EXPRESS: The Weekend Effect in Online Reviews

How online reviews and coupons affect sales and pricing: An empirical study based on e-commerce platform

Response to Avila et al’s “Dermatologist Online Ratings for Botulinum Toxin are Nuanced and May be Misleading”

Negative online reviews and their ethical implications

PurposeThis study aims to integrate reviewers’ and readers’ discrepant perspectives on extremely negative reviews. Specifically, this study examines the relationship between negative emotion intensity levels and reviews helpfulness on two platforms: integrated websites and social networking sites (SNS) to emphasize the role of platform types on customers’ purchase decisions.Design/methodology/approachThis research adopts a mixed-method approach of business intelligence approach and quasi-experimental design. Study 1 performed text mining and Welch’s t-test to compare reviewers’ negative emotion intensity levels on two platforms. Study 2 adopted a 2*2 factorial quasi-experimental design to examine how intense negative emotions impact the perceived reviews helpfulness on two platforms. A 3*2 factorial design in Study 3 also tested social tie strength’s moderating effect between the intensity of negative emotions and review helpfulness.FindingsThe current study reveals that integrated website reviewers tend to express more extreme negative emotions than SNS reviewers. SNS and integrated website readers deem reviews that embed severe negative emotions as less helpful. The moderating role of social tie strength between extremely negative emotions on review helpfulness was insignificant in the study.Research limitations/implicationsThis study enriches the online review literature by comparing writers’ and readers’ perspectives on online reviews with extremely negative emotions across two online platform types: integrated websites and SNS. From the writers’ perspective, this study highlights anonymity and the presence of an audience as essential factors that reviewers consider in selecting an online review platform to express themselves. This research also sheds light on how readers’ perspectives on extremely negative reviews conflict with the presumptions of writers of extremely negative reviews on integrated websites by demonstrating that content embedding extremely negative emotions is less helpful regardless of platform type.Practical implicationsThis research provides online negative review management strategies to platform and hotel managers. The findings suggest hotel and review platform managers should consider adopting review alignment or monitoring systems based on negative emotions intensity levels since readers on both platforms perceive reviews embedding extremely negative emotions as less helpful. Additionally, hotel managers can progress promotions to guests who share online reviews on SNS since SNS reviewers are more likely to attenuate their extremely negative emotions when writing reviews.Originality/valueThis research innovatively provides a comprehensive overview of negative reviews’ production and consumption process from reviewers’ and readers’ perspectives. This research also provides practitioners insight into the nature of two different platform types and the management of negative reviews on these platforms.

Beyond weekdays: The impact of the weekend effect on eWOM of hedonic product

Background: The role of patient satisfaction continues to play an important role in health care quality measures. The use of online review platforms has been adopted by patients to share their perceptions about the quality of care provided by physicians. Chronic pain practice has unique challenges regarding patient satisfaction. Objectives: The main goal of this study is to identify the themes associated with positive and negative reviews of chronic pain physicians at publicly available online review platforms. Study Design: A retrospective study design. Setting: We evaluated publicly available online patient-generated reviews of chronic pain physicians from Yelp and Healthgrades. Methods: This retrospective study evaluated patient-generated reviews of chronic pain physicians from 2 online platforms—Yelp and Healthgrades—between the September 1, 2018 through November 1, 2018. Ninety chronic pain physicians were randomly selected from 4 diverse geographic cities in the United States: New York (NY), Houston (TX), Chicago (IL), and Seattle (WA). Primary outcome was defined as high and low rating scores. Secondary outcome was the proportion of positive and negative attributes (patient, physician, procedure, and administrative attributes) that was associated with high and low rating scores. Results: A total of 1,627 reviews were extracted from 90 physicians evaluated at Yelp and Healthgrades. Of this total review, 1,296 (79.7%) were high scoring and (331) 20.3% were low scoring. Chronic pain providers who were high scoring had positive reviews that consisted of physician attributes (63.5%), administrative attributes (23.4%), and patient attributes (12.2%). The highest proportion of the first 3 physician attributes associated with high ratings were knowledgeable, helpful, and caring. Chronic pain providers who were low scoring had negative reviews that consisted of physician attributes (41.4%), administrative attributes (52.1%), and procedure attributes (5.2%). The highest proportion of the first 3 physician attributes associated with low ratings were disrespectful, unhelpful, and uncaring. Limitations: First, this study looks at reviews of 4 large cities, thus we may have excluded patient populations with substantially different preferences as health care consumers. Second, it is impossible to confirm the validity of individual reviewers’ interactions with the pain management specialist who provided care or validate the identity of the reviewers. Third, it is very difficult, or even impossible, to tell if the rater is a patient or someone posing as a patient, such as an unhappy employee or a business competitor. Conclusions: Online platforms provide a medium that facilitates immediate communication among patients. These platforms may provide timely data for chronic pain physicians to gain more insight into the quality of care perceived by patients, thereby aiding providers to improve on ways to optimize patient-care experiences and encounters. Key words: Chronic pain practice, online review, patient review, patient satisfaction

