IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/hcherp/201205.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Electronic word of mouth about medical services

Author

Listed:
  • Hinz, Vera
  • Drevs, Florian
  • Wehner, Jürgen

Abstract

Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) about medical services gains growing popularity from the part of health care users, accompanied with a high reluctance of health care providers towards existing platforms, fearing unqualified, negative reviews driven by motives of vengeance. Purpose of this research is to shed light on the characteristics, content, and motives of eWOM about medical services. Using primary and secondary data of 822 reviews, this study shows that reviews about medical services are positive more often than negative, and that altruistic motives override egoistic motives. Furthermore, why a review is written significantly relates to the review's valence (positive, negative), degree of affectivity, and degree of differentiation. Motives and characteristics also affect the review's content, differentiated in four aspects (medical care, relationships, comfort, and processes). Hence this study counters the arguments of many health care providers and offers new insights in an underresearched field, providing implications for both management and future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Hinz, Vera & Drevs, Florian & Wehner, Jürgen, 2012. "Electronic word of mouth about medical services," hche Research Papers 2012/05, University of Hamburg, Hamburg Center for Health Economics (hche).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:hcherp:201205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/65671/1/728789248.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gruca, Thomas S. & Wakefield, Douglas S., 2004. "Hospital web sites: Promise and progress," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(9), pages 1021-1025, September.
    2. Gruen, Thomas W. & Osmonbekov, Talai & Czaplewski, Andrew J., 2006. "eWOM: The impact of customer-to-customer online know-how exchange on customer value and loyalty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 449-456, April.
    3. Choi, Kui-Son & Cho, Woo-Hyun & Lee, Sunhee & Lee, Hanjoon & Kim, Chankon, 2004. "The relationships among quality, value, satisfaction and behavioral intention in health care provider choice: A South Korean study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 913-921, August.
    4. Duan, Wenjing & Gu, Bin & Whinston, Andrew B., 2008. "The dynamics of online word-of-mouth and product sales—An empirical investigation of the movie industry," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 233-242.
    5. Zeelenberg, M. & Pieters, R., 2004. "Beyond valence in customer dissatisfaction : A review and new findings on behavioral responses to regret and disappointment in failed services," Other publications TiSEM 7bfb4aa9-cba7-4786-850d-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Leisen, Birgit & Hyman, Michael R., 2004. "Antecedents and consequences of trust in a service provider: The case of primary care physicians," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(9), pages 990-999, September.
    7. Mittal, Vikas & Huppertz, John W. & Khare, Adwait, 2008. "Customer complaining: The role of tie strength and information control," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 195-204.
    8. James C. Ward & Amy L. Ostrom, 2006. "Complaining to the Masses: The Role of Protest Framing in Customer-Created Complaint Web Sites," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 33(2), pages 220-230, July.
    9. Zeelenberg, Marcel & Pieters, Rik, 2004. "Beyond valence in customer dissatisfaction: A review and new findings on behavioral responses to regret and disappointment in failed services," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 445-455, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sebastian Martin, 2017. "Word-of-mouth in the health care sector: a literature analysis of the current state of research and future perspectives," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 14(1), pages 35-56, March.
    2. Metehan Tolon & Tülay Yeniçeri & Asude Yasemin Zengin, 2015. "Complainants’ Justice Perceptions and Post Complaint Behaviours: An Empirical Study on E-Nwom, Exit Intentions and Venting Negative Feelings," Quarterly Journal of Business Studies, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 1(1), pages 1-16.
    3. Le Nguyen Hau, 2019. "The role of customer operant resources in health care value creation," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 13(3), pages 457-478, September.
    4. Pham Ngoc Thuy & Le Nguyen Hau & Nguyen Kim Ngoc Duyen, 2019. "A value perspective of service interaction quality: the case of immigrants returning to native countries as medical tourists," International Journal of Quality Innovation, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Gerlinde Pauli & Sebastian Martin & Dorothea Greiling, 2023. "The current state of research of word-of-mouth in the health care sector," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(1), pages 125-148, March.
