Consequences of managerial responses to online reviews

The main goal of the work is to understand the effect of managerial responses to online reviews. In particular, the book starts with a literature review that explains the importance of electronic word of mouth and of online reviews for consumers’ purchase behavior. Secondly, an introduction and an explanation of the effects of product ratings is described, followed by a literature review of the concepts of reputation and recovery management. Finally, an analysis of previous studies about managerial responses to online reviews is made. The main part of our work is then focused on understanding if it is worth for managers answering to online reviews, taking also into account the rating of the product. Through an experiment, it is tested if answering to online reviews can add value for the customers and enhance his/her purchasing behavior. All the previous research was based on the service industry, especially hospitality. The results of this research were also mixed: for example, Qiang (2009) and Proserpio (2015) found that rating of hotels increases when managers start to respond to online reviews but Mayzlin (2015) found that responses actually decreased the star rating.