Measuring social influence from online traveler reviews

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. Book ◽  
Sarah Tanford
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Purchase Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Reviews ◽  
Informational Influence ◽  
Travel Decisions ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
Item Scale

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a scale to measure normative and informational influence in online traveler reviews. Design/methodology/approach Through proper scale development techniques and a two-sample validation process, the resulting 2-factor, 11-item scale yields a valid and reliable measure of social influence. Findings The resultant scale provides a tool for researchers to investigate the process whereby different characteristics of online reviews influence travel decisions. Originality/value Customer reviews are prevalent and powerful sources of influence on travel decisions. However, it is unclear how social influence manifests in today’s online purchasing environment. For several decades, the domain of social influence has played an important role in the advancements of consumer behavior and hospitality/tourism research. In particular, normative and informational influences are applicable, since online reviews contain numerous informational and normative cues. These principles were formulated under much different conditions than today’s purchasing environment. This research provides a way to measure normative and informational influence in the online review environment, thus enhancing the understanding of how reviews influence purchase decisions.

Are attractive reviewers more persuasive? Examining the role of physical attractiveness in online reviews

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 728-739
Author(s):  
Marie Ozanne ◽  
Stephanie Q. Liu ◽  
Anna S. Mattila
Keyword(s):  
Physical Attractiveness ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Purchase Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Brand Evaluations ◽  
The Impact

Purpose While online reviews are of paramount importance in brand evaluations and purchase decisions, the impact of a reviewer’s attractiveness is not well understood. To bridge that gap, this paper aims to explore how physical attractiveness cues through profile photos influence customers’ brand evaluations. Design/methodology/approach The first study assesses the impact of attractiveness and review valence on brand evaluations. The authors used an experimental design and tested the model with an ANCOVA. Study 2 examines the impact of attractiveness in the context of multiple reviews and tests attractiveness heuristic as the underlying mechanism. Findings The findings indicate that when an attractive (vs less-attractive) reviewer writes a positive review, brand evaluations are enhanced. However, such an effect does not occur with a negative review. With multiple reviews varying in valence, cognitive load activates the use of an attractiveness heuristic when a positive review is written by an attractive (vs less-attractive) reviewer, thus leading to enhanced brand evaluations. Originality/value These findings highlight the presence of the attractiveness halo effect in online reviews and offer important implications to social media marketers. While previous studies have largely focused on review characteristics (e.g. star ratings, strength of the argument, etc.), this study focuses on reviewer characteristics (i.e. attractiveness) and cognitive biases associated with online brand evaluations.

Drivers of purchase behavior and post-purchase evaluation in the Singles’ Day promotion

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 835-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingli Wang ◽  
Qiang Yan ◽  
Wenjing Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Purchase Behavior ◽  
Purchase Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Post Purchase ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the strategies used by consumers to control themselves in the Singles’ Day promotion. It also examines how promotion and social influence affect consumers’ purchase behavior and post-purchase evaluation. Design/methodology/approach A mixed methods approach including a quantitative study (N = 480) and a follow-up qualitative study (N = 35) was conducted to verify the hypotheses and provide deeper insights. Findings This study demonstrates that consumers allocate in-store slack in shopping budgets to restrict unplanned purchases and in-store slack is positively related to post-purchase evaluation. Social influence, which helps consumers rationalize purchase decisions, has positive effects on planned purchases and post-purchase evaluation. Both promotion strength and promotion range moderate the relationship between in-store slack and unplanned purchases. Originality/value Most studies investigate how promotion designs affect consumers’ in-store decision-making. This study focuses on the Singles’ Day promotion in China and examines the tactics consumers use to control purchase behavior in the promotion.

Consumers’ desire to interact with a salesperson during e-shopping: development of a scale

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yun Jung Lee ◽  
Alan J. Dubinsky
Keyword(s):  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Future Study ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Customer Experience ◽  
Paper Study ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Reviews ◽  
Customer Experience Management ◽  
Item Scale

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a desire to interact with a salesperson scale and to explore possible tools for replacing salespeople on e-commerce websites. Design/methodology/approach For the exploratory phase of this paper, Study 1 used in-depth consumer interviews. Quantitative surveys were conducted for Studies 2 and 3. Findings A two-dimensional (instrumental and autotelic) eight-item scale for desire to interact with a salesperson was developed. The results of Study 3 suggested that e-tailers can increase customer satisfaction by implementing effective customer-based information (e.g. customer reviews) and e-contact features (e.g. live chatting with a salesperson). Research limitations/implications Although the current study validated the scale, a future study should further validate this scale in different contexts. Originality/value The present research was the first attempt to develop a desire to interact with a salesperson scale. This new scale now makes it possible to acknowledge differences in a desire to interact with a salesperson across demographics, product types, shopping purposes, etc., which should improve customer experience management.

