Characteristics of Word-of-Mouth (WOM) by the Interaction Between Feedback Willingness and Incentivized WOM Willingness

When designing products/services based on the knowledge obtained by analyzing word-of-mouth (WOM), it is important to remove excessive assertions, both positive and negative. Strong emotions such as affection for a company or a desire for revenge can lead to overestimation. Therefore, it is useful to understand the characteristics of WOM via posting motivation. However, the existing research on WOM contributors is limited to their motives for posting, and there are few examples of examining the influence of motives on the characteristics of WOM. Targeting the Japanese hotel industry, this study clarified those brought about by feedback willingness for companies and incentivized WOM willingness. Hierarchical clustering was applied to the WOM collected in an online survey to classify motivations, and multiple regression analysis was applied. The results revealed that only incentivized WOM willingness increased word count and positive words. In addition, when the intentions of both feedback and incentive posts were high, the total number of characters increased, but the number of positive words decreased. In other words, we speculate that those who want to improve the services through feedback to companies will emphasize the negative aspects. However, even with the positive comments, it is the price that needs attention. WOMs that praise low prices are more common among those with lower loyalty. It is important for practitioners to adopt the method of classifying WOM posting motivations presented herein and to identify consumers who send useful WOMs.