Concrete narrative and media ranking effect on consumer satisfaction of DiDi services in China

Abstract

Narratives drive consumer satisfaction on the one hand and the reputation of the reporting media on the other hand, but current research addresses either alone. This article integrates the narrative of the consumer and the ranking of the reporting media to understand the consumer satisfaction in response to the direct effects and interaction effects. Construal Level Theory (CLT) explains the net and interaction effects whether and how concrete vs. abstract narrative of the user in a high technology service provider reflect on the consumer’s assessment of the service, and if so, how does the media ranking moderate this concrete-abstract narrative on the consumer satisfaction so that we can explain why it matters? We used multilevel mixed effects methods for direct and indirect results based on a large dataset on DiDi company in China, comprising 12,747 entries made by consumers on digital media platforms. Our analysis shows that, independently, concrete narrative and media ranking positively predict consumer satisfaction. However, interactively, concrete narrative becomes negative and the interaction coefficient is positive and stronger than either alone coefficient alone through direct effects. Moreover, the net effect of either the concrete narrative or media ranking becomes insignificant, suggesting a strong moderation effect of the media ranking between narratives and satisfaction. We also discovered a surprising factor in the data analysis, regarding the driver of the hailing service versus the company. The narrative referring to the company (DiDi) creates a positive assessment; the narrative referring to the driver creates a negative assessment. This study suggests the need for education, social skills and behavioural training for the drivers of DiDi can indirectly influence the company.