| In the social media environment,consumers are able to post positive or negative opinions and comments about companies online,without the constraints of various realworld environments.This information can be widely disseminated based on social media as a company’s electronic word of mouth(e WOM).When potential consumers lack personal experience with a brand’s products or services,or need to know about an unfamiliar brand,search for relevant information and rely on online reviews to make purchase decisions.Potential consumers take e WOM as a key information to make quality judgments and purchase decisions.In the Internet environment,the process of consumer buying behavior is that of attracting attention,arousing interest,information search,generating action and information sharing,which is the AISAS model,where information search and information sharing reflect the characteristics of consumer behavior in the Internet environment.Therefore,potential consumers will be influenced by other consumers’ information sharing on social media and become real consumers.For companies,positive WOM will have a significant positive impact,and negative WOM will also have a great negative impact.The wide spread of e WOM can be very important,even fatal,for companies.Nowadays,more and more dissatisfied consumers post their dissatisfaction with companies or complaints about their consumption experiences online.This negative information spreads rapidly online and can adversely affect consumer attitudes,brand image,corporate reputation and purchase intentions,raising the perceived risk of consumers,which is detrimental to attracting new customers.In order to reduce the unfavorable impact of negative information and improve the quality of customer relationships,companies will provide remedial responses to negative information,i.e.,online service support(webcare).Companies protect their own reputation by proactively addressing consumer complaints online and adopting appropriate strategies to respond to negative e WOM.This is not only to appease dissatisfied consumers,repair and even improve consumers’ evaluation of the brand;it is also to prevent the loss of consumers caused by the spread of negative e WOM that does not successfully convert potential consumers into new consumers for the company.The public accessibility of information in social media has led to more diverse interaction types for online service support.Both the complaint information and the company’s remedial response on social media can be seen by other users,and these users can also participate by interacting,communicating,or commenting on the complaint or recovery process,i.e.,others’ virtual presence.This study focuses on the impact of these online reviews on potential consumers after service remediation.Because the existing research mainly focuses on the interaction between the company and the complaining customer,there is little research on how the combination of the company’s direct recovery response and the indirect response of others’ virtual presence affects the bystanders.Although the impact of third parties on service recovery is becoming increasingly important,the impact on bystanders has not received sufficient attention.There are no consistent results on how information from different sources affects bystanders.It is also not clear how and to what extent online reviews influence the company’s service recovery.In the context of social media,effective recovery is not only the company’s direct recovery of complaints,but also other users’ virtual presence after company’s service recovery.Therefore,it is necessary to study the impact of others’ virtual presence on observers after the company’s service recovery.To fill the gap in this area of research,this research focus on the impact of other users’ virtual presence after company’s service recovery in the context of social media based on social impact theory,attribution theory,dual information processing theory and SOR model.Specifically,this research attempts to explore the following issues: first,in different levels of online service recovery scenarios,the impact of others’ virtual presence on observers’ brand attitudes and perceived risks;second,the influence mechanism mediated by attribution locus and attribution stability in the influence of others’ virtual presence on observers’ brand attitudes after online service recovery;third,the impact of others’ virtual presence after online service recovery on the observer’s perceived reviewer rationality,the moderating role of the empathy,and the mediating role of observer’s perceived credibility of the reviewer and perceived the usefulness of the review in the impact of perceived rationality on brand attitude.The research method of this study is an experimental research method.We collected the data in the form of questionnaires.We applied SPSS and Amos software to process the data by statistical methods such as ANOVA,correlation analysis and regression analysis.The conclusions are as follows:First,when the service recovery is successful or unsuccessful,positive virtual presence can increase observers’ brand attitudes;when the service recovery is very successful or successful,negative virtual presence decrease observers’ brand attitudes.When others’ virtual presence is inconsistent with the service recovery,it will have the same impact on observer as the valence of virtual presence;i.e.,negative virtual presence after successful service recovery has a negative impact on the observers’ brand attitude,and positive virtual presence after unsuccessful service recovery has a positive impact on the observers’ brand attitude.When virtual presence is highly consistent with service recovery,there is no additional impact on observers;i.e.,positive virtual