Negative Electronic Word-Of-Mouth (Negative e-WOM) in Brief
Word-of-mouth consists on an oral, informal, person-to-person non-commercially intended communication established between a sender and a receiver, regarding a brand, a product, an organization, or a service. (Higie, Feick, & Price, 1987; Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1995; Arntd, 1967).
With the development of social media, WOM has evolved with the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) gaining magnitude as consumers started using the internet to create brand related information and share with others. (eWOM) (Coombs, 2015; Blazevic et al., 2013; Hennig-Thurau et al, 2004). EWOM affects brands in many different metrics such as, product sales, brand evaluations, purchase intentions and firm value (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006; Trusov et al., 2009; Sridhar & Srinivasan, 2012; Jalivand et al., 2011). Various characteristics are responsible for driving these results, namely i) the enhanced volume of conversations which are able to reach more consumers in a short period of time; ii) the higher coverage of effect as eWOM may be distributed across multiple platforms; iii) its persistence and observability as after being upload in the web, it usually stays there accessible to everyone; iv) its anonymity, with strangers influencing each other; v) its easiness for consumers to engage and share their views, and finally v) the salience and valence of impressions (positive or negative) which are organized for an instant interpretation (King et al., 2014; Kozinets et al., 2010).
Together, these characteristics set the context for the fast propagation of eWOM in social media. This is of particular importance for negative valence eWOM, with dissatisfied consumers engaging in higher word of mouth (WOM) than satisfied ones (Sundaram, et al., 1998) and while doing so, being able to influence a broad audience across various platforms, who are exposed to the comments and able to easily evaluate their valence and salience, reacting accordingly by means of showing support and sharing with others (Pfeffer, Zorbachb, & Carley, 2014). Due to its potential damage for businesses, it is generally accepted that organizations should dedicate efforts to manage the effects of negative eWOM and avoid its occurrence (Keller, 2003).