Post-purchase WOM and Satisfaction

People usually keep absorbing product information even after a purchase. Consumers with high enduring involvement have ongoing concerns about products (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985;

Venkatraman, 1989) and hence they might update their information about the products during post-usage. People with any level of involvement or knowledge in post-purchase might have the motivations to gather product information to understand others’ usage experiences, product qualities, or confirm their own decisions.

Burnkrant and Cousineau (1975) demonstrate that people use others’ product evaluations as a source of information about products. Thus, it is reasonable that consumers might use WOM information which reveals others usage experiences to confirm their own post-purchase

evaluations. WOM has two characteristics, accessibility and diagnosticity (Bone, 1995; Herr et al., 1991). “The influence of a particular piece of information depends on the accessibility of that information in one’s memory and the diagnostic of that information when predicting actual performance” (Bone, 1995, p. 213). Accessibility is whenever information is easy for consumers to retrieve. Herr, Kardes, and Kim (1991) provide evidence that WOM is highly accessible because such information is vivid. Diagnosticity is high whenever consumers feel that the information allows him or her to categorize the product clearly into one group (i.e., high quality or low quality). WOM is likely to be perceived as diagnostic, because consumers generally feel this kind of interpersonal information to be credible and trustworthy (Bone, 1995). Due to these two characteristics, when consumers understand other’s experience from WOM in a

post-purchase situation, they might have more reliable information about how the product (or service) performs. Because of the increase of performance information, consumers might change their satisfaction judgment formed initially by disconfirmed expectancy. One study has supported the idea that people would modify their satisfaction judgments after they interact with other group members (Bohlmann, Rosa, Bolton, & Qualls, 2006). When consumers experience disconfirmed expectancy and then form initial satisfaction, they also discuss their product evaluation with other group members, such as family members and buying group members. It was argued that based on the desire to confirm to the expectations of others, when individuals discover there is discrepancy between their satisfaction judgments and other group members’, they may modified their

satisfaction evaluations to correspond to a group level of satisfaction (Bohlmann et al., 2006).

However, it is not necessary for consumers to make their post-consumption evaluations conform to the expectations of others. In most time, consumers’ post-purchase evaluations might be influenced by others’ through informational influence. WOM might reveal some credible information about products or services. As a result, it is worthwhile questioning whether consumers would modify their satisfaction judgments after receiving WOM.

According to above discussion, it could be inferred that post-purchase WOM might influence satisfaction, but perhaps the effect of post-purchase WOM on satisfaction might differ at different disconfirmation levels. This study does not directly predict the influence of post-purchase WOM on satisfaction. Therefore, the following discussion involves the inference of the impact of post-purchase WOM on satisfaction at each disconfirmation level.

Marketing communications usually present the focal product or service in the positive side.

Customers with confirmed or positively disconfirmed expectancy would perceive product performance to be as good as or better than their expectations and hence feel satisfied. Such consumption experiences could serve as good experiences. Aron (2006) has demonstrated customers with good consumption experience would feel more satisfied after receiving positive communication messages about the product or service in a post-purchase situation. In his study, he found subjects with good consumption experience of a MP3 player felt more satisfied after being exposed to a positive advertising message. Positive post-purchase messages could

strengthen the positive belief about the product or service which customers have/had purchased (Aron, 2006). Thus, if confirmed or positively disconfirmed customers could receive WOMCP

and then perceive others’ evaluations of product or service performance are consistent with theirs, such positive messages might confirm their positive consumption experiences; meanwhile

strengthen their positive belief about the product or service, and hence enhance their satisfaction evaluations.

H2a: When experiencing positive disconfirmation, customers who received WOMCP after a purchase are more satisfied than those who did not receive any WOM.

H2b: When experiencing zero disconfirmation, customers who received WOMCP after a purchase are more satisfied than those who did not receive any WOM.

However, when consumers with zero confirmation or positive disconfirmation receive WOMAP information after a purchase, which indicates that others’ perceived performance is better than theirs, they might generate inequitable feelings. Given that inputs (e.g., price paid and efforts) are equal, these consumers would perceive their output (perceived performance)/input (e.g., price paid) ratios to be disproportionately lower than others’ and then perceive inequity.

Through an airline service in their study, Fisk and Young(1985) have demonstrated that consumers who perceived inequity after making comparisons with other buyers would feel dissatisfied. As a result, the inequitable feelings resulting from receiving WOMAP information might have a negative influence on satisfaction.

H3a: When experiencing positive disconfirmation, customers who received WOM_AP after a purchase are less satisfied than those who did not receive any WOM.

H3b: When experiencing zero disconfirmation, customers who received WOMAP after a purchase are less satisfied than those who did not receive any WOM.

Consumers with negatively disconfirmed expectancy would feel dissatisfied because perceived performance is worse than their expectations. Since they have learned that others have the same experiences as theirs from WOMCP information, it is likely that this product failure would be attributed to firm-related responsibility (which contains locus and controllability (Tsiros, Mittal, & Ross, 2004)) and occurring frequently. Due to the diagnosticity of WOM, when consumers understand it is not only themselves who encountered this situation, they would think the product failure is firm-related, controllable for the firm and stable. Prior research supports that the product failure attributed to firm-related responsibility and a frequent event would induce angry reactions (Folkes, 1984; Folkes, Koletsky, & Graham, 1987). Oliver (1993) suggests that negative affects resulting from such attributions would reduce customer satisfaction.

Thus, negatively disconfirmed consumers might reduce their initially formed satisfaction again after receiving WOMCP information.

H4a: When experiencing negative disconfirmation, customers who received WOM_CP after a purchase are more dissatisfied than those who did not receive any WOM.

If negatively disconfirmed consumers find others’ perceived product performances are better than theirs from WOMAP information, they might generate the additionally inequitable feelings and then decrease initially formed satisfaction.

H4b: When experiencing negative disconfirmation, customers who received WOMAP after a purchase are more dissatisfied than those who did not receive any WOM.

Figure2. 2 Research Framework

Disconfirmation

Customer Satisfaction Post-purchase

WOM Information

H1 H2-H4