Responding to online complaints in webcare by public organizations: the impact on continuance intention and reputation

Abstract

PurposeSince public sector organizations provide services to citizens but struggle with poor perceptions of their functioning, it is valuable to examine how their online responses to complaints on social media could impact their reputation. Yet, surprisingly little is known about effects of public organizations' webcare. Therefore, this study assesses the impact of the webcare's tone, response strategy and user's involvement on participants’ continuance intention and perceptions of reputation.Design/methodology/approachTwo experimental studies (Study 1: N = 424; Study 2: N = 203) with an interval of one week were carried out to assess the effects of singular and repeated exposure to webcare by a Dutch public transport organization on the participants' continuance intention and perceived organizational reputation. Study 1 examined the effects of the webcare's tone (corporate vs conversational human voice (CHV)) and response strategy (accommodative vs defensive); Study 2 contained tone of voice and user's involvement (observer vs complainer). The effects of repeated exposure to the webcare's tone were also examined.FindingsThe results indicate that perceptions of CHV in webcare contribute to webcare as reputation management tool, since it leads to immediate higher reputation scores that also remain stable after repeated exposure. Furthermore, people's continuance intention increased after repeated exposure to webcare responses that were perceived as CHV, thus a natural and engaging communication style, indicating this is an effective strategy for customer care as well. No substantial impact was found for response strategy and user's involvement in the complaint handling.Originality/valueThe novelty of this study is that the authors assess the effects of the webcare's tone combined with response strategy and user's involvement in a public sector context with a sector-specific conceptualization of reputation and continuance intention measured after singular and repeated exposure to webcare.

Is webcare good for business? A study of the effect of managerial response strategies to online reviews on hotel bookings

“…Similar to Gelbrich and Roschk (2011)'s framework, Javornik et al (2020) show that using a conversational tone leads to more positive observer perceptions of complaint handling than a corporate voice by positively influencing interactional justice perceptions. Jacobs and Liebrecht (2023) find that using a conversational human voice (versus a corporate voice) positively influences all three justice dimensions.…”

“…Webcareorganizational responses to social media messagesis an essential tool to mitigate the negative influence of negative eWOM and boost positive eWOM. But as its effectiveness depends on many factors (see Dens et al, 2015;Jacobs and Liebrecht, 2023), organizations struggle with whether and how to respond. The present study addresses the following research question: Does providing webcare (vs not responding) influence future hotel bookings, and how do specific webcare strategies affect bookings?…”