Sign consumption and sign promotion in visitor attractions

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 1937-1955 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavlos Paraskevaidis ◽  
Adi Weidenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Brand Image ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Visitor Experience ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Reviews ◽  
Symbolic Meanings ◽  
Destination Brand ◽  
Visitor Attractions ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeDrawing upon Baudrillard’s concept of sign-value, this study aims to investigate consumer behavior and sign perception in visitor attractions.Design/methodology/approachBy adopting netnography, 133 customer-to-customer reviews sourced from TripAdvisor were analyzed regarding visitors’ online post-visit impressions.FindingsThe findings reveal that netnography contributes to a deeper understanding of sign consumption and sign promotion and examines how visitors attribute symbolic meanings to their experience in Titanic Belfast.Practical implicationsThe findings show that the co-creation and reevaluation of the visitor experience through consumers’ online reviews should be taken into account by both managers and marketers. Furthermore, advertising should avoid creating excessive expectations to visitors to decrease the possibility of negative disconfirmation, which can be easily and instantly spread online. Another implication concerns the winning awards of visitor attractions, hotels and restaurants of a destination which may be used as a basis of co-branding marketing campaigns to enhance destination brand image.Social implicationsThis study continues the debate on the commodification of the visitor experience and the commercialization of visitor attractions.Originality/valueThis paper provides better understanding of sign-value, sign consumption and sign promotion in the visitor attraction sector.

Product recommendation using online reviews with emotional preferences

Kybernetes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Limei Hu ◽  
Chunqia Tan ◽  
Hepu Deng
Keyword(s):  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Purchase Decisions ◽  
Combination Rule ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Online Purchase ◽  
Shapley Function ◽  
Novel Method

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a novel recommendation method using online reviews with emotional preferences for facilitating online purchase decisions. This leads to better use of information-rich online reviews for providing users with personalized recommendations.Design/methodology/approachA novel method is developed for producing personalized recommendations in online purchase decision-making. Such a method fuses the belief structure and the Shapley function together to effectively deal with the emotional preferences in online reviews and adequately tackle the interaction existent between product criteria with the use of a modified combination rule for making better online recommendations for making online purchase decisions.FindingsAn example is presented for demonstrating the applicability of the method for facilitating online purchase. The results show that the recommendation using the proposed method can effectively improve customer satisfaction with better purchase decisions.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed method can better utilize online reviews for satisfying personalized needs of consumers. The use of such a method can optimize interface design, refine customer needs, reduce recommendation errors and provide personalized recommendations.Originality/valueThe proposed method adequately considers the characteristics of online reviews and the personalized needs of customers for providing customers with appropriate recommendations. It can help businesses better manage online reviews for improving customer satisfaction and create greater value for both businesses and customers.

The importance of user-generated photos in restaurant selection

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Oliveira ◽  
Beatriz Casais
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Photo Sharing ◽  
Restaurant Managers ◽  
Marketing Activities ◽  
Hospitality Sector ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose User-generated content and online reviews are highly relevant in purchase decision in the hospitality sector, including restaurants, but there is a lack of knowledge about the effect of sharing pictures in this context. This study aims to focus on the relevance of user-generated photos in online platforms for restaurants’ selection. Design/methodology/approach A research was conducted with a sample of 319 residents of Porto region, who had at least one meal in a restaurant over the 30 days before the answer of the survey and had searched online to select the restaurant. Findings The results show that while doing online research about restaurants, it is important for potential consumers to find pictures of food and physical evidences of restaurants generated by other users. Findings also show that consumers find user-generated photos especially at websites of reviews, although the importance of restaurant owned platforms, such as official social media pages and websites. Practical implications The research results appeal restaurant managers to understand the importance of user-generated photos in online platforms by promoting photo sharing in their restaurants with appropriate marketing activities for that purpose. Originality/value This paper expands the state-of-the-art about the importance of user-generated content, focusing on the importance of photos from restaurants shared by consumers in online platforms.

Do Twitter phenomena check-in popular venues on Foursquare too?

