant impact on a consumer's choice (Laczniak et al. 2001; Senecal andNantel 2004), revenue (Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006; Dellarocas et al. 2007), a firm's stock returns (Tirunillai and Tellis 2010), and is more useful than positive eWOM messages for several product categories (Sen and Lerman 2007). The viral quality of negative eWOM diffusion in new online media can ruin a company's reputation and put a service company out of business. By investigating the effects on the company, Chatterjee (2001) found that negative reviews significantly deteriorate the service provider's perceived credibility. Our literature review additionally reveals that only a few studies have investigated the effects of different aspects of eWOM on credibility and trust as perceived by the receiver. Despite the importance of negative eWOM, the question of how to systematically react to unfavorable online comments has been widely neglected in academia.
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