A Critical Appraisal of Word-of-Mouth (WOM) on Consumer Buying Behavior (A Cross Regional and Sectorial Study)

Abstract

The relevance of the Word-of-Mouth (WoM) as a strategic marketing tool cannot be over emphasized and this has been widely documented on consumer behavior literatures and journals. People like giving a firsthand experience of any product or service they come in contact with, this could either be experiences from the bar or restaurant they went, the movie they watched over the long weekend, computer they purchased, book they read or places they visited. Researchers have buttressed the fact that this is a vital tool in expressing the level of satisfaction consumers derive from the consumption of products and services and also expressing their distastes if otherwise. For over 50 years, Word of Mouth (WoM ongoing) has been actively researched (Brooks 1957), hence, it has been recognized as one of the most influential sources of information transmission since the beginning of society, especially for experience goods (Godes & Mayzlin, 2004).The consumer decision making process can be regarded as a in a circle trip with four main phases which depicts major points of consideration that determines if a marketer can succeed or otherwise. These phases are the initiation consideration stage, researching potential purchase stage, purchase or closure stage and post purchase stage (David C, et al, 2009). However, it should be understood that the consumer decision process doesn’t always follow a specified process, Shyamala and Ravilochanan, (2011), explained that different buying factors affect an already prescribed list of items at the final purchasing point, such factors could be the brand of the product, WoM, advertisement, cost of the product etc, but still, the traditional WoM holds the best appeal in respect to all advertising platforms (Rodrigo, 2012). Therefore understanding consumer purchase behavior and factors that influence it such as the WoM involves not only understanding how decisions are made but also understanding the dynamics that influence purchases.The major aim of this proposal is to appraise the purchasing or closure stage where consumer eventually makes purchase. As identified above, there are various factors that determine whether a consumer makes purchase on what he/she initially had in mind and the eventual purchase, part of this factor is the WoM, hence, we would like to measure the significance of WoM in various different regions and sectors at the same time period, and also evaluate the impact of both positive and negative WoM on customer experience and their buying behaviors.