Conventional wisdom in marketing emphasizes the detrimental effects of negative online reviews for brands. An important question is whether some firms could more effectively manage negative reviews to increase brand preference and improve outcomes. To address the question, this research examines how customers respond to online reviews of identity-relevant brands in particular, which have been overlooked in the online reviews literature. Eight studies (field data and experiments featuring consequential and hypothetical behaviors) show that negative online reviews may not be so detrimental for identity-relevant brands, especially when those reviews originate from socially distant (vs. socially close) reviewers. This occurs because a negative review of an identity-relevant brand can pose a threat to a customer's identity, prompting the customer to strengthen their relationship with the identity-relevant brand. To document the underlying process, the authors show that this effect does not emerge when the review is positive or the brand is identity-irrelevant. Importantly, the authors identify circumstances when negative reviews can actually produce positive outcomes (higher preference) for identity-relevant brands over no reviews or even positive reviews. By demonstrating the upside of negative reviews for identity-relevant brands, the findings have important implications for marketing theory and practice.

Aim/Purpose: The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of review consistency between textual content and rating on review helpfulness. A measure of review consistency is introduced to determine the degree to which the review sentiment of textual content conforms with the review rating score. A theoretical model grounded in signaling theory is adopted to explore how different variables (review sentiment, review rating, review length, and review rating variance) affect review consistency and the relationship between review consistency and review helpfulness. Background: Online reviews vary in their characteristics and hence their different quality features and degrees of helpfulness. High-quality online reviews offer consumers the ability to make informed purchase decisions and improve trust in e-commerce websites. The helpfulness of online reviews continues to be a focal research issue regardless of the independent or joint effects of different factors. This research posits that the consistency between review content and review rating is an important quality indicator affecting the helpfulness of online reviews. The review consistency of online reviews is another important requirement for maintaining the significance and perceived value of online reviews. Incidentally, this parameter is inadequately discussed in the literature. A possible reason is that review consistency is not a review feature that can be readily monitored on e-commerce websites. Methodology: More than 100,000 product reviews were collected from Amazon.com and preprocessed using natural language processing tools. Then, the quality reviews were identified, and relevant features were extracted for model training. Machine learning and sentiment analysis techniques were implemented, and each review was assigned a consistency score between 0 (not consistent) and 1 (fully consistent). Finally, signaling theory was employed, and the derived data were analyzed to determine the effect of review consistency on review helpfulness, the effect of several factors on review consistency, and their relationship with review helpfulness. Contribution: This research contributes to the literature by introducing a mathematical measure to determine the consistency between the textual content of online reviews and their associated ratings. Furthermore, a theoretical model grounded in signaling theory was developed to investigate the effect on review helpfulness. This work can considerably extend the body of knowledge on the helpfulness of online reviews, with notable implications for research and practice. Findings: Empirical results have shown that review consistency significantly affects the perceived helpfulness of online reviews. The study similarly finds that review rating is an important factor affecting review consistency; it also confirms a moderating effect of review sentiment, review rating, review length, and review rating variance on the relationship between review consistency and review helpfulness. Overall, the findings reveal the following: (1) online reviews with textual content that correctly explains the associated rating tend to be more helpful; (2) reviews with extreme ratings are more likely to be consistent with their textual content; and (3) comparatively, review consistency more strongly affects the helpfulness of reviews with short textual content, positive polarity textual content, and lower rating scores and variance. Recommendations for Practitioners: E-commerce systems should incorporate a review consistency measure to rank consumer reviews and provide customers with quick and accurate access to the most helpful reviews. Impact on Society: Incorporating a score of review consistency for online reviews can help consumers access the best reviews and make better purchase decisions, and e-commerce systems improve their business, ultimately leading to more effective e-commerce. Future Research: Additional research should be conducted to test the impact of review consistency on helpfulness in different datasets, product types, and different moderating variables.