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 137-146
Author(s):  
Aysun Bozanta ◽  
Birgul Kutlu
Keyword(s):  
Clustering Analysis ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Shopping Mall ◽  
Content Type ◽  
History Of ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Different Characteristics

Purpose The purpose of this study is to figure out the visiting behaviors of the users who have different characteristics on Twitter. Design/methodology/approach The visit history of users who share their Foursquare check-ins on Twitter and the characteristics of visited venues (category, check-in count, tip count, like count, rating, and price tier) was collected with Foursquare API. In addition, the number of followers, friends, tweets and favorite-count were collected via Twitter API. First, users were clustered according to their Twitter related attributes. After that, profiling was applied on clusters according to the characteristics of the venues that were visited by the users. Findings Clustering analysis generated three clusters, namely, ordinary, talkative and popular. For each cluster, the visited venues were investigated according to the price classification, check-in, like, tip counts and the categories. The users in ordinary class prefer cheaper venues rather than talkative and popular users. On the other hand, popular users prefer the venues with the highest average number of check-ins, likes and tip counts. The top two categories for all clusters are cafe and shopping mall. Originality/value This study differentiates from the other studies in the literature by examining the data from Twitter with clustering and profiling these clusters with Foursquare data to understand venue preferences of Twitter users having various characteristics. The findings of this study will provide new insights for business owners to understand the customers more comprehensively and design better marketing strategies.

On the role of different annealing heat treatments on mechanical properties and microstructure of selective laser melted and conventional wrought Ti-6Al-4V

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
AmirMahyar Khorasani ◽  
Ian Gibson ◽  
Moshe Goldberg ◽  
Guy Littlefair
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Properties ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Stress Relief ◽  
Heat Treatments ◽  
Recrystallization Annealing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Hardness Increase ◽  
As Stress ◽  
Different Characteristics

Purpose The purpose of this study was to conduct various heat treatments (HT) such as stress relief annealing, mill annealing, recrystallization (α + β) annealing and β annealing followed by furnace cooling (FC) that were implemented to determine the effect of these on mechanical properties and the microstructure of selective laser melted and wrought samples. The mentioned annealings have been carried out to achieve the related standards in the fabrication of surgery implants. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, based on F2924-14 ASTM standard SLM and conventionally wrought parts were prepared. Then HT was performed and different characteristics such as microstructure, mechanical properties, macro-hardness and fracture surface for selective laser melted and wrought parts were analysed. Findings The results show that the high cooling rate in selective laser melting (SLM) generates finer grains. Therefore, tensile strength and hardness increase along with a reduction in ductility was noticed. Recrystallization annealing appears to give the best combination of ductility, strength and hardness for selective laser melted parts, whilst for equivalent wrought samples, increasing HT temperature results in reduction of mechanical properties. Originality/value The contributions of this paper are discussing the effect of different annealing on mechanical properties and microstructural evolution based on new ASTM standards for selective laser melted samples and comparing them with wrought parts.

Determining banking service attributes from online reviews: text mining and sentiment analysis

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Divya Mittal ◽  
Shiv Ratan Agrawal
Keyword(s):  
Text Mining ◽  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Socioeconomic Background ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Reviews ◽  
Banking Service ◽  
The Interest Rate

PurposeThe current study employs text mining and sentiment analysis to identify core banking service attributes and customer sentiment in online user-generated reviews. Additionally, the study explains customer satisfaction based on the identified predictors.Design/methodology/approachA total of 32,217 customer reviews were collected across 29 top banks on bankbazaar.com posted from 2014 to 2021. In total three conceptual models were developed and evaluated employing regression analysis.FindingsThe study revealed that all variables were found to be statistically significant and affect customer satisfaction in their respective models except the interest rate.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is confined to the geographical representation of its subjects' i.e. Indian customers. A cross-cultural and socioeconomic background analysis of banking customers in different countries may help to better generalize the findings.Practical implicationsThe study makes essential theoretical and managerial contributions to the existing literature on services, particularly the banking sector.Originality/valueThis paper is unique in nature that focuses on banking customer satisfaction from online reviews and ratings using text mining and sentiment analysis.

scholarly journals Airline passengers’ perceptions of service quality: themes in online reviews

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 855-873 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Brochado ◽  
Paulo Rita ◽  
Cristina Oliveira ◽  
Fernando Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Online Reviews ◽  
Value For Money ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Core ◽  
Content Analyses ◽  
Airline Passengers ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Post Purchase

PurposeThis paper aims to identify the main themes shared in online reviews by airline travellers, as well as which of these themes were linked with higher and lower value for money ratings.Design/methodology/approachThe research used mixed content analyses (i.e. quantitative and qualitative) to examine 1,200 reviews of six airline companies shared by airline travellers in a social media platform.FindingsThe analyses revealed nine themes in descriptions of airline travel experiences. These are the core services during “flights”, “airport” operations, crew and ground “staff”, ticket “classes”, “seats”, inflight “services”, “entertainment”, overall experiences of “airlines” and post-purchase recommendations of with which companies to “fly”. Low value for money ratings are linked with the “airport” and “flights” themes.Originality/valueThe results offer useful insights into airline travellers’ overall experiences based on social media information and facilitate the identification of the main themes linked with different value for money ratings.

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