Abstract:

Compared with the traditional word of mouth, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is characterized by strong availability, high speed, broad range and great influence. These characteristics make eWOM exert more evident impact on marketing, which also amplify the negative impact of network service failure on customers and merchants. As a result, eWOM and online service recovery quality has received extensive attention in the business and academia. Based on three angles that measure online service recovery quality, i.e. the outcome quality, process quality and interaction quality. This research constructs a conceptual model among online service recovery quality, satisfaction with service recovery and customers’ eWOM, and puts forward a series of research hypotheses. Furthermore, we use partial least squares (PLS) of structural equation model to verify these research hypotheses. Our results indicate that service recovery quality and their satisfaction with service recovery all have a significant influence on customers’ positive eWOM recommendations. Moreover, satisfaction with service recovery has a mediation effect between service recovery quality and positive eWOM recommendation. We also show that the relationship between customer satisfaction with service recovery and customers’ internal eWOM activities presents "U" shape and customer satisfaction with service recovery has no significant effect on the external eWOM activity. The findings of our study fill the gaps in existing theories and provide valuable references for managers of online shopping websites.

Key words: online retailing, online service recovery quality, satisfaction with service recovery, eWOM, U shape