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Retailer response to negative online consumer reviews: how can damaged trust be effectively repaired?

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Abstract

Social commerce has significantly enlarged consumer power through the convenience of posting and accessing online customer reviews. While positive comments may help to boost an online retailer’s reputation, the visibility of negative comments may significantly damage the retailer’s reputation. The purpose of this paper is to study trust violations caused by negative comments and corresponding retailer response strategies for trust repair thereby determining which response strategies should be chosen to repair consumer trust most effectively. Structured equation modeling method is applied to test how negative comments affect user trust, and a trust repair model to test how the company’s responses affect trust repair. The results show that perceived retailer service problems including quality problem, attitude problem and fulfillment problem reflected in negative reviews have significant negative impacts on three dimensions of consumer trust beliefs (benevolence, integrity and competence), and consumer trust beliefs have significant impacts on consumer purchase intentions. The results also show that different response strategies tend to reduce the degree of the perceived problems differently, an apology strategy was only effective in the recovery of attitude problem perceptions, while an explanation strategy had the most significant impact on the recovery of all three service problem perceptions, and a compensation strategy was effective in the recovery of quality problem perceptions. These response strategies change consumers’ perception of service problems, then further repair customer trust and hence purchase intentions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71874018, 71942003, 71471019) and BUPT Excellent Ph.D. Students Foundation (CX2020227).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, 10 Xitucheng Road, Beijing, 100876, China

    Yan Wan, Yifan Zhang & Fengting Wang

  2. DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

    Yufei Yuan

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  1. Yan Wan
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Correspondence to Yifan Zhang.

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Appendices

Appendix 1 Sample of online consumer reviews shown in study 1

Background: These days, you are thinking about buying a suit for job seeking and some activities at your university. You are searching for a suit on an online shopping website with which you are familiar. The following information about the product is presented in a mini-shop.

Retailer Introduction: Panda is a company that designs formal as well as fashionable suits, especially for young job-hunting students. Our cloth can make you look professional, honourable, elegant and confident. We promise that every piece of clothing we send to you has high quality, smart color and standard size.

Online consumer reviews:

 

What a bystander sees

internal control

1

The shirt looks gorgeous and fits me nicely

Positive, fixed

2

I bought a suit with one brand but found the coat and pants were from different brands

Negative, randomly chosen

3

Orders are shipped and delivered promptly

Positive, fixed

4

The customer service staff was very helpful and patient, and responded my query promptly

5

Thanks for the cute gift! The packing for the clothes also looks great

6

The fabric of the clothing should be 100% cotton as specified but the one I received is made of polyester. The customer service staff is not very nice. When I consulted about the return policy, she did not answer my questions patiently

Negative, randomly chosen

7

What I received is exactly as it looks in the pictures and fits the descriptions. It is worth buying

Positive, fixed

8

So beautiful! The quality is also amazing! Love it!

9

I have checked the suit carefully. It is a quality product. Pleased with my purchase

10

The shirt is adorable. Great communication and reliable service. Completely satisfied with the product

Appendix 2 Possible negative reviews used in study 1

Possible negative reviews

Quality problems

Attitude problems

Fulfillment problems

Just received the shirt. But there was a hole on it, and it smells terrible ……

x

  

The fabric of the shirt does not feel good

x

  

Wanted to ask for some advice for choosing size, but both of the two customer service staff had ignored my question

 

x

 

The customer service staff is not very nice. When I consulted about the return policy, she switched me to the automatic answering machine after a few questions

 

x

 

I bought a suit with one brand, but found the coat and pants were from different brands

  

x

The fabric of the clothing should be 100% cotton as specified, but the one I received is made of polyester

  

x

Just received the shirt. But found there was a hole in it and it smells terrible. The customer service staff is not very nice. When I consulted about the return policy, she switched me to the automatic answering machine after a few questions

x

x

 

The fabric of the clothing should be 100% cotton as specified but the one I received is made of polyester. The customer service staff is not very nice. When I consulted about the return policy, she did not answer my questions patiently

 

x

x

The fabric of the shirt does not feel good. I bought a suit with one brand, but found the coat and pants were from different brands

x

 

x

Appendix 3 Sample of retailer responses shown in study 2

 

What a bystander sees

Internal control

1

The shirt looks gorgeous and fits me nicely

 

2

I bought a suit with one brand but found the coat and pants were from different brands

The same for the same user in study 1

 

Response: We are sorry to hear your unhappy experience. Please accept our sincere apology. The coat and pants are not from same brand could be caused by packaging mistake and we will send you a new suit with the same brand immediately through express delivery service

Randomly changed

3

Orders are shipped and delivered promptly

 

4

The customer service staff was very helpful and patient, and responded my query promptly

 

5

Thanks for the cute gift! The packing for the clothes also looks great

 

6

The fabric of the clothing should be 100% cotton as specified, but the one I received is made of polyester. The customer service staff is not very nice. When I consulted about the return policy, she did not answer my questions patiently

The same for the same user in study 1

 

Response: We are sorry to hear your unpleasant experience. Please accept our sincere apology

Randomly changed

7

What I received is exactly as it looks in the pictures and fits the descriptions. It is worth buying

 

8

So beautiful! The quality is also amazing! Love it!

 

9

I have checked the suit carefully. It is a quality product. Pleased with my purchase

 

10

The shirt is adorable. Great communication and reliable service. Completely satisfied with the product

 

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Wan, Y., Zhang, Y., Wang, F. et al. Retailer response to negative online consumer reviews: how can damaged trust be effectively repaired?. Inf Technol Manag 24, 37–53 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10799-022-00367-7

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