Why Do Consumers Generate WOM?
4 August 2006Great piece from the WOMMA Research Blog the full post can be found here.
- ALTRUISM consuners may generate WOM simply to help other consumers make better consumption decisions (Price, Feick & Guskey 1995)
- REVENGE consumers may act as vigilantes, policing the market and seeking revenge against firms that have done them wrong (Richins 1983)
- COGNITIVE DISSONANCE could be construed as persuasion, but more likely consumers seek to reduce uncertainty or to validate that their judgment of a product is correct (Engel, Kegerreis and Blackwell. 1969)
- TO CONNECT & BE SOCIAL Sometimes consumers talk about products and services simply to make conversation. (see Idil Cakim’s blog)
- MORAL HAZARD - may discourage consumers from generating WOM. For example, research demonstrates that when moral hazard is high, weak ties are frail, that is, when it is not in consumers’ best interest to share information, they don’t, particularly to their lesser-known acquaintances (Frenzen & Nakamoto 1993)
- RECIPROCITY Consumers will feel compelled to reciprocate with WOM when they themselves feel indebted to a potential receiver of information (for example because they received valuable information from the receiver), or because they desire the opportunity to similarly obligate the receiver (Engel, Kegerreis and Blackwell. 1969); Gatignon and Robertson 1986)
- SELF-ENHANCEMENT - consumers may generate WOM when they sense an opportunity to improve their power or status by doing so (Engel, Kegerreis and Blackwell 1969) ; Feick and Price 1987 (http://www.jstor.org/view/00222429/ap040207/04a00080/0); Gatignon and Robertson 1986)
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