Which voice are you satisfied with? Understanding the physician–patient voice interactions on online health platforms

Abstract

Patients are usually sensitive to physicians' attitude and behavior when physicians make decisions in patients' consultations. However, the consequences of physicians' interactive voices on patients' perception have rarely been explored. This study develops a multistage online interaction model to explore the effects of the key vocal emotional cues of physician voice on patient-perceived satisfaction. We collect data of over 44,000 voice interactions regarding lung disease from 889 physicians on a leading online health platform. By using the theoretical lens of emotional contagion, we find that the voice pitch and intensity of physicians, respectively, positively and negatively affect patient-perceived satisfaction, in turn positively affecting physician economic returns in the postinteraction stage. However, the negative effect of intensity is low for physicians with high recommendation popularity (a factor in the preinteraction stage), suggesting that physician-inherent information has an anchoring effect. These findings not only provide new insights into the literature on online physician–patient interaction by identifying the novel nonverbal cues of physician voice, their consequent effects, and boundary conditions, but also provide decision support for physicians and platform managers.