presence(vs.no virtual presence)after very successful service recovery has no significant difference on brand attitude,negative virtual presence after unsuccessful service recovery has no significant difference on brand attitude between.In addition,there is no significant difference in observers’ perceived risk of service failure,no matter what the level of service recovery.Second,when the service recovery is very successful,stability of attribution mediates the effect of virtual presence on observers’ brand attitude.When the service recovery is successful,the effect of positive virtual presence on observers’ brand attitude is mediated by stability of attribution;the effect of negative virtual presence on observers’ brand attitude is mediated by locus of attribution and stability of attribution.When service recovery is unsuccessful,the effect of positive virtual presence on observers’ brand attitude is mediated by locus of attribution and stability of attribution;the effect of negative virtual presence on observers’ brand attitude is mediated by locus of attribution and stability of attribution.Third,when the service recovery is very successful or successful,there is no significant difference in the effect of positive versus negative virtual presence on perceived rationality of observers.However,when service recovery is unsuccessful,positive virtual presence significantly decrease the perceived rationality of observers.No matter what the level of service recovery,empathy moderates the effect of negative virtual presence on the perceived reviewer rationality of observer.Empathy moderates the effect of positive virtual presence on the perceived reviewer rationality of observer only after unsuccessful service recovery.The information processing path of virtual presence after service recovery,when virtual presence is positive,the information processing path is “perceived rationality-perceived credibility-brand attitude”;when virtual presence is negative,the information processing path is “perceived rationalityperceived usefulness-brand attitude”.This study provides some theoretical implications.Firstly,based on the process of information sharing and information search,this study expands the research of online service recovery and virtual presence.We focus on the impact of information shared by other consumers in social media on potential consumers after service recovery,which provides a new theoretical perspective on brand management and enriches the application and study of the AISAS model on the brand attitude of potential consumers.Second,we extend the application of social impact theory to the study of others’ virtual presence after online service recovery.We find that social impact theory holds for observers when others’ virtual presence after service recovery is inconsistent with the service recovery,but not holds when it is consistent.The review information that is inconsistent with service recovery has the persuasive effect of changing observers’ attitudes.Third,we investage the mechanism of others’ virtual presence after service recovery on observers’ brand attitude from the perspective of attribution,and explore how attribution mediates the effect of others’ virtual presence on observers’ brand attitude.Observers’ attribution perception of service recovery is influenced by responses from different sources;that is,observers’ attribution perception is not only influenced by company’s service recovery,but also by others’ virtual presence.This study provides an understanding perspective for understanding the impact of others’ virtual presence on observers from the company’s level.Fourth,we understand the mechanism of others’ virtual presence on brand attitude after service recovery from the perspective of observers’ perception of virtual presence,providing a new perspective for future research.We not only explore the effect of others’ virtual presence after service recovery on observers’ perception of reviewer rationality,but also explore the moderating role of empathy perception in it,which expands the application of empathy in research fields related to consumer interactions in service recovery.In addition,we apply information processing theory to the study of the effects of virtual presence on observers after service recovery based on the reasonable perception,providing a new understanding for exploring psychological perception of observers.This study has some practical implications.Firstly,marketers can predict the positive or negative customer engagement of others on social media according to the past purchase experiences or attitudes towards the company,which can be used to judge potential consumers’ attitudes towards the brand,evaluate the effectiveness of service recovery and the possibility of transforming potential consumers into new customers.Marketers should provide service recovery according to the real and realistic benefits that the brand has been able to bring to customers in the past.Second,when marketers perform service recovery,they should clarify why service failures occur.They should be aware of the important role of attribution stability in influencing observers’ brand attitude,which can be improved by reducing attribution stability.Third,companies should avoid trying to recover the failure of service recovery by controlling virtual presence after unsuccessful service recovery,which will conversely give observers an unreasonable perception of positive virtual presence and thus affect the brand attitude.Marketers should pay attention to reduce the empathy perception of negative reviewers.Marketers can improve observers’ attitudes toward the brand by increasing the credibility of positive reviewers or reducing the usefulness of negative reviews. |
PDF Full Text Request