Antecedents Of User Satisfaction

With the rapid economic development of our country,the product user’s demand is becoming more diversified and personalized,which makes the competition among product manufacturers is increasingly fierce.There is no doubt that the first mover in product innovation who can satisfy users’ needs better and faster is more likely to gain a competitive advantage.Previous relevant studies mainly based on the survey method and taking the perspective of the product user are subject to the sample limitation,and time consuming as well.In contrast,online reviews from product users are relatively advantageous largely due to their spontaneity and easy accessibility.Therefore,in this study,we attempt to develop a new approach to facilitating product innovation by simultaneously utilizing online reviews and survey.Specifically,two questions motivate this study:(1)How product manufacturers can make good use of online reviews that are complicated,spontaneous,and scattered,to improve existing products,innovate new products,and thus increase their market competitiveness?(2)How to use the negative reviews from the product user to improve the product and better satisfy user needs?Toward this end and based on a thorough review on the relevant literature,we build a conceptual model and develop hypotheses to explain how product user satisfaction is influenced by different product components(i.e.,core product,physical product,and additional product),the user’s perceived value,and product familiarity.Data are collected using questionnaire survey where questionnaire items are based on user online reviews and relevant literature.SPSS20.0 is employed to analyze the data.The main findings are as follows:(1)The performance of core product,physical product and additional product is positively related to the product user satisfaction.That is,the better the product functions,the higher the product user satisfaction will be.When the performance of the core product is not good,user satisfaction will drop,resulting in negative user reviews.Accordingly,the firm can make use of negative reviews to learn how to improve products.The conclusions of this study provide theoretical support for this approach.(2)The level of the user’s familiarity for the product moderates the relationship between the performance of different product components and user satisfaction.Specifically,as the user’s product familiarity increases,the relationship between the performance of the core product and the product user’s satisfaction becomes more pronounced.Therefore,the product manufacturer can focus more on online reviews of the users who are more familiar with the product to improve the core product and/or develop new products.