Maybe I Just Got (Un)lucky: One-on-One Conversations and the Malleability of Post-Consumption Product and Service Evaluations

摘要

This research focuses on the persuasive impact of a common yet understudied form of word of mouth (WOM): one-on-one conversations in which consumers share and compare past experiences with a product or service. In contrast to prior work on WOM influence, we discover a "positivity effect" in these conversations, such that consumers who share a negative experience form more favorable overall judgments after speaking with someone who had a positive experience, but consumers who share a positive experience are unaffected by learning about another's negative experience. This effect is mediated by consumers' dismissal of their own negative experience as a temporary or one-off event in light of the other person's contrasting positive experience, and is facilitated by positive consumer expectations of product and service performance. We also identify a key boundary condition whereby the positivity effect of one-on-one conversations is moderated by whether consumers have positive or negative expectations of product or service performance. When expectations are negative, the positivity effect is dampened and a negativity effect emerges.