A Rapport Management Study On Complaints And Their Responses In Online Consumer Reviews

This paper is a rapport management study on customer’s complaints and shop owner’s responses in an online shopping website.In the past,there are many studies only focusing on complaints or complaint responses solely but paying less attention to the interpersonal relationship between complaints and their responses.This study will investigate the relations between complaints and their responses based on Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management theory.The data are collected from e Bay’s feedback board,including customer’s negative reviews and shop owner’s responses.Three research questions are listed as follows:(1)What are the interpersonal relationship orientations in each kind of complaints and complaint responses in online consumer reviews?(2)How do shop owners respond to different complaints?(3)Why do shop owners respond differently to these complaints?This study presents the categories of complaints and complaint responses in the online shopping environment,and analyzes their relationship orientation,then describes shop owner’s responding way to each complaint strategy,and finally interprets the influencing factors that cause different response.Based on previous categorization of complaints,this study classifies complaints into these four strategies:(1)mention of the offensive act;(2)expression of annoyance or disapproval;(3)explicit complaint;and(4)accusation and warning.And its degree of relationship damage from the lowest to the highest is listed below: mention of the offensive act,expression of annoyance or disapproval,explicit complaint,and accusation and warning.According to previous categorizations of complaint responses,this paper divides shop owners’ responses into five strategies:(1)making an apology;(2)explaining;(3)justifying;(4)denying;and(5)counterattacking.And its degree of relationship damage is growing as this order.Among these response strategies,making an apology and explaining belong to rapport-enhancing orientation,justifying is rapport-maintaining strategy,denying belongs to rapport-neglecting orientation and counterattacking is labeled as rapport-challenging orientation.After analyzing the responding way of each complaint strategy,it is found that,when the complaint strategy has a lower threat to the rapport between customer and shop owner,the response strategy may also tend to enhance or maintain the relationship.However,when the complaint strategy has a higher threat to the interpersonal rapport,shop owner’s response strategy may tend to challenge or destroy the relationship between them.What’s more,the influencing factors are explored in the next part.They may be related to face-threatening,rights-threatening and goal-threatening behaviors in the complaint strategy,as well as the message content of the complaint.At last,this paper is expected to provide some suggestions for the online communication between customers and shop owners about how to express more appropriately and then increase the efficiency of their communication.Meanwhile,this study gives some suggestions for the future study on complaint and complaint response.