    6. Milstein, Ricarda & Schreyögg, Jonas, 2022. "Activity-based funding based on diagnosis-related groups: The end of an era? A review of payment reforms in the inpatient sector in ten high-income countries," hche Research Papers 28, University of Hamburg, Hamburg Center for Health Economics (hche).
    7. Hofer, Florian & Birkner, Benjamin & Spindler, Martin, 2021. "Power of machine learning algorithms for predicting dropouts from a German telemonitoring program using standardized claims data," hche Research Papers 24, University of Hamburg, Hamburg Center for Health Economics (hche).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. White, Allyn & Breazeale, Michael & Collier, Joel E., 2012. "The Effects of Perceived Fairness on Customer Responses to Retailer SST Push Policies," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 250-261.
    2. Tari Kasnakoglu, Berna & Yilmaz, Cengiz & Varnali, Kaan, 2016. "An asymmetric configural model approach for understanding complainer emotions and loyalty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 3659-3672.
    3. Haase, Janina & Wiedmann, Klaus-Peter & Labenz, Franziska, 2022. "Brand hate, rage, anger & co.: Exploring the relevance and characteristics of negative consumer emotions toward brands," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 1-16.
    4. Wang, Saerom & Kirillova, Ksenia & Lehto, Xinran, 2017. "Reconciling unsatisfying tourism experiences: Message type effectiveness and the role of counterfactual thinking," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 233-243.
    5. Dongpu Fu & Yili Hong & Kanliang Wang & Weiguo Fan, 2018. "Effects of membership tier on user content generation behaviors: evidence from online reviews," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 457-483, September.
    6. Arora, Swapan Deep & Chakraborty, Anirban, 2021. "Intellectual structure of consumer complaining behavior (CCB) research: A bibliometric analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 60-74.
    7. Cambra-Fierro, Jesus & Melero, Iguacel & Sese, F. Javier, 2015. "Managing Complaints to Improve Customer Profitability," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 109-124.
    8. Hsu, Liwu & Lawrence, Benjamin, 2016. "The role of social media and brand equity during a product recall crisis: A shareholder value perspective," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 59-77.
    9. Overstreet, Robert E. & Morgan, Tyler R. & Laczniak, Russell N. & Daugherty, Patricia J., 2022. "Stemming the tide of increasing retail returns: Implications of targeted returns policies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 551-562.
    10. Yan, Nina & Xu, Xun & Tong, Tingting & Huang, Liujia, 2021. "Examining consumer complaints from an on-demand service platform," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    11. Heejung Ro, 2014. "Complaint, patience, and neglect: responses to a dissatisfying service experience," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 8(2), pages 197-216, June.
    12. Gavin L. Fox & Stephen J. Lind, 2020. "A framework for viral marketing replication and mutation," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 10(3), pages 206-222, December.
    13. Chenyu Zhang & Junkyu Park & Mark A. Bonn & Meehee Cho, 2021. "Understanding Customer Responses to Service Failures during the COVID-19 Pandemic for Sustained Restaurant Businesses: Focusing on Guanxi," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-19, March.
    14. Heyes, Anthony & Kapur, Sandeep, 2012. "Angry customers, e-word-of-mouth and incentives for quality provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 813-828.
    15. McColl-Kennedy, Janet R. & Patterson, Paul G. & Smith, Amy K. & Brady, Michael K., 2009. "Customer Rage Episodes: Emotions, Expressions and Behaviors," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 222-237.
    16. Hasan Al-Banna & Izra Berakon, 2024. "From bank to P2P lending: switching intention of SME’s: evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 29(2), pages 568-581, June.
    17. Haithem Zourrig & Jean-Charles Chebat & Roy Toffoli & Alexandra Medina-Borja, 2014. "Customers’ coping with interpersonal conflicts in intra and inter-cultural service encounters," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 4(1), pages 21-31, June.
    18. Wedel, Michel & Bigné, Enrique & Zhang, Jie, 2020. "Virtual and augmented reality: Advancing research in consumer marketing," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 443-465.
    19. Tom Joonhwan Kim & Youjae Yi & Jongan Choi, 2020. "The boomerang effect of brand personality congruency in a product-harm crisis," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 45(4), pages 645-661, November.
    20. Florian Teleaba & Sorin Popescu & Marieta Olaru & Diana Pitic, 2021. "Risks of Observable and Unobservable Biases in Artificial Intelligence Predicting Consumer Choice," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 23(56), pages 102-102, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:hcherp:201205. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chhamde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.