Consumer's behavior facing word-of-mouth and the impact on marketing point of view: exploratory analysis

• Autor(a) principal: Gabeur, Hortense
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/13629
• topic: Word-of-mouth; Electronic word-of-mouth; Consumer’s behavior; Online feedbacks; Marketing; Satisfação do consumidor -- Consumer satisfaction; Comunicação interativa -- Interactive communication; Chat; Comportamento do consumidor -- Consumer behavior

With the development of the Web 2.0 and the new technologies, a new form of word-of mouth (WOM) appears. Consumers have a faster access to the information and can easily read and share feedbacks about a product or service. Since people no longer trust the traditional media, companies must understand this new tool to develop a better marketing strategy. To help marketer to understand consumer’s behavior facing electronic word-of-mouth (EWOM), a typology for consumer’s motivation to read online feedbacks is developed. Using an online sample of some 200 respondents, information on the structure and relevance of the consumers’ motives to read online comments is generated. The resulting analysis suggests that people read online feedbacks before buying a product for four reasons: reduce search and evaluation effort, reduce risks, enact negativity bias and social assurance. These four factors leading to EWOM behavior are important but not exhaustive. Companies should pay attention to EWOM reactions, adapt their marketing strategies and follow some rules to implement a good WOM behavior among their consumers.