Tailoring management response to negative reviews: The effectiveness of accommodative versus defensive responses

Identifying the Types and Impact of Service Provider’s Responses to Online Negative Reviews in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from B&Bs in China

“…This result indicates that sufficiently long responses are informative and can help prospective consumers understand services; however, overly long responses are less effective. Response voice is verified to have a significant relationship with helpfulness votes, which is consistent with the statement that an accommodative response with empathy to negative reviews can improve consumers' perceptions of services and help increase sales revenues [10,64]. Moreover, interactive effects exist between response length and review quality (including review length and review image), which indicate the necessity to include paraphrased statements to long negative reviews with embedded images [10].…”

“…Firms that receive negative reviews can resolve consumer dissatisfaction through private telephone calls or online chats. However, these complaint-handling approaches cannot be observed by prospective consumers [64]. By responding to negative reviews publicly, a firm can demonstrate its concern for consumers and reduce information asymmetry for prospective consumers who lack decision-making knowledge and experience [27].…”

“…An accommodative response voice is when a hotel confesses responsibility for a negative event, expresses remorse, and attempts to remedy the damage. By contrast, a defensive response is when the response involves justification or excuses or even denies responsibility [64]. Drawing on the above hotel service-related studies, the present study will adopt the response length and voice as the measures of the response content.…”

“…Long responses initiated by hotels contain more information about the relevant issue and increase prospective consumers' perceived hotel intention to care for its customers as compared with short responses [27]. Specific information in a response can supplement the information revealed in the review and enable prospective consumers to form a clear and accurate evaluation of the review's helpfulness [64]. In addition, consumers can leave negative reviews according to various motivations, such as mismatched preference, disconfirmed expectations, unacceptable service failure, need for social appreciation, or self-enhancement, or just constructive suggestions for the service provider [64,76].…”

“…Specific information in a response can supplement the information revealed in the review and enable prospective consumers to form a clear and accurate evaluation of the review's helpfulness [64]. In addition, consumers can leave negative reviews according to various motivations, such as mismatched preference, disconfirmed expectations, unacceptable service failure, need for social appreciation, or self-enhancement, or just constructive suggestions for the service provider [64,76]. For whatever reason, the consumers expect their complaints to be taken seriously and sincerely.…”