Unpacking the impact of social media analytics on customer satisfaction: do external stakeholder characteristics matter?

Abstract

PurposeUnderpinned by the lens of Contingency Theory (CT), the purpose of this paper is to empirically evaluate whether the impact of social media analytics (SMA) on customer satisfaction (CS) is contingent on the characteristics of different external stakeholders, including business partners (i.e. partner diversity), competitors (i.e. localised competition) and customers (i.e. customer engagement).Design/methodology/approachUsing both subjective and objective measures from multiple sources, we collected primary data from 141 hotels operating in Greece and their archival data from TripAdvisor and the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels (HCH) database to test the hypothesised relationships. Data were analysed through structural equation modelling.FindingsThis study confirms the positive association between SMA and CS, but it remains subject to the varied characteristics of external stakeholders. We find that an increase in CS due to the implementation of SMA is more pronounced for firms that (1) adopt a selective distribution strategy where a limited number of business partners are chosen for collaboration or (2) operate in a highly competitive local environment. The results further indicate that high level of customer engagement amplifies the moderating effect of partner diversity (when it is low) and localised competition (when it is high) on the SMA–CS relationship.Originality/valueThe study provides novel insights for managers on the need to consider external stakeholder characteristics when implementing SMA to enhance firms' CS, and for researchers on the value of studying SMA implementation from the CT perspective.

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“…As suggested by scholars, one way to quickly reach out to the customer is by adopting social media platforms (Bullini-Orlandi, Zardini, & Rossignoli, 2020;Christodoulides, Michaelidou, & Siamagka, 2019;Nunan, Sibai, Schivinski, & Christodoulides, 2018;Ogilvie, Agnihotri, Rapp, & Trainor, 2018). As a customer-related tool, social media can remotely enable customers to connect with the firm to exchange information and obtain feedback that will improve the firm in terms of goods and services on offer (Harrigan, Miles, Fang, & Roy, 2020;Wang, Zhang, Tse, & Chan, 2020). This helps foster customer relations, improving customer equity (Carr, Drennan, & Andrews, 2016), customer trust, and brand attachment (Kim, Kim, & Hwang, 2020;Li, Teng, & Chen, 2020).…”

Web and Social Media Presence in the Hospitality Industry: A Greek Island Case

“…The second article identifies crosscultural differences in service evaluations and specifically, in hotel appraisals among tourists from Central, Eastern (including Post-Soviet States), Northern and Southern Europe. 1,055 reviews for five hotels in Greece were used for the study [13]. The third article explores the attitudes of tourists toward digital marketing applications related to peer-to-peer short-term rental services within the sharing economy in the tourism sector [14].…”

Guest editorial

“…This research enriches our understanding of the complex, dynamic relationship between social media activities and organisational attractiveness from both buyers' and suppliers' perspectives. Wang et al (2020) employ contingency theory to explain how the impact of social media analytics on customer satisfaction is contingent on the characteristics of different external stakeholders including partners, competitors and customers. Using both primary and secondary data from multiple sources concerning 141 hotels operating in Greece, their structural equation modelling analysis confirms the positive relationship between social media analytics and customer satisfaction, and more importantly demonstrates the contingent roles of external stakeholders' characteristics.…”

“…For instance, Hales et al (2018) use employee reviews posted on Glassdoor to measure three types of employee opinions: employees' general feelings about their firms, employees' beliefs about their firms' future performance and employees' expectations about personal growth opportunities. In this special issue, Wang et al (2020) rely on Tripadvisor's review data to measure the customer satisfaction of 141 hotels operating in Greece. Another recent OM example is Ko et al (2019) IJOPM 40,5 who collect physician reviews from Vitals to measure patient satisfaction and several dimensions of quality as perceived by patients.…”

“…Several social media papers published in this special issue also use performance outcomes as their dependent variables. For instance, Guo et al (2020) investigate how using social media for customer service affects firm reputation, while Wang et al (2020) unpack the impact of social media analytics on customer satisfaction. A few social media papers published in other OM journals (e.g.…”