Online Physician Reviews Do Not Reflect Patient Satisfaction Survey Responses

Imagine you are asked to choose a new restaurant to try with other people. You want to choose the right restaurant in order to impress your companions, and you read online reviews to help you make the right decision. Unfortunately online reviews from regular diners vs. food critics are not in agreement, one loving the restaurant while the other disliking the place. To whom will you choose to believe in order to avoid selecting a bad restaurant and ending up embarrassing yourself in front of others? Moreover, does your tie strength with your companion dictate the different impression tactics you employ and the ways you process the reviews? To answer these questions, we examine how consumers respond to mixed reviews under different social tie influences. Traditional research on negativity bias would suggest that negative review will trump positive review (Feldman and Lynch 1988; Herr et al. 1991; Lee et al. 2009), regardless of the source. But we believe the situation is more complex when the reviewed product or service will be consumed with others. We look beyond the informational role of consumer reviews and introduce them as a tool for managing social impressions. The main proposition is that consumers can utilize product reviews to create the desired impression to different social partners. Past research on impression management shows that consumers employ different tactics to impress their counterparts in order to achieve the goal of either being liked or respected (Ratner and Kahn 2002; Fisk et al. 2007; Bergsieker et al. 2010). How an individual creates a positive impression may vary based on the people he or she is trying to impress. As strong vs. weak tie strengths evoke different impression management strategies, consumers selectively favor certain information in mixed reviews to achieve their social goals. Through an experiment, we find that when dining with strong tie connections (e.g., close friends), consumers have less favorable attitudes when they see negative reviews from other diners than negative reviews from food critics. In contrast, when dining with weak tie connections (e.g., acquaintances), consumers’ attitude was affected equally by negative professional reviews and negative consumer reviews. These results suggest that the social context of a consumption activity is relevant to how consumers may integrate online review into their decision-making. The results from this study offer useful insight into the management of consumer sentiment and consumer-to-consumer engagement in today’s social media environment. Traditionally companies have paid close attention to what professional sources such as renowned critics, Consumer Reports, and other professional review websites say about their products. Our research suggests that the management of consumer sentiment and the importance of positive consumer-to-consumer engagement may vary depending on the social context of the consumption. For products and services typically consumed with close friends and family (e.g., Christmas holiday-themed products and services), attention should be focused on the power of consumer-to-consumer engagement and word-of-mouth. In such circumstances, even if professional reviews are less than favorable, it is not likely to have a significant impact on consumers’ decisions.

