The content of word-of-mouth communication is mainly based on its connotation. Looking at the previous research literature, the connotation of word-of-mouth communication includes word-of-mouth communication activities and word-of-mouth communication effects. In the past, the research on the connotation of word-of-mouth communication mostly stayed on the positive effect of word-of-mouth communication, and there was too much research on the audience. In fact, from the marketing point of view, the communicator's behavior is more important, that is, the study of word-of-mouth communication itself is more important. The research model divides the connotation of word-of-mouth communication into three levels: word-of-mouth communication activities, praise effect of word-of-mouth communication and negative effect of word-of-mouth communication.
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I. Causes of occurrence
There are three reasons for word-of-mouth communication under the background of service marketing: service quality, customers' commitment to service providers and customers' high abandonment commitment. As an attitude indicator, service quality is used to evaluate the performance of various dimensions of service. As a kind of commitment, customer commitment and customer high abandonment commitment have both attitude and behavior components.
1. Functional quality
The service quality evaluation table generally adopts five dimensions: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, insurance and empathy. Although the five-dimensional scale accurately defines the quality of service, there are still doubts. Some studies have pointed out that when investigating different service providers, it is found that some problems do not fall on the same dimension, and the research results of different industries also show that service quality will be composed of different dimensions. Since then, some researchers have revised the five-dimensional scale into a two-dimensional scale, in which one dimension refers to materiality and the other dimension includes reliability, responsiveness, insurance and empathy. Therefore, the reliability of the scale has been improved.
Boulding et al. (1993) believe that customers believe that service quality will have an impact on important behavioral outcomes such as loyalty and word-of-mouth communication. Through experiments, they proved that the higher the perceived service quality of enterprises, the more likely customers will have behaviors that are beneficial to the strategic health of enterprises, such as positive word-of-mouth communication and recommending services to others. Therefore, there is a positive effect between service quality and word-of-mouth communication.
2. Customer commitment
Customer commitment constitutes the intensity function of customer identification service organization. Buchanan understands customer commitment as emotional maintenance of customer organizational goals and values. Its performance is not only limited to simply treating the organization as a tool to obtain services, but also its loyalty to the organization from its own interests and attachment to its important role in realizing organizational goals and values. Just as job performance is the behavior of employees that affects the strategic health of an organization, word-of-mouth communication is also the behavior of customers that affects the strategic health of an organization. Therefore, it is assumed that there is a positive correlation between customer emotional commitment and word-of-mouth communication.
3. Customers give up their promises when they are high.
Customer commitment is the tendency of customers to continue to accept services under the premise of considering switching costs. The cost of service switching includes the loss of customers' interests and qualifications, the destruction of personal relationships caused by defecting to other service providers and the cost of finding new suppliers. The customer's high abandonment commitment is different from the customer commitment of actively going to the organization, but a commitment to the organization after considering the high cost of switching service providers. Therefore, there is no positive correlation between customer's high abandonment commitment and word-of-mouth communication, because it contains passive components.
Second, the influencing factors
Geely and others' two-way research method on interpersonal communication information has established a preliminary foundation for the study of influencing factors of word-of-mouth communication. Although their research materials are rich, they are obviously limited. Mainly reflected in only considering the influence of product purchase factors, but not considering the influence of service purchase factors. Some factors that are considered to be very prominent and valuable in future research, such as risk, relationship strength and the degree to which word-of-mouth is actively searched, have not been considered.
1. Active word-of-mouth search
The active search of word of mouth consists of active search and final information. Understand and obtain word-of-mouth information through purposeful design and efforts. In order to emphasize the two-way communication in word-of-mouth communication, some scholars believe that both the sender and the receiver are active in word-of-mouth communication. Recipients often initiate conversations about products and services by asking the sender for information. Especially in the service environment, the invisibility of service increases the risk of choice, thus stimulating the active search of word of mouth. The receiver's search for word of mouth is considered to be an important part of word of mouth communication.
2. Relationship strength
Few studies pay attention to the influence of social structure on word-of-mouth communication, because this kind of communication occurs in a specific relationship. No matter whether this relationship is short-lived, shallow or fleeting, or long-term, deep-rooted or eternal, all word-of-mouth communication will inevitably occur in certain social relations. Bristol (1990) explained that word-of-mouth communication network is a social network composed of a group of people who participate in word-of-mouth communication.
The relationship between people is a basic influence, which is expressed by the relationship strength structure. Therefore, the relationship strength has become an important factor in the study of the influence of word-of-mouth communication. Frenzen and Davis( 1990) regard closeness, intimacy, support and association as the inherent interpersonal dimensions of this element.
3. Perceive risk
Early researchers found that people who can perceive risks are more inclined to actively search for information than those who can't. Since 1990s, scholars have attached great importance to the role of risk in service environment. They pointed out that service consumption has higher risks. This is mainly because the service is intangible and irregular, and sometimes it is "sold" without guarantee. Compared with purchasing products, customers usually have higher perceived risk when purchasing services. And it is also a service, and there are also high and low perceived risks.
For example, health care is more likely to have related risks than catering services. Arndt believes that the more frequent word-of-mouth communication activities, the greater the risk. In order to reduce this risk, customers often get information about services through oral communication. Murray's research report (199 1) points out that word-of-mouth is the most important information source to reduce risks and has a more important impact on consumers because there are more opportunities for clarification and feedback.
4. Professional knowledge of communicators
Professional knowledge refers to the degree to which information sources can provide correct information. Professional knowledge is expected to have a persuasive effect, because the recipients lack initiative, and they check the authenticity of the information source by recalling and retelling their own ideas. From the receiver's point of view, the sender of word-of-mouth information is considered to have a high level of professional knowledge because his or her work, social training and social experience are in a unique position. Generally speaking, the unique position of the communicator contributes to his professional knowledge. Besides the degree to which word-of-mouth is actively searched, the sender's professional knowledge has another function, that is, the sender's professional knowledge will also affect the influence of word-of-mouth on the recipient's purchase decision. If the word-of-mouth of expert communicators is searched, then this information is expected to affect the purchase decision of buyers.
The recipient's professional knowledge
The professional level of the receiver also has a great influence on the result of word-of-mouth communication. It can not only affect the purchase decision, but also affect the receiver's perceived risk and how to actively search word-of-mouth information. Previous studies have established a relationship in the product environment, that is, the relationship between professional knowledge and the degree of active search of word-of-mouth information.
Studies have proved that there is a negative correlation between the experience of information seekers (representing a kind of specialized knowledge) and the degree of seeking information from abroad. Geely and others further pointed out that "most evidence supports this negative correlation". Generally speaking, people with high professional knowledge are less likely to actively participate in product information search than those with low product professional knowledge. Similarly, we can think that in the service environment, recipients with high service expertise are more likely to actively search for word-of-mouth information, which has a greater impact on their purchase decisions.