Master’s Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Communications – Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, grade: 7, 3 out of 10 (B), University of Amsterdam (Graduate School of Communicatin), course: Communication Science (Persuasive Communication), language: English, abstract: Online platforms empower consumers to share their negative experiences with a broad public of fellow consumers on the Internet. Complaints expressed as negative electronic word of mouth (n WOM) have a great potential to damage companies accused in these publicly made complaints. This study investigates upon the most effective means for companies to counter n WOM by means of webcare. The results show that a loss of satisfaction and trust as well as negative e WOM behaviour after a service failure can be positively influenced depending on the content of a webcare response (accommodative vs. notice). These effects appear to be mediated by consumers’ expectations. Furthermore, although webcare communication strategy (proactive vs. reactive) does not influence satisfaction, trust and negative e WOM behaviour of senders of n WOM, the results show an influence of webcare communication strategy on positive e WOM behaviour. The findings of this study are discussed in the light of the potential of webcare to serve as a tool for online complaint management.
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