PurposeDespite the growing consensus that consumers extensively use online reviews and that negative reviews can significantly damage brand equity, it remains uncertain whether negative online reviews that focus on different aspects of a service have a similar or differential effect on brand equity. This study aims to fill this gap and explores the mediating role of emotional contagion and what kind of response helps better deter their negative effect.Design/methodology/approachThis research is conducted through a one-panel study and three experimental studies. SAS enterprise miner is used for text mining analysis and Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Process macro models are used to analyze the experimental data.FindingsNegative reviews related to the tangibility, responsiveness and empathy dimensions have a more detrimental effect on brand equity than negative reviews related to the assurance and reliability dimensions. The results also provide evidence that emotional contagion is more prevalent when consumers read reviews that are specific to the empathy and responsiveness dimensions. Finally, accommodative responses from the service provider are more effective in deterring the effect of a negative online review on brand equity.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalizability of this study is limited to the restaurant and hotel industry.Practical implicationsThe findings will also help the brand manager in understanding the comparative effect of service quality-specific negative reviews on brand equity and also the type of responses that brand managers should give to negative reviews.Originality/valueDespite online reviews receiving increased attention in academic research, Service quality (SERVQUAL) dimension-specific reviews have not been studied until now. This study contributes to the service quality-related literature by providing evidence that not all negative online reviews related to different Service quality (SERVQUAL) dimensions equally affect brand equity.

This study examined the relationship between negative online reviews and consumer purchase intention. For this study, we used product-brand-related negative online reviews, dealers-related negative online reviews and platform-related online reviews, while the purchase intention of online shoppers was used to proxy consumers' purchase intention. Negative online reviews were considered in the areas of accessibility, reliability, genuineness, integrity, lead time, user-friendliness, security and satisfaction. To achieve the objectives of the study, a sample of 200 users of online shopping platforms spread across three major cities namely Asaba, Warri and Sapele in Delta State, Nigeria was drawn using the convenience sampling technique. Data were analyzed using the multiple regression estimation techniques. The results of the study indicate that negative online reviews have an inverse and significant relationship with consumer purchase intention. Specifically, product/brand-related negative online reviews, dealers-related negative online reviews and platform-related negative online reviews significantly discourage consumers' purchase intention. This study, therefore, recommends that negative reviews should be reduced by organizations managing online shopping platforms.

Online hotel reviews is an important source for customers to find out the products and service quality. Online hotel reviews consist of reviews and ratings. The best online reviews website in TripAdvisor. In this era, online reviews are really important and could affect customer preferences in choosing a hotel. The aim of this research is to analyze in what extent do online reviews and ratings affect customer preferences. This study use survey by distributing a total of 100 questionnaires in order to gain the data. Then, the data will be proceed through SPSS to test the validity, reliability, classical assumption, and multiple regression analysis. The results indicatedthat both of the variables (online reviews and ratings) positively impact customer preferences in choosing a hotel. However, online reviews has a bigger impact towards customer preferences rather than online ratings. It is recommended for TripAdvisor to weed out the fake reviews and guarantee the trustworthy reviews. For the hotel managers, it is recommended to response both, positive and negative reviews that made by customers in TripAdvisor, because it could change someone’s perceptions into the good feeling of the hotel.

This article investigates the main and interactional effects of review valence and the presence of source identity on consumer perception of credibility of an online review and initial trust of travel services being reviewed. An experimental design is developed involving 639 travel consumers. Results indicate that a negative online review is deemed more credible than a positive online review, while a positive online review leads to a greater initial trust than a negative review. These findings apply when the identity of the reviewer is disclosed. However, when the reviewer’s identity is not disclosed, there is no significant difference between positive and negative reviews either in terms of perceived credibility or impact on consumer trust. Theoretical and managerial implications, limitations and future directions are also discussed.

Most consumers read online reviews before making online purchase decisions. Online reviews of a product usually include positive and negative contradictory online reviews (CORs). Previous studies have confirmed the impact of CORs on consumers’ online purchase decisions. However, literature review showed that most of the conducted studies on the dimension of CORs are single dimension. Therefore, this study examined how CORs affected consumers’ online purchase decisions from two dimensions: proportion of positive and negative reviews and emotional arousal. The results of a two (proportion of positive and negative reviews: high vs. low) × 2 (emotional arousal: calm vs. arousing) inter group experiment from 306 Chinese consumers showed that CORs have a significant negative impact on consumers’ purchase online decision, and CORs affect consumers’ online purchase decision by affecting perceived risk. The results of this study enrich literature of online reviews. Findings of this study provide important information to e-retailers on how CORs affect consumers’ online purchase decisions. The theoretical and practical implications of the proposed study are also discussed.